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Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies before Senate — Transcript

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0:00and collaboration we've been working
0:01very closely
0:03and uh the ranking member who is here
0:06senator wicker as well as our
0:08chairwoman uh maria cantwell senator
0:11cantwell i'm sure will be here shortly
0:14uh most important i'd like to thank our
0:16witness
0:18francis haugen
0:20for being here and
0:21the two council who are representing her
0:24today and uh i want to give you my
0:27heartfelt
0:29gratitude for your courage
0:32and strength in coming forward as you
0:34have done standing up to one of the most
0:36powerful implacable corporate giants in
0:39the history of the world without
0:42any exaggeration
0:44you have a compelling
0:46credible voice which we've heard already
0:50but you are not here
0:52alone
0:54you're armed with documents and evidence
0:57and you speak volumes as they do about
1:01how facebook
1:03has put profits ahead of people
1:07among other revelations the information
1:09that you have provided to congress
1:12is powerful proof that facebook knew
1:16its products were harming teenagers
1:19facebook exploited teens using powerful
1:23algorithms
1:24that amplified their insecurities and
1:26abuses through what it found
1:29was an addict's narrative
1:33there is a question
1:35which i hope you will discuss as to
1:37whether
1:38there is such a thing as a safe
1:40algorithm
1:43facebook saw teens creating secret
1:46accounts
1:47that are often hidden from their parents
1:52as unique value
1:54proposition
1:55in their words a unique value
1:57proposition a way to drive up numbers
2:00for advertisers
2:01and shareholders at the expense of
2:04safety
2:06and it doubled down on targeting
2:08children pushing products on pre-teens
2:11not just teens but pre-teens
2:14that it knows are harmful to our kids
2:17mental health and well-being
2:19instead of telling parents
2:21facebook concealed the facts it sought
2:23to stonewall and block this information
2:26from becoming public including to this
2:28committee when senator blackburn and i
2:30specifically asked
2:33the company
2:34and still even now
2:37as of just last thursday when a facebook
2:39witness came for this committee it has
2:41refused
2:43disclosure or even to tell us when it
2:45might decide
2:46whether to disclose additional documents
2:50and they've continued their tactics even
2:54after they knew the destruction it
2:56caused
2:58it isn't just that they made money
3:00from these practices but they continued
3:03to profit from them
3:06their profit was more important than the
3:08pain that they caused
3:11last thursday the message from ms
3:14antigone davis facebook's global head of
3:16safety was simple
3:19quote this research is not a bombshell
3:22end quote
3:24and she repeated the line
3:26not a bombshell
3:28well
3:30this research is
3:32the very definition of a bombshell
3:35facebook and big tech are facing a big
3:38tobacco omen
3:40a moment of reckoning
3:42the parallel is striking
3:44i sued big tobacco as connecticut's
3:46attorney general i helped to lead
3:49the states in that legal action and i
3:51remember very very well
3:54the moment
3:56in the course of our litigation when we
3:58learned of those files that showed
4:03not only that big tobacco knew that its
4:05product caused cancer
4:07but that they had done the research they
4:09concealed the files
4:12and now we knew and the world knew and
4:16big tech now faces
4:18that big tobacco
4:20jaw-dropping moment of truth it is
4:24documented proof that facebook knows its
4:27products can be addictive and toxic
4:30to children
4:31and it's not just that they made money
4:33again it's that
4:35they value their profit
4:38more
4:39than the pain that they cause to
4:41children and their families
4:45the damage to self-interest and
4:47self-worth
4:48inflicted by facebook today
4:52will haunt a generation
4:56feelings of inadequacy and insecurity
4:58rejection
5:00and self-hatred
5:02will impact
5:05this generation for years to come
5:07our children
5:09are the ones who are victims teens today
5:12looking at themselves in the mirror
5:16feel doubt and insecurity
5:21mark zuckerberg ought to be looking at
5:23himself in the mirror
5:24today
5:26and yet rather than taking
5:27responsibility
5:29and showing leadership
5:32mr zuckerberg is going sailing
5:36his new modus operandi no apologies no
5:39admission
5:40no action nothing to see here
5:43mark zuckerberg you need to come before
5:45this committee you need to explain
5:47to
5:48francis haugen
5:50to us to the world
5:53and to
5:54the parents of america
5:57what you were doing and why you did it
6:00instagram's business model is pretty
6:02straightforward more eyeballs more
6:04dollars everything facebook does
6:06is to add more users and keep them on
6:10their apps for longer
6:12in order to hook us instagram uses our
6:14private information
6:16to precisely target us
6:19with content and recommendations
6:22assessing that
6:24what will provoke a reaction
6:27will keep us scrolling
6:30far too often these recommendations
6:32encourage our most destructive and
6:34dangerous
6:35behaviors
6:37as we showed on thursday
6:39we created a fake account my office and
6:42i did as a teen interested in extreme
6:46dieting
6:47and eating disorders
6:49instagram
6:50latched on to that teenager's
6:53initial insecurities it then pushed more
6:55content and recommendations
6:57glorifying eating disorders
7:00that's how instagram's algorithms
7:04can push teens into darker and darker
7:07places facebook's own researchers
7:11called it instagram's quote perfect
7:14storm
7:16exacerbating
7:18downward spirals
7:20facebook as you have put it is how can
7:23so powerfully maximizes profits
7:26and ignores pain
7:28facebook's failure to acknowledge and to
7:30act makes it morally bankrupt
7:34again and again facebook rejected
7:36reforms recommended by its own
7:37researchers
7:39last week ms davis said quote we're
7:42looking at end quote
7:45no specific plans no
7:47commitments only vague platitude
7:52these documents that you have revealed
7:55provided this company with a blueprint
7:57for reform provided specific
7:59recommendations
8:01that could have made
8:02facebook and instagram safer the company
8:06repeatedly ignored those recommendations
8:09from its own
8:11researchers
8:13that would have made
8:15facebook and instagram safer fake
8:18facebook researchers have suggested
8:21changing their recommendations
8:24to stop promoting accounts known to
8:27encourage
8:28dangerous body
8:30comparison
8:32instead of making meaningful changes
8:34facebook simply pays lip service
8:38and
8:39if they won't act
8:41and a big tech won't act
8:43congress has to intervene
8:46privacy protection is long overdue
8:50senator markey and i have introduced the
8:51kids act which would ban addictive
8:54tactics that facebook uses to exploit
8:57children parents deserve better tools to
9:00protect their children
9:02i'm also a firm supporter of reforming
9:04section 230.
9:06we should consider narrowing this
9:08sweeping immunity when platforms
9:11algorithms
9:12amplify illegal conduct you've commented
9:15on this in your testimony and perhaps
9:17you'll expand on it
9:19we have also heard compelling
9:20recommendations about requiring
9:22disclosures of research
9:24and independent reviews of these
9:26platforms algorithms and i plan to
9:29pursue these ideas
9:31the securities and exchange commission
9:33should investigate
9:34your contentions and claims
9:38ms haugen
9:39and so should the federal trade
9:42commission facebook appears to have
9:44misled the public and investors
9:48and if that's correct it ought to face
9:50real penalties as a result of that
9:52misleading and deceptive
9:54misrepresentation
10:00i want to thank all my colleagues who
10:02are here today because
10:05what we have is a bipartisan
10:07congressional road map for reform
10:10that will safeguard and protect children
10:13from big debt
10:15that will be a focus of our subcommittee
10:18moving forward and it will continue to
10:19continue to be
10:21bipartisan
10:22and finally i'll just end on this note
10:26in the past weeks and days parents have
10:28contacted me
10:30with their stories heartbreaking
10:33and spine-showing stories
10:35about children pushed into eating
10:37disorders
10:40bullying online
10:42self-injury of the
10:44most disturbing kind
10:48and sometimes even taking their lives
10:50because of social media
10:53parents are holding facebook accountable
10:55because of your bravery
10:58and we need to hold accountable facebook
11:02and all big tech
11:03as well again my thanks to you
11:06i am going to enter into the record a
11:09letter from 52 state attorneys general
11:12and from two members of the youth
11:14advisory board of sandy hook
11:17promise as long as there's no objection
11:20and i will now turn to the ranking
11:21member central platform
11:24thank you mr chairman and thank you for
11:26entering that letter in the record that
11:29we have from our state's attorneys
11:31general good morning to everyone it is
11:34nice to see people in this hearing
11:36room and uh to be here for the hearing
11:40today miss haugen we thank you for your
11:42appearance before us today and for
11:44giving the opportunity not only for
11:47congress but for uh for the american
11:50people
11:51to hear from you in this setting and we
11:54appreciate that mr chairman i think also
11:57thanks to you and your staff
12:00uh that have worked with our team to
12:02make certain that we had
12:04this hearing and this opportunity uh
12:07today so that we can get more insight
12:10into what facebook is actually doing
12:14as they invade the privacy not only of
12:17adults but of children and look at the
12:20ways that they are in violation of the
12:23children's online privacy protection act
12:26which is federal law
12:28and
12:29looking at how they are evading that law
12:33and working around it and as the
12:35chairman said
12:37a privacy and online privacy passing a
12:40federal
12:41privacy standard has been long in the
12:44works i filed my first
12:47privacy bill when i was in the house
12:50back in 2012 and i think that it will be
12:54this congress and this subcommittee that
12:57is going to lead the way to online
12:58privacy data security section 230
13:02reforms
13:03and of course senator klobuchar always
13:06wants to talk about anti-trust and i
13:08have to give a nod senator markey is
13:11down there
13:12when we were in the house we were
13:14probably two of the only ones who were
13:17talking about the need to have a federal
13:20privacy
13:21standard now as the
13:23chairman mentioned
13:25last week
13:26we heard from mrs davis who has global
13:30safety for facebook and it was
13:33surprising
13:35to us that what she tried to do was to
13:38minimize the information that was in
13:42these documents to minimize the research
13:45and to minimize the knowledge
13:48that facebook had at one point i even
13:51reminded her the research was not third
13:54party research
13:56the research was there facebook's
14:00internal research
14:03so they knew
14:06what they were doing they knew where the
14:09violations were
14:11and they
14:12know
14:13they
14:14are
14:15guilty
14:16they know this
14:18their research tells them this
14:22last week in advance of our hearing
14:25facebook released two studies and said
14:28that the wall street journal was all
14:30wrong they had just gotten it wrong
14:33as if the wall street journal did not
14:36know how to read
14:38these documents and how to work through
14:41this research
14:44having seen the data that you've
14:47presented and the other studies that
14:49facebook did not
14:51publicly share
14:53i feel pretty confident that it's
14:55facebook who has done the
14:58misrepresenting
14:59to this committee here are some of the
15:02numbers that facebook chose not to share
15:05and mr chairman i think it's important
15:07that we look at these as we talk about
15:11the setting
15:12for this hearing what we learned last
15:14week what you and i have been learning
15:16over the past three years about big tech
15:19and facebook and here you go 66 of teen
15:23girls on instagram and 40 percent of
15:25teen boys
15:27experience negative social comparisons
15:31this is facebook's research 52 of teen
15:36girls who experience negative social
15:39comparison on instagram said it was
15:42caused by images related to beauty
15:45social comparison is worse on instagram
15:48because it is perceived as real life but
15:52based on celebrity standards social
15:56comparison mimics the grief cycle and
15:58includes a downward emotional spiral
16:01encompassing a range of emotions from
16:04jealousy to self-proclaimed
16:07dysmorphia
16:09facebook addiction which facebook calls
16:12conveniently
16:14problematic use
16:17is most severe in teams peaking at age
16:2014.
16:22here's what else we know
16:24facebook is not interested in making
16:27significant changes to improve kids
16:30safety on their platforms at least
16:33not when that would result in losing
16:35eyeballs on post
16:37or
16:38decreasing their ad revenues in fact
16:42facebook is running scared
16:45as they know that in their own words
16:47young adults are less active and less
16:50engaged on facebook and that they are
16:52running out of teams to add to instagram
16:56so teams are looking at other platforms
16:58like tick tock and facebook is only
17:00making those changes that add to its
17:03users numbers and ultimately its profits
17:09follow the money
17:11so what are these changes
17:13allowing users to create multiple
17:15accounts that facebook does not delete
17:19and encouraging teens to create second
17:21accounts they can hide from their
17:23parents they are also studying younger
17:26and younger children as young as eight
17:30so that they can market to them and
17:32while miss davis says that kids below 13
17:36are not allowed on facebook or instagram
17:39we know that they are
17:40because she told us
17:42that they recently had deleted 600 000
17:46accounts from children under age 13.
