mr. dorsey: no. pichai?ne: mr. mr. pichai: we make content moderation decisions, but we believe in maximizing freedom of expression. sen. thune: i will take that as three nose and i agree with that, you are not the referees of our political speech which is why all three have to be more transparent and fair with content moderation policies and selection algorithms. at the moment it is largely a black box. there is real mistrust among the american people about whether you are being fair or transparent, and this extends to concerns about the amplification and suppression decisions that your platforms make on election day and the postelection period if the results are too close to call. i want to underscore for my democratic friends who keep using this really bad referee andogy, google, facebook, twitter are not the referees over our democracy. actnd question, the pact includes provisions to give users due process and an exclamation when akon -- when content they post is removed. this is a yes or no question, do you agree t

mr. pichai? >> we hire them. united states. >> okay, all right and looking at some of your censoring mr. dorsey you all have censored joe biden and donald trump 65 times. i want to go back to senator gardner's question. he claims earlier the denial and to genocide by a brand terrorist don't violate so-called rules and that's important for terrorist leaders that the platform and twitter so let me ask you this -- >> i don't know. >> i think this is called a dictatorship. are people in iran allowed to use twitter or does the country whose leader you claim banned them from doing so? >> ideally we would love iran to use twitter. >> iran banned twitter and mr. zuckerberg i'm sure you were that they have banned facebook as well. if donald trump her world leader? >> yes. >> it would be important for world leaders to have access to your platform, correct? >> correct. so why did you deny that platform and give censorship to the u.s.? >> we haven't censored u.s. president. >> oh yes you have. how many posts from vladimir put

mr. pichai and mr. zuckerberg. you gave an answer partially on this i would like you to expand on that answer. thank you. >> yes. so we do continue to see interference. we recently disclosed actions we took on both russia and actions originating out of iran. we made those disclosures public. we can you know, share those with your team. but this remains, as you heard from others on the panel, as mark has detailed, one of our highest priorities, something we want to make sure that we are focused on, eliminating as much mat form manipulation as possible. >> senator. we do continue to secord nated influence operation items. we've been very vigilant. we appreciate the calls we get from agencies and companies. we are sharing information, to give you an example and to publish transparency reports. in june we identified efforts, one from iran, group targeting the trump campaign, one from china, targeting the biden campaign. most of these are phishing attempts, our spam filters were able to remove most of the em

mr. pichai next and then mr. dorsey. mr. - pichai. >> senator, yes, we definitely are robustly are, we've been planning for a while, and we rely on raising up our news sources for moments like that. we've closely partnered with the associated press to make sure we can provide you the most accurate information possible. >> and then, yes, we also have a plan. so, you know, our plan and enforcement around these issues is pointing to more information that specifically state election officials. so we want to give people using the service as much information as possible. >> thank you, senator blumenthal. senator cruz. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this hearing. the three witnesses we have before this committee today collectively pose, i believe, the single greatest threat to free speech in america and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections. yesterday i spent a considerable amount of time speaking with both mr. zuckerberg and mr. pichai. i have concerns about the behavior

mr. pichai next and then mr.y >> senator, yes, we definitely are robustly -- we've been planning for awhile and we rely on new sources for moments like that and we've closely partnered with the associated press to make sure we can provide users the most accurate information possible >> yes, we also have a plan. so our plan and our enforcement around these issues is pointing to more information than specifically state election officials, and we want to give the people using the service as much information as possible >> thank you, senator blumenthal senator cruz >> chairman, i want to thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this hearing the three witnesses we have before this committee today collectively pose, i believe, the single greatest threat to free speech in america and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections we know that facebook is, at the minimum, at least trying to make some efforts in the direction of defending free speech. i appreciate their doing so. google, i agree with the concerns that

mr. pichai? >> i think we make moderation decisions and we believe in support o maximizing freedom of expression. >> i will take that as three nose and i agree you are not the referees of the political speech and that is why you have to be more transparent and fair with your content moderation policy and content selection algorithms because at the moment it is as i said largely a black box. there is mistrust among the american people whether you are being fair or transparent and this is concerns about the kind of amplification and suppression decisions your platforms make during the period as a result of the election too close to call so i want to underscore again for my democratic friends who keep using this referee an analysis of google, facebook and twitter are not the referees over our democracy. now, the second question. the users should be entitled to the due process and explanation when the content they post has been taken down. >> senator, i think that that would be a good principal to ha

mr. pichai and mr. zuckerberg.s well the trio of tech ceos appeared before the senate commerce committee. all happening less than a week before the election. they talked about their roles as content moderators. they tried to fend off accusations of bias coming in from republicans. live now to edward lawrence with more on that hearing. edward? reporter: connell it, wasn't all niceties during the hearing. it became heated at times. at the heart of the debate whether section 230 of the communications decency act should be change or eliminated. senator commerce committee chairman roger wicker says president donald trump and former vice president joe biden want to repeal it. the ceos of twitter, alphabet, google's parent company and facebook admit it needs to be updated but not repealed. >> if we were subject to a larger number of content lawsuits because 230 didn't exist, that would have likely made it prohibitive for me as a college student in a dorm room to get started with this enterprise. >> it opens this hearing w