17:50so how do you get that many underage
17:53accounts
17:55if you aren't turning a blind eye to
17:58them in the first place
18:00and then in order to try to clean it up
18:03you go to delete it and then you say oh
18:05by the way we just in the last month
18:08deleted
18:09600
18:10000
18:12underage account
18:14and speaking of turning a blind eye
18:16facebook turns a blind eye to user
18:19privacy
18:20news broke yesterday the the private
18:23data of over 1.5 billion that's right
18:271.5 billion facebook users is being
18:31sold
18:32on a hacking
18:34forum
18:35that's its biggest data breach to date
18:38examples like this underscore my strong
18:41concerns about facebook collecting the
18:43data of kids and teams and what they are
18:46doing with it facebook also turns a
18:49blind eye toward blatant human
18:51exploitation
18:53taking place on its platform trafficking
18:55forced labor cartels the worst possible
18:59things one can imagine
19:02big tech companies have gotten away with
19:04abusing consumers for too long
19:07it is clear that facebook prioritizes
19:10profit over the well-being of children
19:14and all users so as a mother and a
19:18grandmother
19:19this is an issue that is of particular
19:23concern to me
19:24so we thank you for being here today
19:27miss haugen and
19:29we look forward to getting to the truth
19:31about what facebook is doing with users
19:34data
19:35and how they are abusing their
19:38privacy and how they show a lack of
19:41respect for the individuals that are on
19:44their network we look forward to the
19:46testimony thank you mr chairman thanks
19:48senator black
19:51thank you senator blackman i don't know
19:53whether the ranking member
19:54would like to make it if you don't mind
19:57thank you um
19:59chairman blumenthal and and i will just
20:01take a moment or two
20:03uh and and i do appreciate
20:05being able to to speak
20:07as ranking member of the full committee
20:09this this ms halligan this is a this is
20:11a subcommittee hearing you see some
20:13vacant seats uh there's pretty good
20:15attendance for a subcommittee uh there
20:17are also a lot of things going on so
20:19people will be coming and going but i'm
20:21i'm willing to predict
20:23that this will have almost 100 percent
20:26attendance
20:27by members of the subcommittee because
20:29of the importance of this subject matter
20:30so thanks for coming forward
20:32to share concerns about facebook's
20:36business practices
20:37particularly with respect to children
20:39and teens and of course that is
20:42the the main topic of our the title of
20:45our hearing today protecting kids online
20:49the recent relevant of revelations about
20:52facebook's mental health effects on
20:54children
20:56and its plan to target younger audiences
20:59are indeed
21:01um and i think you're going to see a lot
21:03of bipartisan concern
21:06about this today and and in future
21:08hearings
21:10they just they show how urgent it is for
21:13congress
21:14to act against powerful tech companies
21:19on behalf of children
21:21and the broader public
21:23and i say powerful tech companies they
21:25are
21:26uh possession possessive of immense
21:29immense power
21:31their product
21:33is addictive
21:34and people on both sides of this diocese
21:38are concerned about this
21:40i talked to an opinion maker
21:42just down the hall
21:44a few moments before this hearing this
21:46person said
21:48the
21:49tech gods
21:51have been
21:52demystified now and i think this hearing
21:56today mr chair
21:58is a part of the process
22:00of demystifying big tech
22:06the children of america are hooked on
22:08their product
22:10it is often destructive
22:13and harmful and there is a cynical
22:15knowledge on behalf of the leadership of
22:17these big tech companies that that is
22:20true
22:21ms hogan i i hope you will have a chance
22:25to talk about your work experience at
22:27facebook
22:28and perhaps compare it to other social
22:31media companies i also look forward to
22:32hearing your thoughts on how this
22:35committee and how this congress can
22:38ensure greater accountability
22:40and transparency especially with regard
22:44to children so thank you mr chairman and
22:46thank you ms hogan for being here today
22:49thanks senator wicker our witness this
22:51morning is francis haugen she was the
22:55lead product manager on facebook's civic
22:58misinformation team she holds a degree
23:01in electrical and computer engineering
23:03from olin college and an mba from
23:06harvard
23:08she made the courageous decision as all
23:10of us here and many others around the
23:13world know to leave
23:14facebook
23:16and reveal the terrible truths about the
23:18company
23:19she learned during her tenure there
23:23and
23:24i think we
23:26are all in agreement here in expressing
23:28our gratitude and our admiration for
23:30your bravery and coming forward thank
23:32you miss haugen
23:33please proceed
23:42good afternoon chairman blumenthal
23:44ranking member blackburn and members of
23:46the subcommittee
23:47thank you for the opportunity to appear
23:49before you
23:51my name is frances haugen
23:53i used to work at facebook
23:55i joined facebook because i think
23:57facebook has the potential to bring out
23:59the best in us
24:01but i'm here today because i believe
24:03facebook's products harm children stoke
24:06division and weaken our democracy
24:08the company's leadership knows how to
24:10make facebook and instagram saver but
24:13won't make the necessary changes because
24:15they have put their astronomical profits
24:17before people
24:19congressional action is needed
24:22they won't solve this crisis without
24:24your help
24:25yesterday we saw facebook get taken off
24:28the internet
24:29i don't know why i went down but i know
24:31that for more than five hours facebook
24:33wasn't used to deepen divides
24:36destabilize democracies and make young
24:38girls and women feel bad about their
24:40bodies
24:42it also means that millions of small
24:44businesses weren't able to reach
24:45potential customers
24:47and countless photos of new babies
24:49weren't joyously celebrated by family
24:51and friends around the world
24:53i believe
24:54in the potential of facebook
24:57we can have social media we enjoy that
25:00connects us
25:01without tearing our democracy apart our
25:03democracy putting our children in danger
25:06and selling ethnic violence around the
25:07world
25:08we can do better
25:11i have worked as a product manager at
25:13large tech companies since 2006
25:15including google pinterest yelp and
25:17facebook
25:19my job has largely focused on
25:21algorithmic products like google plus
25:23search
25:24and recommendation systems like the one
25:25that powers the facebook news feed
25:28having worked on four different types of
25:30social networks
25:31i understand how complex and nuanced
25:33these problems are
25:36however
25:37the choices being made inside of
25:38facebook are disastrous
25:40for our children for our public safety
25:43for our privacy and for our democracy
25:46and that is why we must demand facebook
25:48make changes
25:51during my time at facebook first working
25:53as the lead product manager for civic
25:54misinformation and later on
25:56counter-espionage
25:58i saw facebook repeatedly encounter
26:00conflicts between its own profits and
26:02our safety
26:04facebook consistently resolved these
26:06conflicts in favor of its own profits
26:09the result has been more division more
26:11harm
26:12more lies more threats and more combat
26:16in some cases this is this dangerous
26:18online talk has led to actual violence
26:20that harms and even kills people
26:23this is not simply a matter of certain
26:25social media users being angry or
26:28unstable
26:29or about one side being radicalized
26:30against the other
26:32it is about facebook choosing to grow at
26:34all costs becoming an almost trillion
26:37dollar company by buying its profits
26:40with our safety
26:42during my time at facebook i came to
26:44realize a devastating truth
26:46almost no one outside of facebook knows
26:48what happens inside of facebook
26:51the company intentionally hides vital
26:53information from the public from the us
26:55government and from governments around
26:57the world
26:58the documents i have provided to
26:59congress prove that facebook has
27:01repeatedly misled the public
27:04about what its own research reveals
27:05about the safety of children
27:07the efficacy of its artificial
27:09intelligence systems and its role in
27:11spreading divisive and extreme messages
27:14i came forward because i believe that
27:16every human being
27:17deserves the dignity of the truth
27:21the severity of this crisis demands that
27:23we break out of our previous regulatory
27:25frames
27:26facebook wants to trick you into
27:27thinking
27:28that privacy protections or changes to
27:30section 230 alone will be sufficient
27:33while important these will not get to
27:35the core of the issue which is that no
27:37one truly understands the destructive
27:39choices made by facebook
27:41except facebook
27:44we can afford nothing less than full
27:46transparency
27:47as long as facebook is operating in the
27:49shadows
27:50hiding its research from public scrutiny
27:52it is unaccountable
27:54until the incentives change
27:57facebook will not change
28:01left alone facebook will continue to
28:03make choices that go against the common
28:04good
28:05our common good
28:07when we realized big tobacco was hiding
28:09the harms it caused the government took
28:11action
28:13when we figured out cars were safer with
28:15seat belts the government took action
28:18and when our government learned that
28:19opioids were taking lives the government
28:22took action
28:23i implore you to do the same here
28:26today facebook shapes our perception of
28:28the world by choosing the information we
28:30see
28:31even those who don't use facebook are
28:32impacted by the majority who do
28:35a company with such frightening
28:36influence over so many people
28:39over their deepest thoughts feelings and
28:40behavior needs real oversight
28:44but facebook's closed design
28:47means it has no real oversight
28:50only facebook knows how it personalizes
28:52your feed for you
28:54at other large tech companies like
28:55google
28:57any independent researcher can download
28:59from the internet
29:00the company's search results and write
29:02papers about what they find
29:04and they do
29:05but facebook hides behind walls that
29:07keeps researchers and regulators from
29:09understanding the true dynamics of their
29:11system
29:12facebook will tell you privacy means
29:14they can't give you data
29:16this is not true
29:18when tobacco companies claimed that
29:20filtered cigarettes were safer for
29:22consumers
29:24scientists could independently
29:25invalidate these marketing messages
29:28and confirm that in fact they posed a
29:30greater threat to human health
29:33the public cannot do the same with
29:34facebook we are given no other option
29:37than to take their marketing messages on
29:39blind faith
29:41not only does the company hide most of
29:43its own data
29:44my disclosure has proved that when
29:46facebook is directly asked questions as
29:48important as how do you impact the
29:51health and safety of our children
29:54they mislead
29:55and they
29:58they choose to mislead and misdirect
30:01facebook has not earned our blind faith
30:05this inability to see into facebook's
30:06actual systems and confirm how they work
30:08is communicate it and work as
30:11and confirm that they work as
30:12communicated is like the department of
30:14transportation regulating cars
30:17by only watching them drive down the
30:18highway
30:19today no regulator has a menu of
30:21solutions for how to fix facebook
30:23because facebook didn't want them to
30:25know enough about what's causing the
30:27problems
30:28otherwise they wouldn't otherwise there
30:30wouldn't have been need for a
30:31whistleblower
30:33how is the public supposed to assess if
30:35facebook is resolving conflicts of
30:36interest in a way that is aligned with
30:38the public good if the public has no
30:40visibility into how facebook operates
30:43this must change
30:46facebook wants you to believe that the
30:47problems we're talking about are
30:49unsolvable
30:50they want you to believe in false
30:52choices
30:54they want you to believe that you must
30:55choose between a facebook full of
30:57divisive and extreme content or losing
30:59one of the most important values our
31:02country was founded upon free speech
31:06that you must choose between public
31:07oversight of facebook's choices and your
31:09personal privacy
31:11that to be able to share fun photos of
31:13your kids with old friends you must also
31:16be inundated with anger driven virality
31:19they want you to believe that this is
31:21just part of the deal
31:23i am here today to tell you that's not
31:26true
31:28these problems
31:30are solvable
31:31a safer
31:33free speech respecting
31:35more enjoyable social media is possible
31:38but there is one thing that i hope
31:40everyone takes away from these
31:41disclosures it is that facebook can
31:43change but is clearly not going to do so
31:46on its own
31:47my fear is that without action divisive
31:50and extremist behaviors we see today are
31:52only the beginning
31:54what we saw in myanmar and are now seen
31:56in ethiopia are only the opening
31:58chapters of a story so terrifying no one
32:02wants to read the end of it
32:05congress can change the rules that
32:06facebook plays by and stop the many
32:08harms it is now causing
32:11we now know the truth about facebook's
32:13destructive impact
32:15i really appreciate the seriousness
32:18which the members of congress and the
32:19securities and exchange commission are
32:21approaching these issues
32:23i came forward at great personal risk
32:26because i believe we still have time to
32:28act
32:30but we must act now
32:32i'm asking you our elective
32:33representatives to act
32:35thank you
32:38thank you ms haugen thank you for taking
32:40that personal risk and we will do
32:42anything and everything
32:44to protect
32:45and stop any retaliation against you in
32:48any legal action
32:50that the company may bring to bear or
32:52anyone else and we made that i think
32:55very clear in the course of these
32:57proceedings
33:00i
33:01want to ask you about this idea of
33:03disclosure you've talked about
33:06looking
33:07in effect at a car going down the road
33:10and we're going to have five minute
33:12rounds of questions maybe a second round
33:14if you're
33:15willing to do it
33:18we're here today to look under the hood
33:21and that's what we need to do more in
33:23august
33:24senator blackburn and i wrote to
33:27mark zuckerberg and we asked him pretty
33:29straightforward questions about how the
33:31company
33:33works and safeguards children and teens
33:36on instagram facebook dots
33:39stuff sidetracked
33:42in effect misled us
33:44uh so i'm going to ask you a few
33:46straight forward questions to break down
33:49some of what you have said and if you
33:52can answer them yes or no that would be
33:54great as facebook's research its own
33:58research ever found
33:59that its platforms can have a negative
34:02effect
34:03on children and teens mental health or
34:05well-being
34:09many of facebook's internal research
34:11reports indicate that uh facebook has a
34:14serious negative harm on a
34:15non-significant not a significant
34:18portion of teenagers and younger and
34:21children
34:22and has facebook ever offered features
34:25that it knew had a negative effect
34:28on children's and teens mental health
34:32facebook knows that it's amplification
34:34algorithms things like engagement based
34:36ranking on instagram can lead children
34:39from very innocuous topics like healthy
34:41recipes i think all of us can eat a
34:43little more healthy
34:45all the way from just something innocent
34:47like healthy recipes to anorexia
34:49promoting content over a very short
34:52period of time and has facebook ever
34:55found again in its research that kids
34:58show sign
34:59of addiction on instagram facebook has
35:02studied a pattern that they call
35:04problematic use what we might more
35:06commonly call addiction
35:08um it has a very high bar for what it
35:11believes it is it says you you
35:13self-identify that you don't have
35:14control over your usage and that it is
35:16materially harming your health your
35:18schoolwork or your physical health
35:21five to six percent of 14 year olds have
35:24the self-awareness to admit both those
35:26questions it is likely that far more
35:29than five to six percent of 14 year olds
35:32are lit are even are addicted to
35:34instagram
35:36last thursday uh my colleagues and i
35:39asked ms davis who was representing
35:41facebook
35:42about how the decision would be made
35:45whether to
35:46pause permanently instagram for kids
35:50and she said quote there's no one person
35:53who makes a decision like that
35:55we think about it that collaboratively
36:00it's as though she couldn't mention mark
36:02zuckerberg's name
36:03isn't he the one who will be making this
36:05decision from your experience in the
36:07company
36:09mark holds a very unique role in the
36:12tech industry in that he holds
36:15over 55 of all the voting shares for
36:17facebook um there are no similarly
36:20powerful companies that are as
36:22unilaterally controlled um and in the
36:25end the buck stops with mark there's no
36:27one currently holding mark accountable
36:28by himself and mark zuckerberg in effect
36:31is the algorithm designer in chief
36:34correct
36:35um
36:37i received an mba from harvard and they
36:40emphasize to us that we are responsible
36:42for the organizations that we build
36:44um mark has built an organization that
36:46is very metrics driven it isn't it is
36:49intended to be flat there is no
36:51unilateral responsibility the metrics
36:53make the decision
36:54unfortunately that itself is a decision
36:58and in the end if he is the ceo and the
37:00chairman of facebook he is responsible
37:02for those decisions
37:04the buck stops with him the buck stops
37:06with him
37:07uh
37:08and speaking of the buck stopping uh
37:12you have
37:13said that
37:15facebook should declare moral bankruptcy
37:17i agree
37:19i think it's its actions
37:21and its failure to acknowledge its
37:22responsibility
37:25indicate moral bankruptcy there is a
37:27cycle occurring inside the company where
37:29facebook has struggled for a long time
37:31to recruit and retain the number of
37:33employees it needs to tackle the large
37:36scope of projects that is chosen to take
37:38on
37:39facebook is stuck in a cycle where
37:42it struggles to struggles to hire
37:44that causes it to understaff projects
37:47which causes scandals which then makes
37:49it harder to hire
37:51part of why facebook needs to come out
37:53and say we did something wrong we made
37:55some choices that we regret is the only
37:57way we can move forward and heal
37:59facebook is we first have to admit the
38:01truth
38:02like the way we'll have reconciliation
38:04and we can move forward is by first
38:06being honest and declaring moral
38:08bankruptcy being honest and
38:10acknowledging that facebook has caused
38:13an aggravated a lot of pain simply make
38:14more money
38:16and it has profited off spreading
38:20disinformation and misinformation
38:22and sowing hate
38:25faint facebook's
38:26uh answers to facebook's destructive
38:29impact always seems to be more facebook
38:32we need more facebook which means more
38:35pain
38:36and more money for facebook
38:38would you agree
38:41i don't think at any point facebook set
38:43out to make a destructive platform i
38:45think it is a challenge of that facebook
38:48has set up an organization
38:50where the parts of the organization
38:51responsible for growing and expanding
38:53the organization are separate and not
38:56not regularly cross-pollinated with the
38:58parts of the company that focus on the
39:00harms that the company is causing and as
39:02a result regularly integrity actions
39:05projects that were hard fought by the
39:07teams trying to keep us safe are undone
39:10by new growth projects
39:12that counteract those same remedies
39:14um so i do think it's a thing of there
39:16are organizational problems that need
39:19oversight and facebook needs help in
39:21order to move forward to a more healthy
39:23place
39:24and whether it's teens bullied into
39:26suicidal thoughts
39:29or the genocide of ethnic minorities in
39:34myanmar
39:35or fanning the flames of division
39:38within our own country or in europe
39:41they are ultimately responsible for the
39:45immorality
39:46of the pain that's caused
39:49facebook needs to take responsibility
39:50for the consequences of its choices
39:53it needs to be willing to accept small
39:55trade-offs on profit
39:56and i think i think just that act of
39:59being able to admit that it's a mixed
40:00bag is important and i think what we saw
40:03from antigone last week is an example of
40:05the kind of behavior we need to support
40:08facebook and growing out of which is
40:10instead of just focusing on all the good
40:12they do
40:13admit they have responsibilities to also
40:15remedy the harm
40:16but mark zuckerberg's new policy is
40:20no apologies
40:22no admissions no acknowledgement
40:25nothing to see here
40:27we're going to deflect it and go sailing
40:31i turn to the ranking member
40:33thank you mr chairman thank you for your
40:36testimony
40:37i want to stay with mrs davis in some of
40:40her comments because i had asked her
40:42last week about the underage users
40:47and she had made the comment i'm going
40:49to quote from her testimony if we find
40:51an account of someone who's under 13 we
40:54remove them in the last three months we
40:57removed 600 000 accounts of under 13
41:01euros end quote
41:03and i have to tell you it seems to me
41:06that there's a problem if you have
41:09600 000
41:12accounts from children who ought not to
41:14be there in the first place
41:17so what did mark zuckerberg know about
41:20facebook's plans to bring kids on
41:23as new users and advertise to them
41:28there are reports within facebook that
41:30show cohort analyses where they examine
41:34at what ages do people join facebook and
41:36instagram
41:38and based on those cohort analyses
41:41so
41:41facebook likes to say children lie
41:44about their ages to get onto the
41:45platform
41:47the reality is enough kids tell the
41:49truth that you can work backwards to
41:52figure out what are approximately the
41:54real ages of anyone who's on the
41:55platform
41:56when facebook does cohort analyses and
41:59looks back retrospectively
42:01and discovers things like you know up to
42:03ten to fifteen percent of even
42:05ten-year-olds in a given cohort may be
42:07on facebook or instagram
42:09um okay so this is why
42:11adam missouri who's the ceo of instagram
42:15would have replied to jojo siwa when she
42:18said to him oh i've been on instagram
42:21since i was eight he said he didn't want
42:23to know that
42:25so it would be for this reason correct
42:27um
42:30a pattern of behavior that i saw at
42:32facebook was that often problems were
42:35so understaffed that there was a
42:38kind of an implicit discouragement from
42:40having better detection systems so for
42:42example i worked my last team at
42:44facebook was on the counter espionage
42:46team within the threat intelligence org
42:48and at any given time our team could
42:50only handle a third of the cases that we
42:52knew about
42:54we knew that if we built even a basic
42:56detector we would likely have many more
42:58cases okay then similarly
43:01yeah let me ask you this
43:03so you look at the way that they have
43:07the data but they're choosing to keep
43:09that data and advertise from it right
43:12you sell it to third parties so what
43:15does facebook do you've got these six
43:18hundred thousand accounts
43:20that ought not to be on there
43:23anymore and right
43:25but then you delete those accounts but
43:28what happens to that data does facebook
43:32keep that data do they keep it until
43:35those children go to age 13
43:38since as you're saying they can work
43:40backward and
43:41figure out the true age of a a user so
43:45what do
43:46they do with it do they delete it do
43:48they store it do they
43:50keep it how do they process that
43:53um
43:55i am
43:56my understanding of facebook's data
43:58retention policies and i want to be
44:00really clear i didn't work directly on
44:01that is that they delete when they
44:03delete an account they delete all the
44:04data then i believe okay in compliance
44:06with gdpr um i with regard to children
44:10underage on the platform facebook could
44:13do substantially more to detect more of
44:15those children and they should have to
44:16publish for congress those processes
44:19because there are lots of subtleties and
44:21those things and they can be much more
44:22effective than probably what they're
44:23doing today got it
44:25now staying with this underage children
44:28since this hearing is all about kids and
44:31about online privacy i want you to tell
44:35me
44:37how facebook is able to do market
44:40research
44:41on these children that are under age
44:4413 because mr davis was really
44:48she didn't deny this
44:50last week
44:52so
44:53how are they doing this do they uh bring
44:56kids into focus groups with their
44:58parents how do they get that permission
45:01she said they got permission from
45:03parents is there a permission slip
45:06or a form
45:08that gets assigned and then
45:11how do they know which kids
45:13to target
45:16um there's a bunch to unpack there uh
45:19we'll start with maybe how did they
45:20recruit children for focus groups um or
45:23recruit teenagers um most tech companies
45:26have systems where they can um analyze
45:29the data that is on their servers so
45:32most of the focus groups i read
45:35or that i saw analysis of were around
45:38messenger kids
45:39which has children on it
45:42and those focus groups appear to be
45:44children interacting in person
45:47often large tech companies use either
45:50sourcing agencies that will go and
45:51identify people who meet certain
45:53demographic criteria or they will reach
45:55out directly based on correct
45:57data on the platform so for example on
46:00the case of messenger kids maybe you
46:01would want to study a child that was an
46:03active user and one that was a less
46:05active user you might reach out to some
46:07that came from each population and so
46:09these are children that are under age 13
46:11yeah
46:12and they know it um for for some of
46:15these studies and i assume they get i
46:17assume they get permission but i don't
46:18work on that okay
46:20well we're still waiting to get a copy
46:22of that parental consent form
46:24that would involve children um my time
46:27is expired mr chairman i'll save my
46:29other questions for our second round if
46:31we're able to get those thank you great
46:33thank you senator blackburn senator
46:35klobuchar thank you very much mr
46:37chairman thank you so much miss huggin
46:38for shedding a light on how facebook
46:41time and time again has put profit over
46:44people
46:44uh when their own research found that
46:46more than 13 percent of teen girls say
46:49that instagram made their thoughts of
46:51suicide worse what did they do they
46:53proposed instagram for kids which has
46:55now been put on pause because of public
46:57pressure
46:58when they found out that their
47:00algorithms are fostering polarization
47:03misinformation and hate
47:06um that they allowed 99 percent of their
47:09violent contact to remain unchecked on
47:11their platform including
47:13lead up to the january 6 insurrection
47:16what did they do
47:18they now as we know mark zuckerberg is
47:21going sailing and saying no apologies
47:24i think the time has come for action and
47:27i think you are the catalyst for that
47:29action
47:30you have said privacy legislation is not
47:32enough i completely agree with you but i
47:34think you know we have not done anything
47:37to update our privacy laws in this
47:39country our federal privacy laws nothing
47:41zilch in any major way why because there
47:44are lobbyists around every single corner
47:47of this building that have been hired by
47:49the tech industry we have done nothing
47:51when it comes to making the algorithms
47:53more transparent allowing for the
47:55university research that you refer to
47:57why because facebook and the other tech
48:00companies are throwing a bunch of money
48:01around this town and people are
48:03listening to them we have done nothing
48:06significantly past although we are on a
48:08bipartisan basis working in the
48:10antitrust subcommittee to get something
48:12done on consolidation which you
48:14understand allows the dominant platforms
48:17um to control all this like the bullies
48:20in the neighborhood buy out the
48:22companies that maybe could have competed
48:24with them and added the bells and
48:25whistles so the time for action is now
48:28so i'll start i'll start with something
48:30that i asked facebook's head of safety
48:32when she testified before us last week i
48:35asked her how they estimate the lifetime
48:38value of a user for kids who start using
48:40their products before they turn 13. she
48:44evaded the question and said that's not
48:46the way we think about it is that right
48:48or is it your experience that facebook
48:51estimates and that and puts a value on
48:54how much money they get from users in
48:57general i'll get to kids in a second is
48:59that a motivating force for them um
49:03based on what i saw in terms of
49:05allocation of integrity spending so one
49:07of the things disclosed in the wall
49:08street journal was that i believe it's
49:09like 87 of all the misinformation
49:11spending is spent on english but only
49:13about like nine percent of the users are
49:16english speakers um it seems that that
49:19facebook invests more and users who make
49:21them more money
49:22even though the danger may not be evenly
49:24distributed based on profitability does
49:26it make sense that having a younger
49:28person get hooked on social media
49:31at a young age makes them more
49:33profitable over the long term as they
49:35have a life ahead of them facebook's
49:37internal documents talk about the
49:39importance of getting younger users for
49:41example tweens onto instagram like
49:43instagram kids because they need to have
49:46um
49:48like they know that children bring their
49:49parents online and things like that and
49:51so they understand the value of younger
49:53users for the long-term success of
49:55facebook facebook reported advertising
49:58revenue to be 51 and 58 cents per user
50:02last quarter in the u.s and canada uh
50:05when i asked ms davis how much of that
50:06came from instagram users under 18 she
50:09wouldn't say
50:11do you think that teens are profitable
50:13for their company i would assume so
50:15based on advertising for things like
50:16television uh you get much substantially
50:19higher advertising rates for customers
50:20who don't yet have preferences or habits
50:23and so i'm i'm sure they're some of the
50:24more profitable users on facebook but i
50:26do not work directly on that
50:28another major issue that's come out of
50:30this eating disorders uh studies have
50:33found that eating disorders actually
50:34have the highest mortality rate of any
50:37mental illness
50:39for women
50:40and i led a bill on this with centers
50:42capital and baldwin that we passed into
50:44law
50:45and i'm concerned that this algorithms
50:47that they have pushes outrageous content
50:51promoting anorexia and the like i know
50:53it's personal to you
50:55uh do you think that their algorithms
50:57push some of this content to young girls
51:00facebook knows that they're the
51:03engagement-based ranking the way that
51:04they pick the content in instagram for
51:07young users for all users
51:09amplifies preferences and they have done
51:11something called a proactive a proactive
51:14incident response where they take things
51:16they've heard for example like
51:19can you be led by the algorithms to
51:21anorexia content and they have literally
51:23recreated that experiment themselves and
51:25confirmed yes this this happens to
51:26people so facebook knows that they are
51:29that they are leading young users to
51:31anorexia content
51:32do you think they are deliberately
51:34designing their product to be addictive
51:36beyond even that content
51:39facebook has a long history of having a
51:41successful and very effective growth
51:44division
51:45where they take little tiny tweaks they
51:47constantly constantly constantly are
51:48trying to optimize it to grow
51:51those kinds of stickiness could be
51:53construed as things that facilitate
51:54addiction right last thing i'll ask is
51:56we've seen the same kind of content in
51:59the political world you brought up other
52:01countries and what's been happening
52:03there on 60 minutes you said that
52:05facebook implemented safeguards to
52:07reduce misinformation ahead of the 2020
52:09election but turned off those safeguards
52:12right after the election
52:15and you know that the insurrection
52:16occurred january 6. do you think that
52:18facebook turned off the safeguards
52:20because they were costing the company
52:22money because it was reducing profits
52:25facebook has been emphasizing a false
52:27choice they've said
52:29the safeguards that were in place before
52:30the election
52:32implicated free speech the choices that
52:34were happening on the platform were
52:36really about how reactive and twitchy
52:38was the platform right like how viral
52:40was the platform and facebook
52:43changed those safety defaults in the
52:45run-up to the election because they knew
52:47they were dangerous and because they
52:49wanted that growth back they wanted the
52:51acceleration of the platform back after
52:53the election they they returned to their
52:55original defaults
52:56and the fact that they had to break the
52:58glass on january 6th and turn them back
53:00on
53:01i think that's deeply problematic i
53:03agree thank you very much for your
53:05bravery and coming forward
53:08senator
53:10thank you mr chair and
53:12ranking member blackburn um
53:14i've been arguing for some time that it
53:17is time for congress to act and i think
53:19the question is always what is the
53:22correct way to do it the right way to do
53:23it consistent with
53:25uh our first amendment right to free
53:27speech
53:29this committee
53:31doesn't have jurisdiction over the
53:32antitrust issue that's the judiciary
53:34committee and i'm not averse to looking
53:35at the monopolistic
53:37nature of facebook honestly i think
53:39that's a real issue that needs to be
53:40examined and perhaps addressed as well
53:43but at least under this committee's
53:44jurisdiction there are a couple of
53:45things i think we can do and i have a
53:47piece of legislation and senators
53:49blackburn and blumenthal are both
53:51co-sponsors
53:53uh called the filter bubble transparency
53:55act and essentially what it would do is
53:56give users the options
53:58to engage with social media platforms
54:01without being manipulated
54:03by these secret formulas that
54:05essentially dictate the content that you
54:07see when you open up an app or log on to
54:09a website
54:11we also i think need to hold big tech
54:14accountable by reforming section 230
54:17and one of the best opportunities i
54:19think to do that at least for in a
54:20bipartisan way is the platform
54:22accountability and consumer transparency
54:24or the packed act and that's legislation
54:26that i've co-sponsored with senator
54:28schatz
54:29which in addition to stripping section
54:31230 protections for content that a court
54:33determines to be illegal
54:35the packed act would also increase
54:37transparency and due process for users
54:39around the content moderation
54:41process and importantly in the context
54:44we're talking about today with this
54:45hearing with a major big tech
54:48whistleblower the packed act would
54:49explore the viability of a federal
54:51program for big tech employees to blow
54:53the whistle on wrongdoing inside the
54:55companies where they work
54:57in my view we should encourage employees
54:59in the tech sector like you to speak up
55:01about
55:02questionable practices of big tech
55:04companies so we can among other things
55:06ensure that americans are fully aware of
55:08how social media platforms are using
55:10artificial intelligence and opaque
55:12algorithms to keep them hooked on the
55:15platform
55:16so let me ms halgen just ask you we've
55:19learned from the information that you
55:20provided that facebook conducts what's
55:22called engagement based ranking
55:25which you've described is very dangerous
55:27could you talk more about why engagement
55:29based ranking is dangerous and do you
55:31think congress
55:32should seek to pass legislation like the
55:34filter bubble transparency act that
55:36would give users the ability to avoid
55:39engagement-based ranking altogether
55:43facebook is going to say
55:45you don't want to give up
55:46engagement-based ranking you're not
55:48going to like facebook as much if we're
55:50not picking out the content for you
55:53that's that's just not true there are a
55:55lot of facebook likes to present things
55:57as false choices like you have to choose
55:59between having lots of spam like let's
56:01say imagine we ordered our feeds by time
56:03like on imessage or on um
56:07there are other forms of social media
56:08that are chronologically based
56:11they're gonna say you're gonna get spam
56:12you're gonna get spammed like you're not
56:14gonna enjoy your feed the reality is
56:16that those experiences have a lot of
56:18permutations there are ways that we can
56:20make those experiences where computers
56:22don't regulate what we see
56:24we together socially regulate what we
56:26see
56:27but they don't want us to have that
56:28conversation because facebook knows that
56:30when they pick out their content that we
56:33focus on using computers we spend more
56:35time on their platform they make more
56:37money
56:38um
56:39the dangers of engagement based ranking
56:41are that facebook knows
56:44that content that elicits an extreme
56:47reaction from you is more likely to get
56:48a click a comment or reshare
56:51and it's interesting because those
56:52clicks and comments and reshares aren't
56:54even necessarily for your benefit it's
56:56because they know that other people will
56:58produce more content if they get the
57:01likes and comments and ratios they
57:03prioritize content in your feed so you
57:05will give little hints of dopamine to
57:07your friends so they will create more
57:09content and they have run experiments on
57:12people producer side experiments where
57:14they have confirmed this
57:16so
57:17you you and your um
57:19part of the information you provided the
57:20wall street journal uh it's been found
57:23that facebook altered its algorithm in
57:24an attempt to boost these meaningful
57:26social interactions or msi
57:29but rather than strengthening bonds
57:31between family and friends on the
57:32platform the algorithm instead rewarded
57:34more outrage and sensationalism and i
57:37think facebook would say that its
57:38algorithms are used to connect
57:39individuals with other friends and
57:41family that are largely positive
57:43do you believe that facebook's
57:45algorithms make its platform a better
57:48place for most users and should
57:50consumers
57:51have the option
57:52to use facebook and instagram without
57:54being manipulated by algorithms designed
57:57to keep them
57:58engaged on that platform i strongly
58:00believe like i've spent most of my
58:02career working on systems like
58:04engagement based ranking like when i
58:05come to you and say these things i'm
58:07basically damning 10 years of my own
58:08work right
58:10um
58:11engagement based ranking facebook says
58:13we can do it safely because we have ai
58:16you know the artificial intelligence
58:18will find the bad content that we know
58:20our engagement-based ranking is
58:21promoting they've written blog posts on
58:23how they know engagement-based ranking
58:25is dangerous but the ai will save us
58:28facebook's own research says they cannot
58:30adequately identify dangerous content
58:33and as a result those dangerous
58:34algorithms that they admit
58:36are picking up the the the extreme
58:39sentiments the division
58:41they can't protect us from the harms
58:42that they know exist in their own system
58:45and so i i i don't think it's just a
58:47question of saying should people have
58:48the option of choosing to not be
58:50manipulated by their algorithms
58:52i think if we had appropriate oversight
58:54or if we were formed 230 to make
58:56facebook responsible for the
58:58consequences of their intentional
59:00ranking decisions
59:02i think they would they would get rid of
59:03engagement based ranking because it is
59:06causing um teenagers to be exposed to
59:08more anorexia content it is pulling
59:10families apart and in places like
59:12ethiopia it's literally fanning ethnic
59:14violence
59:16um i encourage reform of these platforms
59:19not not
59:20picking and choosing individual ideas
59:22instead making the platforms themselves
59:25safer less twitchy less reactive less
59:27viral because that's how we scalably
59:30solve these problems thank you miss
59:32chair i i would uh simply say let's uh
59:34let's get to work so we got some things
59:36we can do here thanks i agree thank you
59:39uh senator shot
59:40thank you mr chairman ranking member
59:42thank you for your courage in coming
59:44forward was there a particular moment
59:47when you came to the conclusion
59:50that
59:51reform from the inside was impossible
59:53and that you decided to be a
59:54whistleblower
59:58there was a long series of moments where
1:00:00i became aware that uh facebook went
1:00:03faced with conflicts of interest between
1:00:05its own profits and the common good
1:00:07public safety that facebook consistently
1:00:09chose to prioritize its profits
1:00:12i think the moment which i realized
1:00:14we needed to get help from the outside
1:00:16that the only way these problems would
1:00:18be solved is by solving them together
1:00:19not solving them alone was when civic
1:00:22integrity was dissolved following the
1:00:242020 election
1:00:26it really felt like a betrayal of the
1:00:28promises that facebook had made to
1:00:30people who had sacrificed a great deal
1:00:32to keep the election safe
1:00:33by basically dissolving our community
1:00:36and integrating in just other parts of
1:00:38the company and when i know their their
1:00:40response is that they've sort of
1:00:42distributed the duties
1:00:44yeah that's an excuse right
1:00:46um
1:00:47i i cannot see into the hearts of other
1:00:49men and i i i don't know let me say it
1:00:53this way it won't work right
1:00:55i i i can tell you that when i left the
1:00:57company so my the people who i worked
1:00:59with were disproportionately maybe
1:01:0175 of my pod of
1:01:04seven people um
1:01:06those are product managers program
1:01:07managers most of them had come from
1:01:09civic integrity
1:01:10all of us left
1:01:13the inauthentic behavior pod uh either
1:01:15for other parts of the company or or the
1:01:17company entirely over the same six-week
1:01:19period of time so six months after the
1:01:21reorganization we had clearly lost faith
1:01:23that those changes were coming
1:01:25you said in your opening statement that
1:01:27they know how to make facebook and
1:01:29instagram
1:01:30safer so thought experiment you are now
1:01:35the chief executive officer and chairman
1:01:37of the company
1:01:39what changes would you immediately
1:01:40institute
1:01:42um i
1:01:43would immediately
1:01:45establish a policy of how to share
1:01:47information and research from inside the
1:01:49company with appropriate oversight
1:01:51bodies like congress
1:01:53i would
1:01:54i would give proposed legislation to
1:01:56congress saying here's what an effective
1:01:58oversight agency would look like
1:02:00i would actively engage with academics
1:02:02to make sure that that
1:02:04people who are
1:02:05who are confirming our facebook's
1:02:07marketing messages true have the
1:02:09information they need to confirm these
1:02:10things
1:02:11and i would um immediately implement the
1:02:15quote soft interventions that were
1:02:17identified to protect the 2020 election
1:02:19so that's things like requiring someone
1:02:21to click on a link before re-sharing it
1:02:23because other companies like twitter
1:02:25have found that that significantly
1:02:27reduces misinformation no one is
1:02:29censored by being forced to click on a
1:02:31link before re-sharing
1:02:32it thank you i want to pivot back to
1:02:36instagram's uh targeting of kids we all
1:02:39know that they announced a pause
1:02:41but that reminds me of what they
1:02:43announced
1:02:45when they were going to
1:02:47issue a digital currency
1:02:49and they got beat up by the u.s senate
1:02:51banking committee and they said never
1:02:52mind
1:02:54and now they're coming back around
1:02:55hoping that nobody notices that they
1:02:58are going to try to issue a currency now
1:03:00let's set aside for the moment
1:03:02the sort of
1:03:04the the business model which appears to
1:03:06be gobble up everything do everything
1:03:08that's the gross growth strategy
1:03:11do you believe that they're actually
1:03:12going to discontinue instagram kids or
1:03:14they're just waiting for the dust to
1:03:16settle
1:03:18um
1:03:19i would be sincerely surprised if they
1:03:21do not continue working on instagram
1:03:23kids and i would be amazed if a year
1:03:25from now we don't have this conversation
1:03:26again
1:03:27why
1:03:28um facebook understands that if they
1:03:32want to continue to grow they have to
1:03:34find new users they have to make sure
1:03:36that that the next generation is just as
1:03:38engaged with instagram as the current
1:03:40one
1:03:41and the way they'll do that is by making
1:03:43sure that children
1:03:45establish habits before they have good
1:03:47self-regulation by hooking kids by
1:03:49hooking kids
1:03:52i would like to emphasize when the
1:03:53documents that we send in on problematic
1:03:55use examined the rates of problematic
1:03:57use by age and that peaked with 14 year
1:04:00olds it's just like cigarettes teenagers
1:04:03don't have good self-regulation they say
1:04:05explicitly
1:04:07i feel bad when i use instagram and yet
1:04:09i can't stop
1:04:10um we need to protect the kids
1:04:13just my final question i have a long
1:04:15list of
1:04:17misstatements misdirections
1:04:19and outright lies from the company i
1:04:22don't have time to read them but you're
1:04:25as intimate with all these
1:04:27deceptions as i am so i will just jump
1:04:30to the end
1:04:31uh
1:04:32if you were
1:04:34a member of this panel would you believe
1:04:36what facebook is saying
1:04:38i would not believe uh facebook has not
1:04:41earned our right to just have blind
1:04:44trust in them
1:04:45trust is last week one of the most
1:04:47beautiful things i heard on the on the
1:04:48committee was um
1:04:50trust is earned and facebook has not
1:04:52earned our trust
1:04:54thank you
1:04:57thanks senator schatz uh senator
1:05:00moran uh and then uh we've been joined
1:05:03by the chair
1:05:04senator cantwell she'll be next
1:05:06we're to break it about 11 30 if that's
1:05:08okay because we have a vote
1:05:12and then we'll reconvene okay
1:05:15mr chairman thank you the conversation
1:05:18so far reminds me that you and i ought
1:05:19to resolve our differences and
1:05:21introduce legislation so as senator
1:05:24thune said let's go to work our
1:05:26differences are very minor
1:05:28or they seem very minor in the face of
1:05:31the
1:05:32revelations that we've now seen so i'm
1:05:34hoping we can move forward senator
1:05:36martin i share that view mr chairman
1:05:37thank you
1:05:39thank you very much for your testimony
1:05:43what examples do you know we've talked
1:05:45about particularly children teenage
1:05:47girls in
1:05:48specifically but what other examples do
1:05:51you know about where facebook or
1:05:53instagram
1:05:54knew its decisions would be harmful
1:05:57to its users but still proceeded with
1:06:00the with the
1:06:01plan
1:06:03and executed those harmful
1:06:06that harmful behavior
1:06:08facebook's internal research is aware
1:06:10that there are a variety of problems
1:06:11facing children on instagram that are um
1:06:15uh
1:06:18they know that severe harm is happening
1:06:20to children for example in the case of
1:06:22bullying
1:06:23uh facebook knows that instagram
1:06:26dramatically changes the experience of
1:06:28high school so when we were in high
1:06:29school when i was in high school uh most
1:06:32kids you looked at me and changed your
1:06:33your award
1:06:35sorry
1:06:36um
1:06:37when i was in high school you know or
1:06:39most kids have positive home lives like
1:06:41it doesn't matter how bad it is at
1:06:42school
1:06:43kids can go home and reset for 16 hours
1:06:47kids kids who are bullied on instagram
1:06:50the bullying follows them home it
1:06:52follows them into their bedrooms the
1:06:54last thing they see before they go to
1:06:56bed at night is someone being cruel to
1:06:57them or the first thing they see in the
1:06:58morning is someone being cruel to them
1:07:01kids are learning that their own friends
1:07:04like people who they care about them are
1:07:05cruel to them
1:07:07like think about how that's going to
1:07:08impact their domestic relationships when
1:07:10they become 20-somethings or
1:07:1130-somethings to believe that people who
1:07:13care about you are mean to you
1:07:15um facebook knows that parents today
1:07:18because they didn't experience these
1:07:19things they never experienced this
1:07:20addictive experience with a piece of
1:07:22technology they give their children bad
1:07:24advice they say things like why don't
1:07:26you just stop using it and so that
1:07:28facebook's own research is aware that
1:07:30children express feelings of loneliness
1:07:32and struggling with these things because
1:07:35they can't even get support from their
1:07:36own parents
1:07:38i don't understand how facebook can know
1:07:39all these things and not
1:07:42escalate it to someone like congress for
1:07:44help and support in navigating these
1:07:46problems let me ask the question in a
1:07:48broader way besides teenagers or besides
1:07:50girls or besides youth
1:07:52are there other practices at facebook or
1:07:54instagram that are known to be harmful
1:07:56but yet are pursued
1:07:59um
1:08:02uh facebook is aware that choices are
1:08:06made in establishing like meaningful
1:08:08social meaningful social interactions so
1:08:10engagement based ranking that didn't
1:08:12care if you bullied someone or committed
1:08:14hate speech in the comments that was
1:08:15meaningful
1:08:16they know that that change directly
1:08:18changed publishers behavior that
1:08:21companies like buzzfeed wrote in and
1:08:22said the content is most successful on
1:08:24our platform is some of the content
1:08:26we're most ashamed of
1:08:27you have a problem with your ranking and
1:08:29they did nothing they know that uh
1:08:31politicians are being forced to take
1:08:33positions they know their own
1:08:34constituents don't like or approve of
1:08:36because those are the ones that get
1:08:38distributed on facebook
1:08:40that's a huge huge negative impact they
1:08:43all facebook also knows that they have
1:08:45admitted in public that engagement based
1:08:47ranking is dangerous without integrity
1:08:49and security systems but then not rolled
1:08:51out those integrity and security systems
1:08:53to most of the languages in the world
1:08:56and that's what causing things like
1:08:57ethnic violence in ethiopia thank you
1:09:00for your answer
1:09:01what is the magnitude of facebook's
1:09:04revenues or profits that come from
1:09:07the sale of user data oh i'm i'm sorry
1:09:10i've never worked on that i'm not aware
1:09:12thank you
1:09:13um
1:09:14what regulations or legal actions by
1:09:17congress or by administrative action
1:09:20do you think would have the most
1:09:21consequence or would be feared most by
1:09:23facebook instagram or allied companies
1:09:27um i strongly encourage reforming
1:09:29section 230 to
1:09:31exempt
1:09:33decisions about algorithms right so
1:09:36modifying 230 around content i think has
1:09:38uh it's co it's very complicated because
1:09:41uh
1:09:43user generated content is something that
1:09:44companies have less control over they
1:09:47have a hundred percent control over
1:09:48their algorithms
1:09:50and facebook should not get a free pass
1:09:52on choices it makes to prioritize growth
1:09:54and virality and reactiveness over
1:09:57public safety
1:09:59they shouldn't get a free pass on that
1:10:00because they're paying for their profits
1:10:01right now with our safety
1:10:03so i strongly encourage reform of 230 in
1:10:06that way i also believe there needs to
1:10:08be a dedicated oversight body because
1:10:10right now the only people in the world
1:10:11who are trained to analyze these
1:10:13experiments to understand what's
1:10:15happening inside of facebook are people
1:10:17who you know grew up inside of facebook
1:10:19or pinterest or another social media
1:10:21company and there needs to be a
1:10:23regulatory home where someone like me
1:10:25could do a tour of duty after working at
1:10:27a place like this
1:10:29and and have a place to work on things
1:10:31like regulation to bring that
1:10:32information out to the oversight boards
1:10:34that that have the right to do oversight
1:10:37a regulatory agency within the federal
1:10:39government yes
1:10:40thank you very much thank you chairman
1:10:43cantwell thank you mr chairman
1:10:45thank you for holding this hearing and i
1:10:47think my colleagues have brought up a
1:10:48lot of important issues and so i think i
1:10:50just want to continue on that vein um
1:10:52first of all the privacy act that i
1:10:54introduced along with several of my
1:10:56colleagues actually does have ftc
1:10:59oversight of algorithm transparency in
1:11:02some instances i'd hope you take a look
1:11:04at that and tell us what other areas you
1:11:06think
1:11:07we should add to that level of
1:11:09transparency but um clearly that's the
1:11:12the issue at hand here i think in your
1:11:14coming forward so thank you again for
1:11:16your willingness to do that um the
1:11:18documentation that you say now exists
1:11:22is uh the level of transparency about
1:11:24what's going on that people haven't been
1:11:27able to see
1:11:28and so your information that you say has
1:11:31gone up to the highest levels
1:11:33at facebook is that they purposely knew
1:11:37that their algorithms were continuing
1:11:40to have misinformation and hate
1:11:42information
1:11:43and that
1:11:44when presented with information about
1:11:47this terminology uh you know downstream
1:11:50msi meaningful social information
1:11:53knowing that it was this choice you
1:11:55could continue this wrong-headed
1:11:57information hate information about the
1:11:59rohingya or you could continue to get
1:12:02higher click-through rates and i know
1:12:04you said you don't know about profits
1:12:05but i'm pretty sure you know that on a
1:12:06page if you click through that next page
1:12:09i'm pretty sure there's a lot more ad
1:12:11revenue than if you didn't click through
1:12:13so you're saying that documents exist
1:12:16that at the highest level
1:12:17at facebook you had
1:12:19information discussing these two choices
1:12:22and that people chose even though they
1:12:24knew that it was misinformation and
1:12:27hurtful and maybe even causing people
1:12:28lives they continued to choose profit
1:12:32we have submitted documents to congress
1:12:34outlining um mark zuckerberg was
1:12:36directly presented with a list of quote
1:12:39soft interventions so a hard
1:12:40intervention is like taking a piece of
1:12:42content off facebook taking a user off
1:12:44facebook soft interventions are about
1:12:46making slightly different choices to
1:12:48make the platform less viral less
1:12:50twitchy
1:12:51um
1:12:52mark was presented with these options
1:12:54and chose to not remove downstream msi
1:12:57in april of 2020 even though he in
1:13:00even just isolated in at-risk countries
1:13:03that's countries at risk of violence
1:13:06um if it had any impact on the overall
1:13:09msi metric
1:13:10so he chose which in translation means
1:13:13less money yeah he he said right was
1:13:16there another reason given why they
1:13:18would do it other than they thought it
1:13:20would really affect their numbers um
1:13:23i don't don't know for certain like jeff
1:13:25jeff horowitz the report for the wall
1:13:26street journal and i struggled with this
1:13:28we sat there and read these minutes and
1:13:30we're like how is this possible like
1:13:32we've just read
1:13:33100 pages on how downstream msi expands
1:13:37hate speech misinformation violence
1:13:39inciting content graphic violent content
1:13:42why won't you get rid of this and we the
1:13:44best theory that we've come up with and
1:13:45i want to emphasize this is just our
1:13:47interpretation on it is people's bonuses
1:13:49are tied to msi
1:13:50right like people people stay or leave
1:13:52the company based on what they get paid
1:13:55and like if you hurt msi a bunch of
1:13:57people didn't weren't going to get their
1:13:59bonuses so you're saying that this
1:14:01practice even still continues today like
1:14:03we're still in this environment i'm
1:14:04personally
1:14:06very frustrated by this because we
1:14:08presented information to facebook from
1:14:11one of my own constituents in 2018
1:14:14talking about this issue with the
1:14:16rohingya
1:14:17pleading with the company we pleaded
1:14:20with the company and they continue to
1:14:22not address this issue now you're
1:14:24pointing out that these same algorithms
1:14:26are being used and they know darn well
1:14:29in ethiopia that it's causing an
1:14:31inciting violence and again they are
1:14:33still today choosing profit over taking
1:14:35this information down is that correct
1:14:37when rioting began in the united states
1:14:39in the summer of last year they turned
1:14:41off downstream msi only for when they
1:14:44detected content was health content
1:14:46which is probably coveted and um civic
1:14:49content but facebook's own algorithms
1:14:51are bad at finding this content it's
1:14:53still in the raw form for 80 90 of even
1:14:57that sensitive content in countries
1:14:59where they don't have integrity systems
1:15:01in the language local language and in
1:15:03the case of ethiopia there are 100
1:15:05million people in ethiopia in six
1:15:07languages facebook only supports two of
1:15:09those languages for integrity systems
1:15:12this strategy of focusing on language
1:15:14specific content specific systems ai to
1:15:17save us is doomed to fail how i need to
1:15:20get to one of them first of all i'm
1:15:21sending a letter to facebook today they
1:15:23better not delete any information as it
1:15:24relates to the rohingya or
1:15:26investigations about how they proceeded
1:15:28on this particularly in light of your
1:15:30information or the documents but aren't
1:15:33we also now talking about advertising
1:15:35fraud are you selling something to
1:15:37advertisers that's not really what
1:15:39they're getting we know about this
1:15:41because of the newspaper issues we're
1:15:42trying to say that journalism that
1:15:44basically has to meet a different
1:15:46standard a public interest standard that
1:15:48basically is out there basically proving
1:15:50every day or they can be sued these guys
1:15:53are a social media platform that doesn't
1:15:55have to live with that and then the
1:15:57consequences they're telling their
1:15:58advertisers that this was we see it we
1:16:00see it people are coming back to the
1:16:02local journalism because they're like we
1:16:04want to be again with the trusted brand
1:16:06we don't want to be in you know your
1:16:08website so i i think you're finding for
1:16:10the
1:16:11sec
1:16:12is an interesting one but i think that
1:16:13we also have to look at what are the
1:16:15other issues here and one of them is did
1:16:17you defraud did they defraud advertisers
1:16:19and telling them this was the
1:16:20advertising content that you were going
1:16:21to be advertising and when in reality it
1:16:23was something different it was based on
1:16:24a different model we have multiple
1:16:26examples of
1:16:28question and answers for the advertising
1:16:30staff the sales staff where advertisers
1:16:32say after um the riots last summer we're
1:16:35asked should we come back to facebook or
1:16:37after the insurrection like should we
1:16:38come back to facebook um and facebook
1:16:41said in their talking points that they
1:16:43gave to advertisers we're doing
1:16:45everything in our power to make this
1:16:46safer or we take down all the hate
1:16:48speech when we find it but facebook's
1:16:50own and that was not true that was not
1:16:51true they get three to five percent of
1:16:53hate speech thank you thank you mr
1:16:54chairman
1:16:56thanks senator cantwell um and if you
1:16:58want to make your letter available to
1:17:01other members of the committee i'd be
1:17:03glad to join you myself thank you
1:17:04thank you thank you for suggesting it
1:17:06thank you
1:17:09senator lee
1:17:11thank you mr chairman and thank you ms
1:17:13haugen for joining us this week it's
1:17:16very very helpful we're grateful that
1:17:18you're willing to make yourself
1:17:19available
1:17:21last week we had another witness from
1:17:23facebook
1:17:24ms davis she came and she testified
1:17:26before this committee and she focused on
1:17:30among other things the extent to which
1:17:32facebook targets ads to children
1:17:35including ads
1:17:36that are either sexually suggestive or
1:17:38geared toward adult themed uh
1:17:41products or themes in general now i
1:17:44didn't i i well i appreciated her
1:17:46willingness to be here i didn't
1:17:48get the clearest answers in response to
1:17:50some of those questions and so i'm
1:17:52hoping that you can help shed some light
1:17:54on some of those issues related to
1:17:57facebook's advertising processes here
1:17:59today as we get into this i want to
1:18:00first read you a a quote
1:18:03that i got from from ms davis last week
1:18:06here's what she said during her
1:18:08questioning quote
1:18:10when we do ads to young people
1:18:12there are only three things that an
1:18:14advertiser can target around age
1:18:17gender location
1:18:19we also prohibit certain ads to young
1:18:21people including weight loss ads
1:18:23we don't allow tobacco ads at all
1:18:26meaning to young people we don't allow
1:18:28them to children we don't allow them to
1:18:30minors close quote
1:18:32now since that exchange happened
1:18:35last week
1:18:36there are a number of individuals and
1:18:38groups including a group called the
1:18:40technology transparency project or tdp
1:18:44that have indicated that
1:18:46that part of our testimony was
1:18:47inaccurate that it was false
1:18:49tdp noted that
1:18:51tdp had conducted an experiment
1:18:55just last month
1:18:57and their their goal was to
1:18:59run a series of ads that
1:19:02would be targeted to children ages 13 to
1:19:0517
1:19:06to users in the united states now i want
1:19:09to emphasize that tdp didn't end up
1:19:12running these ads
1:19:15they stopped them from being distributed
1:19:17to
1:19:18to users
1:19:19but facebook did in fact approve them
1:19:21and as i understand it facebook approved
1:19:23them for an audience of up to 9.1
1:19:26million users all of whom were teens so
1:19:28i brought a few of these to show you
1:19:30today this is this is the first one i
1:19:32wanted to showcase
1:19:33this first one
1:19:35has a colorful graphic
1:19:37uh encouraging kids to quote throw a
1:19:40skittles party like no other
1:19:43which
1:19:44you know as the graphic indicates and as
1:19:46as the slang jargon
1:19:48also independently suggests
1:19:50this involves
1:19:52kids getting together
1:19:54randomly to abuse prescription drugs
1:19:57the second graphic displays
1:19:59an anna tip
1:20:01that is
1:20:02a tip specifically designed to encourage
1:20:05and promote
1:20:06anorexia
1:20:08and uh it's on there now the language
1:20:11the anna tip itself
1:20:13independently promotes that the ad also
1:20:15promotes it insofar as it was suggesting
1:20:18these are images you ought to look at
1:20:20when you need motivation to be more
1:20:22anorexic i guess you could say
1:20:26now the third one invites children to
1:20:28find their partner online and to make a
1:20:31love connection you look lonely find
1:20:34your partner now to make a love
1:20:36connection now look it'd be an entirely
1:20:37different kettle of fish if this were
1:20:39targeted to an adult audience it is not
1:20:41it's targeted to 13
1:20:43to 17 year olds
1:20:45now
1:20:46obviously i don't support and and tdp
1:20:49does not support these messages
1:20:51particularly when targeted to
1:20:52impressionable children
1:20:54and and again just to be clear tdp did
1:20:57not end up pushing the ads out after
1:21:00receiving facebook's approval
1:21:02but it did in fact receive facebook's
1:21:05approval
1:21:06um so i i think this says something one
1:21:10could argue that it proves that facebook
1:21:12is allowing and and perhaps facilitating
1:21:15the targeting of harmful adult-themed
1:21:17ads
1:21:18to our nation's children
1:21:21so could you please explain to me uh ms
1:21:24haugen um
1:21:25how these
1:21:26ads
1:21:28with a target audience
1:21:30of 13 to 17 year old children
1:21:34how would they possibly be approved by
1:21:37facebook and is ai involved in that
1:21:41um
1:21:42i did not work directly on the ad
1:21:45approval system um uh what was resonant
1:21:48for me about your testimony is facebook
1:21:52has a deep focus on scale so scale is
1:21:55can we do things very cheaply for a huge
1:21:57number of people which is part of why
1:21:59they rely on ai so much it is very
1:22:01possible that none of those ads were
1:22:03seen by a human and the reality is that
1:22:05we've seen from repeated documents
1:22:07within my disclosures is that facebook's
1:22:09ai systems only catch a very tiny
1:22:12minority of offending content and best
1:22:15case scenario in the case of something
1:22:17like hate speech at most they will ever
1:22:18get 10 to 20
1:22:20in the case of children that means drug
1:22:22paraphernalia adds like that uh
1:22:25it's likely if they rely on computers
1:22:27and not humans they will also likely
1:22:30never get more than 10 to 20 percent of
1:22:31those ads understood mr chairman i've
1:22:33got one minor follow-up question would
1:22:35uh it should be easy to answer go ahead
1:22:38um
1:22:40so
1:22:41well facebook
1:22:42may claim
1:22:43that it only targets ads
1:22:45based on age gender and location
1:22:48even though
1:22:50these things uh uh seem to counteract
1:22:53that but let's set that aside for a
1:22:55minute
1:22:55um and that they're not basing ads
1:22:58uh based on specific interest categories
1:23:00does facebook still collect
1:23:03interest category data on teenagers even
1:23:06if they aren't at that moment
1:23:08targeting ads at teens based on those
1:23:12interest categories i think it's very
1:23:14important to differentiate between what
1:23:16targeting are advertisers allowed to
1:23:18specify and what targeting facebook may
1:23:21learn for an ad let's imagine you had
1:23:24some text on an ad it would likely
1:23:26extract out features that it thought was
1:23:28relevant for that for example
1:23:31in the case of something about partying
1:23:33it would learn partying is a concept
1:23:36i'm very suspicious that personalized
1:23:38ads are still not being delivered
1:23:40to teenagers on instagram because the
1:23:43algorithms learn correlations they learn
1:23:45interactions where your party ad may
1:23:48still go to kids interested in partying
1:23:51because facebook is prof is almost
1:23:53certainly
1:23:54has a ranking model in the background
1:23:56that it says this person wants more
1:23:58party related content
1:24:00interesting uh thank you that's very
1:24:02helpful and what that suggests to me is
1:24:03that while they're they're saying
1:24:05they're not targeting
1:24:06teens with those ads the algorithm might
1:24:09do some of that work for them which
1:24:11might explain why they collect the data
1:24:13even while claiming that they're not
1:24:15targeting those ads in that way i can't
1:24:16speak to whether or not that's the
1:24:17intention but the reality is it's very
1:24:19very very difficult to understand these
1:24:21algorithms today and uh over and over
1:24:24and over again we saw these biases the
1:24:27algorithms unintentionally learn and so
1:24:29yeah it's very hard to just disentangle
1:24:32out these factors as long as we have
1:24:33engagement based ranking thank you miss
1:24:35helgen
1:24:37thank you very much senator lee uh
1:24:40senator uh marky
1:24:42thank you mr chairman very much um
1:24:46thank you miss hogan you you are a 21st
1:24:50century american hero
1:24:52warning our country the danger
1:24:55for young people
1:24:57for our democracy and our nation owes
1:24:59you
1:25:01a
1:25:02just a huge
1:25:04debt of gratitude for the courage you're
1:25:06showing here today so thank you
1:25:08um
1:25:09miss hogan
1:25:10do you agree that facebook actively
1:25:12seeks to attract children and teens onto
1:25:14its platforms
1:25:16and facebook actively markets to
1:25:18children or markets to children under
1:25:20the age of 18 um to get on instagram and
1:25:23definitely uh targets children as young
1:25:25as eight to be on um
1:25:27in messenger kids an internal facebook
1:25:30document from 2020 that you revealed
1:25:32reads why do we care about tweens they
1:25:34are a valuable but untapped audience so
1:25:39facebook only cares about children to
1:25:41the extent that they are of monetary
1:25:44value
1:25:45last week facebook's global head of
1:25:47safety uh antigone
1:25:50davis told me that facebook does not
1:25:53allow targeting of certain harmful
1:25:56content to teens miss davis stated we
1:25:58don't allow weight loss ads to be shown
1:26:01to people under the age of 18. yet a
1:26:04recent study found that facebook
1:26:06permitted targeting of teens as young as
1:26:0813 with ads that showed a young woman's
1:26:11thin waist promoting websites that
1:26:13glorify anorexia miss hogan
1:26:16based on your time at facebook do you
1:26:18think facebook is telling the truth
1:26:21i think facebook
1:26:23has focused on scale over safety
1:26:26and it is likely that they are using
1:26:29artificial intelligence to try to
1:26:31identify harmful ads without allowing
1:26:34the public oversight to see what is the
1:26:36actual effectiveness of those safety
1:26:38systems you unearthed facebook's
1:26:41research about its harm to teens did you
1:26:43raise this issue with your supervisors
1:26:46um i did not work directly on
1:26:49anything involving teen mental health
1:26:51this research is freely available to
1:26:52anyone in the company
1:26:54mr davis testified last week quote we
1:26:57don't allow tobacco ads at all we don't
1:26:59allow them
1:27:01to children either we don't allow
1:27:03alcohol
1:27:04ads to minors however researchers also
1:27:07found that facebook does allow targeting
1:27:09of teens with ads on vaping
1:27:13ms hogan based on your time at facebook
1:27:15do you think facebook is telling the
1:27:16truth um i do not have context on that
1:27:19that issue um i assume that if they are
1:27:22using artificial intelligence to catch
1:27:24those vape ads unquestionably ads are
1:27:26making its way through okay
1:27:29so from my perspective
1:27:31listening to you and your incredibly
1:27:33courageous revelations time and time
1:27:36again facebook says one thing
1:27:38and does another
1:27:40time and time again facebook fails to
1:27:41abide by the commitments that they had
1:27:44made time and time again facebook lies
1:27:48about what they are doing yesterday
1:27:50facebook had a platform outage but for
1:27:53years it has had a principles outage
1:27:56its only real principle is profit
1:27:59facebook's platforms are not safe for
1:28:01young people as you said facebook is
1:28:03like big tobacco
1:28:05enticing young kids with that first
1:28:07cigarette
1:28:08that first social media account designed
1:28:10to hook kids as users for life ms hogan
1:28:14you know whistleblowing shows that
1:28:15facebook uses harmful features that
1:28:17quantify popularity push manipulative
1:28:21influencer marketing amplify harmful
1:28:24content to teens
1:28:27and last week in this committee facebook
1:28:30wouldn't even commit to not using these
1:28:32features on 10-year goals facebook is
1:28:35built on computer codes
1:28:38of misconduct
1:28:40senator blumenthal and i
1:28:43have introduced the kids internet design
1:28:46and safety act
1:28:47the kids act
1:28:49you have asked us
1:28:51to act as a committee
1:28:53and facebook has scores of lobbyists in
1:28:56the city right now coming in
1:28:58right after this hearing to tell us we
1:29:00can't act
1:29:02and have been successful
1:29:04for a decade
1:29:05in blocking this committee from acting
1:29:08so
1:29:09let me ask you a question
1:29:11the kids internet design and safety act
1:29:14are the kids act here's what the
1:29:15legislation does
1:29:16it includes outright bans on children's
1:29:20app features that one
1:29:22quantify popularity with likes and
1:29:25follower counts
1:29:26promotes two
1:29:28uh that two promotes influencer
1:29:31marketing and three that amplifies
1:29:35a toxic post and that it would prohibit
1:29:38facebook from using its algorithms to
1:29:41promote toxic
1:29:42post should we pass that legislation
1:29:46i strongly encourage reforms that push
1:29:49us towards human scale social media and
1:29:51not computer driven social media
1:29:54those amplification harms are caused by
1:29:56computers choosing what's important to
1:29:58us not our friends and family and i
1:30:00encourage any system that children are
1:30:02exposed to to not use amplification
1:30:05systems so you agree
1:30:07that congress has to enact these special
1:30:09protections for children and teens that
1:30:11stop social media companies from
1:30:13manipulating young users and threatening
1:30:15their well-being to stop using its
1:30:18algorithm to harm kids you'll agree with
1:30:21that i i do believe congress must act
1:30:23protect children
1:30:25and children and teens also needed
1:30:26privacy online bill of rights i'm the
1:30:29author of the children's online privacy
1:30:31protection act of
1:30:321998 but it's only for kids under 13
1:30:36because the industry stopped me from
1:30:38making at age 16. in
1:30:401998
1:30:42because it was already their business
1:30:43model but we need to update that law for
1:30:46the 21st century tell me if this should
1:30:48pass one create an online eraser button
1:30:52so that young users can tell websites to
1:30:54delete the data they've collected about
1:30:57them
1:30:57to give young teens under the age of 16
1:31:01in their parents control of their
1:31:03information and three ban targeted ads
1:31:07to children
1:31:09i support all those actions thank you
1:31:12and um and finally i've also introduced
1:31:15the algorithmic justice
1:31:17and online platform transparency act
1:31:21which would one
1:31:22open the hood
1:31:24on facebook and big text algorithms so
1:31:28we know how facebook
1:31:30is using our data to decide what content
1:31:34we see and two ban
1:31:37discriminatory algorithms that harm
1:31:39vulnerable populations online like
1:31:42showing employment and housing ads to
1:31:45white people but not to black
1:31:49people in our country should congress
1:31:51pass that bill
1:31:54algorithmic bias issues are a major
1:31:56issue for our democracy
1:31:57during my time at pinterest i became
1:31:59very um
1:32:01aware of the challenges of like i
1:32:04mentioned before it's difficult for us
1:32:05to understand how these algorithms
1:32:06actually act and perform facebook is
1:32:08aware of complaints today by people like
1:32:11african americans saying that reals
1:32:13doesn't give
1:32:15african americans the same distribution
1:32:17as white people and until we have
1:32:19transparency and our ability to confirm
1:32:22ourselves that facebook's marketing
1:32:24messages are true we will not have a
1:32:26system that is compatible with democracy
1:32:29so i and i i thank senator lee i agree
1:32:32with you
1:32:33uh in your line of questions i wrote
1:32:35facebook asking them to explain that
1:32:37discrepancy because facebook i think is
1:32:40lying about targeting 13 to 15 year olds
1:32:43so
1:32:44here's my message for mark zuckerberg
1:32:47your time of invading our privacy
1:32:50promoting toxic content and preying on
1:32:53children and teens is over
1:32:57congress will be taking action you can
1:33:00work with us
1:33:02or not work with us but we will not
1:33:04allow your company to harm our children
1:33:08and our families and our democracy any
1:33:11longer thank you mr hogan we will act
1:33:16thanks senator markey uh we're gonna
1:33:19turn to senator blackburn and then
1:33:23we will take a break
1:33:27i know that
1:33:29there's some interest in another round
1:33:31of questions maybe
1:33:34well uh maybe we'll turn to senator
1:33:37lujan
1:33:38for his questions
1:33:40uh cruz and scott
1:33:42and we have others so we'll come back
1:33:44after the mr chairman
1:33:46i have to um go to sit in the chair um
1:33:50starting at noon today i don't uh we
1:33:52turn
1:33:53uh just
1:33:55you haven't i do i have one question
1:33:58this relates to what uh mr markey was
1:34:02asking
1:34:03does facebook ever employ child
1:34:06psychologists or mental health
1:34:08professionals to deal with these
1:34:11children online issues that we're
1:34:14discussing
1:34:15facebook has many researchers with phds
1:34:18i assume some of them are uh i know that
1:34:21some have psychology degrees
1:34:23i'm not sure if they are child
1:34:25specialists facebook also works with
1:34:26external agencies that are specialists
1:34:28at children's rights online
1:34:32senator lujan and then at the conclusion
1:34:35of senator lujan's questions we'll take
1:34:37a break we'll come back
1:34:41at noon
1:34:43thank you mr chairman and i appreciate
1:34:44the indulgence of the committee
1:34:46ms hogan last week the committee heard
1:34:49directly from miss
1:34:50davis the global head of safety for
1:34:52facebook
1:34:54during the hearing the company contested
1:34:57their own
1:34:58internal research as if it does not
1:35:01exist
1:35:02yes or no does facebook have internal
1:35:05research indicating that instagram harms
1:35:08teens
1:35:09particularly harming perceptions of body
1:35:12image which disproportionately affects
1:35:14young women
1:35:16yes facebook has extensive research on
1:35:18the impacts of its products on teenagers
1:35:20including young women thank you for
1:35:22confirming these reports
1:35:24last week i requested facebook make the
1:35:26basis of this research the data set
1:35:28minus any personally identifiable
1:35:30information available to this committee
1:35:34do you believe it is important for
1:35:36transparency and safety that facebook
1:35:38release the basis of this internal
1:35:40research the core data set to allow for
1:35:43independent analysis
1:35:45i believe it is vitally important for
1:35:46our democracy that we establish
1:35:48mechanisms where facebook's internal
1:35:50research must be disclosed to the public
1:35:52on a regular basis and that we need to
1:35:54have privacy sensitive data sets that
1:35:57allow independent researchers to confirm
1:35:59whether or not facebook's marketing
1:36:01messages are actually true
1:36:03beyond this particular research should
1:36:04facebook make its internal primary
1:36:06research not just secondary slide decks
1:36:09of cherry pick data but the underlying
1:36:12data public by default can this be done
1:36:15in a way that respects user privacy
1:36:17i believe in collaboration with
1:36:18academics and other researchers that we
1:36:20can develop privacy conscious ways of
1:36:23exposing radically more data that is
1:36:25available today it is important for our
1:36:27ability to understand how algorithms
1:36:29work how facebook shapes the information
1:36:31we get to see that we have these data
1:36:33sets be publicly available for scrutiny
1:36:36is facebook capable of making the right
1:36:37decision here on its own or is
1:36:40regulation needed to create real
1:36:41transparency at facebook until
1:36:43incentives change at facebook we should
1:36:44not expect facebook to change we need
1:36:47action from congress
1:36:49last week i asked miss davis about
1:36:50shadow profiles for children on the site
1:36:53and she answered that no data is ever
1:36:55collected on children under 13 because
1:36:58they are not allowed to make accounts
1:37:00this tactfully ignores the issue
1:37:02facebook knows children use their
1:37:04platform however instead of seeing this
1:37:06as a problem to be solved facebook views
1:37:09this as a business opportunity
1:37:11yes or no does facebook conduct research
1:37:13on children under 13 examining the
1:37:15business opportunities of connecting
1:37:17these young children to facebook's
1:37:19products
1:37:20i want to emphasize how vital it is that
1:37:22facebook should have to publish the
1:37:24mechanisms by which it tries to detect
1:37:26these children because they are on the
1:37:27platform in far greater numbers than
1:37:28anyone is aware
1:37:30i do believe that or i am aware that
1:37:32facebook is doing research on children
1:37:34under the age of 13 and they have those
1:37:36studies are included in my disclosure
1:37:39you have shared your concerns about how
1:37:40senior management facebook has
1:37:43continuously prioritized revenue over
1:37:45potential user harm and safety and i
1:37:48have a few questions on facebook's
1:37:50decision making last week i asked miss
1:37:52davis quote has facebook ever found a
1:37:55change to its platform would potentially
1:37:58inflict harm on users but facebook moved
1:38:01forward because the change would also
1:38:03grow users or increase revenue ms davis
1:38:07said in response quote it's not been my
1:38:10experience at all at facebook that's
1:38:13just not how we would approach it yes or
1:38:15no has facebook ever found a feature on
1:38:18its platform harmed its users but the
1:38:20feature moved forward because it would
1:38:22also grow users or increase revenue
1:38:25facebook likes to paint that these
1:38:27issues are really complicated there are
1:38:29lots of simple issues for example
1:38:32requiring someone to click through on a
1:38:33link before you re-share it that's not a
1:38:36large imposition but it does decrease
1:38:38growth a tiny little amount because in
1:38:40some countries uh reshares make up 35 of
1:38:43all the content that people see
1:38:45um facebook prioritized that content on
1:38:47the system the reshares over the impacts
1:38:49to misinformation hate speech or
1:38:51violence incitement
1:38:53did these decisions ever come from mark
1:38:55zuckerberg directly or from other senior
1:38:57management at facebook
1:38:59um we have a few choice documents that
1:39:03contain notes from briefings with mark
1:39:05zuckerberg where he chose um metrics
1:39:08defined by facebook like meaningful
1:39:10social interactions over changes that
1:39:12would have significantly decreased
1:39:14misinformation hate speech and other
1:39:15inciting content and this is the
1:39:17reference you shared earlier to miss
1:39:19cantwell april of 2020. the soft
1:39:22interventions
1:39:23facebook appeared to be able to count on
1:39:25the silence of its workforce for a long
1:39:27time
1:39:28even as it knowingly continued practices
1:39:30and policies that continue to cause and
1:39:33amplify harm
1:39:34facebook content moderators have called
1:39:36out a culture of fear and secrecy within
1:39:39the company that prevented them from
1:39:41speaking out is there a culture of fear
1:39:44at facebook around whistleblowing and
1:39:45external accountability
1:39:47uh facebook has a culture that that that
1:39:51emphasizes that that insularity is the
1:39:54path forward that if information is
1:39:56shared with the public it will just be
1:39:58misunderstood
1:40:00and i believe that relationship has to
1:40:01change the only way that we will solve
1:40:03these problems is by solving them
1:40:04together and we will have much better
1:40:06more democratic solutions if we do it
1:40:08collaboratively than in isolation and my
1:40:10final question is there a senior level
1:40:13executive at facebook like an inspector
1:40:15general who's responsible for ensuring
1:40:17complaints from facebook employees are
1:40:19taken seriously in the employees legal
1:40:22ethical and moral concerns received
1:40:24consideration with the real possibility
1:40:27of instigating change to company
1:40:28policies
1:40:29um
1:40:30i'm not aware of that role
1:40:32but the company is large and it may
1:40:34exist
1:40:35i appreciate that it's my understanding
1:40:37that there's a gentleman by the name of
1:40:40roy austin who is the vice president of
1:40:43civil rights who's described himself as
1:40:45an inspector general but he does not
1:40:47have the authority to make these
1:40:49internal conflicts public the oversight
1:40:51board was created by facebook to review
1:40:53moderation policies related to public
1:40:56content specifically it was not created
1:40:58to allow employees to raise concerns
1:41:01so again another area of interest i
1:41:03believe that we have to act on i thank
1:41:05you for coming forward today
1:41:07my pleasure
1:41:08happy to serve
1:41:13the committee is in recess
1:41:30here
1:42:11over here
2:05:27um and i think
2:05:28the question then would be that that's
2:05:30the short question which i think i know
2:05:32the answer
2:05:33what impact uh facebook's bottom line
2:05:36would it have if the algorithm was
2:05:38changed to promote
2:05:39safety
2:05:41and to
2:05:43instead of
2:05:44to for change to
2:05:47to save the lives of young women rather
2:05:49than putting them at risk
2:05:54i'm learning about the talk button
2:05:57facebook today
2:06:00has a profit is
2:06:02makes approximately 40 billion dollars a
2:06:04year in profit
2:06:05a lot of the changes that i'm talking
2:06:06about are are not going to make uh
2:06:09facebook an unprofitable company it just
2:06:12won't be a ludicrously profitable
2:06:14company like it is today engagement
2:06:16based ranking which causes those
2:06:18amplification problems that leads young
2:06:20women from you know innocuous topics
2:06:22like healthy recipes to anorexia content
2:06:25if it were removed
2:06:27people would consume less content on
2:06:29facebook
2:06:30but facebook would still be profitable
2:06:32and so i i
2:06:34i encourage oversight and public
2:06:37scrutiny into how these algorithms work
2:06:39and the consequences of them
2:06:40right well
2:06:42and i appreciate that i uh i'm a former
2:06:45small business owner and uh
2:06:48uh started a brew pub back in 1988
2:06:51uh
2:06:52and really was always
2:06:54we worked very hard to to
2:06:56look again we weren't doing
2:06:59investigations but we were very
2:07:00sensitive to whether someone had too
2:07:01much to drink whether we had a frequent
2:07:03customer who was
2:07:05frequently
2:07:06putting himself at risk and and others
2:07:09obviously i think that the facebook
2:07:11business model puts uh
2:07:14well posted risk to to youth and to end
2:07:16to teams you care compared to cigarette
2:07:19companies which i thought was
2:07:21rightfully so
2:07:24if this
2:07:25i guess the question is is this level of
2:07:27risk appropriate uh or is there a level
2:07:31of risk that would be appropriate
2:07:34i think there is an opportunity to
2:07:35reframe some of these oversight actions
2:07:38so when we think of them as these
2:07:40trade-offs of like it's either
2:07:41profitability or safety i think that's a
2:07:43false choice
2:07:44and then reality the thing i'm asking
2:07:46for is a move from short-termism which
2:07:48is what facebook is run under today
2:07:51right is being led by metrics and not
2:07:53led by people
2:07:54and that with appropriate oversight and
2:07:56some of these constraints
2:07:58it's possible that facebook could
2:07:59actually be a much more profitable
2:08:01company five or ten years down the road
2:08:03because it wasn't as toxic not as many
2:08:05people quit it but that's one of those
2:08:07counter factuals that we can't actually
2:08:08test so regulation might actually make
2:08:11facebook more profitable over the long
2:08:13term right that's often the case i think
2:08:15the same could be set for automobiles
2:08:17and go down the list
2:08:19of all those things
2:08:20that there's so much pushback in the
2:08:21beginning
2:08:22um i also thought that the
2:08:24um
2:08:25the question of
2:08:27of how do we assess the impact to their
2:08:30bottom line uh we had a representative
2:08:32facebook in here recently who talked
2:08:35about that eight out of ten uh facebook
2:08:37users feel their life is better and that
2:08:40their job is to get to ten out of ten
2:08:42maybe this is the two to twenty percent
2:08:45that they're missing i don't know how
2:08:46large that the demographic is of of
2:08:49people that are caught back up into this
2:08:51circus uh circuitous uh you know
2:08:55sense of of really taking them down into
2:08:58the wrong direction how many people that
2:09:00is do you have any idea
2:09:02um
2:09:04that quote last week was really shocking
2:09:05to me because i don't know if you're
2:09:07aware of this but in the case of
2:09:08cigarettes
2:09:10uh only about 10 of people who smoke
2:09:12ever get lung cancer
2:09:14right um so the idea that you know 20 of
2:09:16your users could be facing uh serious
2:09:18mental health issues and that's not a
2:09:20problem is shocking um i also want to
2:09:22emphasize for people that that eating
2:09:23disorders are serious right they're
2:09:25going to be women walking around this
2:09:26planet in 60 years with brittle bones
2:09:29because of choices that facebook made
2:09:31around emphasizing profit today or there
2:09:33are going to be women
2:09:35in 20 years who want to have babies who
2:09:37can't because they're infertile as a
2:09:38result of eating disorders today they're
2:09:40serious
2:09:41and i think there's an opportunity here
2:09:43for having public oversight and public
2:09:45involvement
2:09:46especially in matters that impact
2:09:47children
2:09:48great well thank you for being so direct
2:09:51on this and for stepping forward
2:09:53i yield back the floor chair
2:09:56thanks senator hickman senator cruz
2:09:59thank you mr chairman ms hogan welcome
2:10:02thank you for your testimony
2:10:04uh when it concerns facebook there are a
2:10:06number of concerns that this committee
2:10:08and congress has been focused on two of
2:10:10the biggest have been facebook's
2:10:12intentional targeting of kids
2:10:15uh with content that is harmful to the
2:10:17children
2:10:18and then secondly in a discrete issue is
2:10:21the pattern of facebook and social media
2:10:23engaging in political censorship
2:10:26i want to start with the first issue uh
2:10:28targeting kids
2:10:30um
2:10:31as you're aware and as indeed the
2:10:33documents that you provided indicated
2:10:36um
2:10:38facebook
2:10:39according to the public reporting on it
2:10:41facebook's
2:10:42internal reports found that instagram
2:10:46makes quote body image issues worse
2:10:49for one in three teen girls
2:10:52and additionally it showed that quote 13
2:10:54of british users and six percent of
2:10:57american users
2:10:58trace their desire to kill themselves to
2:11:01instagram
2:11:02uh is that a fair and accurate
2:11:04characterization of what facebook's
2:11:07research concluded
2:11:09um i only know what i read in the
2:11:11documents that were included in my
2:11:12disclosure
2:11:14that is that is an accurate description
2:11:16of the ones that i have read i
2:11:18because facebook has not come forward
2:11:20with the total corpus of their known
2:11:22research i don't know what their other
2:11:23things say but yes there is documents
2:11:25that say those things so we had
2:11:27testimony last week in the senate with a
2:11:29witness from facebook who claimed that
2:11:31that uh that information was not
2:11:33accurate and needed to be in context now
2:11:35of course she wasn't willing to provide
2:11:37the context the alleged mysterious
2:11:39context do you know of any context
2:11:41that would make those data anything
2:11:44other than horrifying and deeply
2:11:46disturbing
2:11:47um
2:11:48engagement based ranking and these
2:11:51processes of amplification
2:11:53they impact all users of facebook the
2:11:55algorithms are very smart in the sense
2:11:58that they latch on to things that people
2:12:00want to continue to engage with and
2:12:02unfortunately in the case of teen girls
2:12:04and things like self-harm they develop
2:12:06these feedback cycles where children are
2:12:08using instagram as to self-soothe but
2:12:11then are exposed to more and more
2:12:12content that makes them hate themselves
2:12:14this is the thing where we can't say 80
2:12:16percent of kids are okay we need to say
2:12:18how do we save all the kids
2:12:21the wall street journal reported that
2:12:22mark zuckerberg was personally aware of
2:12:25this research do you have any
2:12:26information one way or the other as to
2:12:28mr zuckerberg's awareness of the
2:12:30research um we have a uh excuse me um
2:12:34one of the documents included in the
2:12:35disclosures it details something called
2:12:38project daisy which is an initiative to
2:12:40remove likes off of instagram the
2:12:42internal research showed that removing
2:12:44likes off instagram is not effective as
2:12:46long as you leave comments on those
2:12:48posts and yet the research directly
2:12:50presented to mark zuckerberg said we
2:12:53should still pursue this as a feature to
2:12:55launch even though it's not effective
2:12:57because the government journalists and
2:12:59academics want us to do this like it
2:13:02would get us positive points to the
2:13:03public
2:13:04um
2:13:05that kind that kind of duplicity is why
2:13:08we need to have more transparency and
2:13:10why if we want to have a system that is
2:13:12uh coherent with democracy we must have
2:13:15public oversight from congress
2:13:17do you know if facebook any of the
2:13:19research it conducted attempted to
2:13:21quantify how many teenage girls may have
2:13:24taken their lives because of facebook's
2:13:26products
2:13:27i am not aware of that
2:13:28research do you know if facebook made
2:13:31any changes when they got back that 13
2:13:34of british users and six percent of
2:13:35american users traced their desire to
2:13:37kill themselves to instagram do you know
2:13:39if they made any changes
2:13:41in response to that research to try to
2:13:44correct or mitigate that i found it very
2:13:46surprising that when antonia davis was
2:13:48confronted with this research last week
2:13:50she couldn't enumerate
2:13:52a five-point plan a 10-point plan of the
2:13:54actions that they took i also find it
2:13:56shocking that one once facebook had this
2:13:58research it didn't disclose it to the
2:14:00public because this is the kind of thing
2:14:02that should have oversight from congress
2:14:04so when you were at facebook were there
2:14:05discussions about how to respond to this
2:14:07this research i did not work directly on
2:14:10issues concerning children these are
2:14:12just documents that were freely
2:14:13available in the company so i am not
2:14:14aware of that okay
2:14:17do you have thoughts as to what kind of
2:14:19changes facebook could make
2:14:21to reduce or eliminate these harms
2:14:25you mentioned earlier concerns around
2:14:27free speech a lot of the things that i
2:14:29advocate for are around changing the
2:14:31mechanisms of amplification not around
2:14:34picking winners and losers in the
2:14:35marketplace of ideas so probably explain
2:14:38what that means oh sure um so like i
2:14:40mentioned before you know like how on
2:14:42twitter if you have to click through on
2:14:44a link before you re-share it
2:14:46small actions like that friction don't
2:14:48require picking good ideas and bad ideas
2:14:51they just make the platform less twitchy
2:14:53less reactive and facebook's internal
2:14:56research says that each one of those
2:14:57small actions
2:14:59dramatically reduces misinformation hate
2:15:01speech and violence inciting content on
2:15:03the platform so and we're running out of
2:15:05time but but on the second major topic
2:15:08of concern of facebook which is
2:15:09censorship based on what you've seen are
2:15:11you are you concerned about political
2:15:14censorship at facebook and in big tech
2:15:17i believe you cannot have a system that
2:15:20has as big an impact on society as
2:15:23facebook does today with as little
2:15:24transparency as it does
2:15:26i am a strong proponent of chronological
2:15:29ranking uh ordering by time with a
2:15:31little bit of spammed emotion because i
2:15:33think
2:15:34um
2:15:35we don't want computers deciding what we
2:15:38focus on we should have software that is
2:15:40human scaled where humans have
2:15:42conversations together not computers
2:15:44facilitating who we get to hear from so
2:15:46how could we get more transparency what
2:15:48would produce that
2:15:49um i strongly encourage the development
2:15:52of some kind of regulatory body that
2:15:54could
2:15:55work with academics work with
2:15:56researchers work with other government
2:15:58agencies to
2:16:00synthesize requests for data that are
2:16:02privacy conscious this is an area that
2:16:04i'm really passionate about um
2:16:06and because right now no one can force
2:16:08facebook to disclose data and facebook
2:16:11has been stonewalling us or even worse
2:16:13they gave inaccurate data to researchers
2:16:15as the scandal recently showed what data
2:16:17should they turn over my time's expired
2:16:19so um
2:16:21for example um
2:16:23even data as simple as what integrity
2:16:26systems exist today and how well do they
2:16:28perform
2:16:29like there are lots and lots of people
2:16:31who facebook is conveying around the
2:16:33world that that facebook safety systems
2:16:36apply to their language and those people
2:16:38aren't aware that they're using a raw
2:16:40original dangerous version of facebook
2:16:43just basic actions that like
2:16:44transparency would make a huge
2:16:45difference
2:16:46thank you
2:16:49thanks senator cruz senator loomis
2:16:52thank you mr chairman and thank you for
2:16:55your testimony
2:16:57if you were in my seat today instead of
2:16:59your seat
2:17:01what documents or unanswered questions
2:17:04would you seek
2:17:05from facebook especially as it relates
2:17:08to children
2:17:09but even generally speaking
2:17:12i think any research regarding what
2:17:14facebook does problematic use i.e the
2:17:17addictiveness of the product is of vital
2:17:19importance and anything around what
2:17:21facebook knows about
2:17:23parents lack of knowledge about the
2:17:25platform
2:17:27i only know about the documents that i
2:17:29have seen right i did not work on teens
2:17:32or
2:17:33child safety myself but in the documents
2:17:35that i read facebook articulates the
2:17:38idea that parents today are not aware of
2:17:40how dangerous instagram is and they
2:17:42because they themselves do not live
2:17:44through these experiences they can't
2:17:46coach their kids on basic safety things
2:17:49and so at a minimum facebook shaft to
2:17:51disclose what it knows in that context
2:17:53okay so we're trying to protect
2:17:56individuals data that they're gathering
2:17:59have data privacy
2:18:02but have transparency
2:18:05in the manner in which
2:18:08the data is used
2:18:10can we bridge that gap
2:18:13imagine um i i think we reasonable
2:18:16people can have a conversation on how
2:18:18many people need to see a piece of
2:18:20content before it's not really private
2:18:22like if a hundred thousand people see
2:18:23something is it private if 25 000 people
2:18:26see it is it private just disclosing the
2:18:29most popular content on the platform
2:18:32including statistics around what factors
2:18:34went into the promotion of that content
2:18:37would cause radically more transparency
2:18:39than we have today on how facebook
2:18:41chooses what we get to focus on how they
2:18:43shape our reality
2:18:44okay if if our focus is protecting the
2:18:48first amendment and a rise to free
2:18:50speech while
2:18:52very carefully regulating
2:18:55um
2:18:56data privacy
2:18:58um
2:19:00i've heard there there are a number of
2:19:02things that are being discussed in
2:19:03congress everything from
2:19:07antitrust laws
2:19:09to
2:19:10calling facebook a utility
2:19:12to
2:19:14the idea that you just raised of a
2:19:18regulatory board of some sort
2:19:21that has authority to
2:19:26through understanding of the algorithms
2:19:28and how they're used and other
2:19:31mechanisms that create what we see
2:19:35the the face of facebook so to speak um
2:19:40tell me a little more about how you
2:19:42envision that board working
2:19:45what is the in your mind based on your
2:19:48understanding of the company and the ill
2:19:53consequences
2:19:55what is the best approach to bridging
2:19:58the gap between keeping speech
2:20:01and protecting individual privacy with
2:20:04regard to data
2:20:07so i think those issues are um they are
2:20:09independent issues so we can talk about
2:20:11free speech first which is um having
2:20:14more transparency like facebook has
2:20:16solutions today that are not
2:20:18content-based and i am a strong advocate
2:20:20for non-content-based solutions because
2:20:24those solutions will also then protect
2:20:26the most vulnerable people in the world
2:20:28in a place like ethiopia where they
2:20:29speak six languages
2:20:31if you have something that focuses on
2:20:33good ideas and bad ideas those systems
2:20:35don't work in diverse places so
2:20:37investing in
2:20:39non-content-based ways to slow the
2:20:41platform down
2:20:42not only protects our freedom of speech
2:20:44it protects people's lives the second
2:20:46question is around privacy and this
2:20:48question of how can we have oversight
2:20:49and have privacy there is lots and lots
2:20:52of research on how to abstract data sets
2:20:55so you're not showing people's names you
2:20:57might not even be showing the content of
2:20:58their post you might be showing data
2:21:00that is about the content of their post
2:21:02but not the post itself there are many
2:21:04ways to structure these data sets that
2:21:06are privacy conscious and be the fact
2:21:08that facebook has walled off the ability
2:21:11to see even basic things about how the
2:21:12platform performs or in the case of
2:21:15their past academic research releasing
2:21:17inaccurate data
2:21:19or not being clear about how they pulled
2:21:20that data is just part of a pattern of
2:21:22behavior of facebook hiding behind walls
2:21:25and operating in the shadows and they
2:21:27have far too much power in our society
2:21:28to be allowed to continue to operate
2:21:30that way
2:21:31well i i had heard you make the analogy
2:21:34earlier to the tobacco industry and i
2:21:36think that that's an appropriate analogy
2:21:40i
2:21:42i really believe we're searching for
2:21:45the best way
2:21:47to address the problem
2:21:49um and i'm i i'm not sure that it is the
2:21:54heavy hands like breaking up
2:21:56companies or
2:21:59calling them a utility
2:22:03which is why your approach
2:22:05of integrating people who understand
2:22:09the math and the uses of the math
2:22:12uh with uh protecting privacy
2:22:15it is intriguing to me
2:22:18so the more
2:22:19information that you can provide to us
2:22:23about
2:22:24how that might work to actually address
2:22:26the problem
2:22:27i i think would be helpful so um in my
2:22:30case this is an invitation to you
2:22:33uh to
2:22:34provide to my office or the committee
2:22:38information about how we can get at the
2:22:41root of the problem that you've
2:22:43identified and can document
2:22:47and
2:22:51save people's privacy
2:22:54so uh i extend that invitation to you
2:22:56and i thank you for your testimony uh mr
2:22:59chairman i yield back thanks senator
2:23:01lomas uh
2:23:02senator sullivan
2:23:09thank you mr chairman and um
2:23:12i want to thank our witness here uh it's
2:23:14been a good hearing a lot of information
2:23:16has been learned
2:23:18particularly on the issue of how this is
2:23:20impacting our kids
2:23:22i think
2:23:23we're going to look back
2:23:2520 years from now
2:23:27and
2:23:29all of us are going to be like what in
2:23:31the hell were we thinking when we
2:23:32recognize the damage that's done to a
2:23:35generation
2:23:37of kids do you agree with that ms hugin
2:23:40uh when facebook made statement has made
2:23:42statements in the past about how much
2:23:44benefit instagram is providing to kids
2:23:47mental health like kids are connecting
2:23:49who are once alone
2:23:50uh
2:23:51what i'm so surprised about that is if
2:23:53if instagram is such a positive force
2:23:55what have we have we seen a golden age
2:23:57of teenage mental health in the last 10
2:23:59years no we've seen i've seen the
2:24:01opposite right we've seen escalating
2:24:03rates of suicide and depression amongst
2:24:04teenagers do you think those rates
2:24:07are at least in part driven by the
2:24:09social media phenomenon there is a broad
2:24:11swath of research that supports the idea
2:24:14that usage of social media
2:24:17amplifies the risk for these mental
2:24:18health harms right now and this hearing
2:24:20is helping illuminate it
2:24:21we are seeing and facebook's on research
2:24:23shows up right yeah say that again
2:24:25that's and facebook's own research shows
2:24:28that
2:24:28right the kids are saying kids are
2:24:30saying i am unhappy when i use instagram
2:24:32and i can't stop but if i leave i'm
2:24:34afraid i'll be ostracized right and
2:24:37that's that's so sad
2:24:39so they know that
2:24:40that's what their research shows
2:24:42so what do you think drives them to i
2:24:45had this discussion with the witness
2:24:47last week
2:24:48and i said well
2:24:50you know i think they called it their
2:24:52time out or stop i said but isn't that
2:24:54incompatible with your business model
2:24:57because your business model is more time
2:24:59online more eyeballs online isn't that
2:25:02the fundamental elements of their
2:25:04business model
2:25:07facebook has had both an interesting
2:25:08opportunity and a hard challenge from
2:25:10being a closed system
2:25:12so they've had the opportunity to hide
2:25:14their problems
2:25:15and like often people do when they can
2:25:17hide their problems they get in over
2:25:19their heads and i think facebook needs
2:25:21an opportunity to have congress step in
2:25:24and say guess what you don't have to
2:25:25struggle by yourself anymore you don't
2:25:27have to hide these things from us you
2:25:28don't have to pretend they're not
2:25:29problems you can declare moral
2:25:31bankruptcy and we can figure out how to
2:25:32fix these things together because we
2:25:34solve problems together we don't solve
2:25:36them alone and by moral bankruptcy one
2:25:38of the things that i appreciate the
2:25:39phrase that the chairman and you've been
2:25:41using is one of those elements which is
2:25:44they know this is a problem they know
2:25:45it's actually
2:25:47impacting negatively the mental health
2:25:49of the most precious assets we have in
2:25:51america
2:25:52our youth our kids i have three
2:25:54daughters
2:25:55um
2:25:57they know that that is
2:25:59happening and yet the moral bankruptcy
2:26:02from your perspective is the continued
2:26:05the continuation of this simply because
2:26:08that's how they make money i i phrase it
2:26:11slightly differently we have financial
2:26:12bankruptcy because we value people's
2:26:14lives more than we value money right the
2:26:16people get in over their heads and they
2:26:18need a process where they admit they did
2:26:19something wrong but we have a mechanism
2:26:22where we forgive them and we have a way
2:26:23for them to move forward facebook is
2:26:25stuck in a feedback loop that they
2:26:27cannot get out of they have been hiding
2:26:29this information because they feel
2:26:30trapped right like they would have come
2:26:32forward if they had solutions to these
2:26:34things
2:26:34they need to admit they did something
2:26:36wrong and they need help to solve these
2:26:38problems and that's what moral
2:26:39bankruptcy is let me ask i'm going to
2:26:41switch gears here and and this is uh
2:26:45you what's your current position right
2:26:46now in terms of its disinformation and
2:26:49counter espionage um my last role at
2:26:51facebook was encountered i'm sorry your
2:26:53last role okay
2:26:54so one of the things this is a very
2:26:56different topic and um
2:26:58i only got a minute or so left but
2:27:01right now is facebook i know facebook is
2:27:04not allowed in countries like china
2:27:06but do they provide platforms
2:27:09for authoritarian or terrorist space
2:27:13leaders like
2:27:15the ayatollahs in iran that's the
2:27:17largest state-sponsored terrorism in the
2:27:19world
2:27:20um or the taliban
2:27:22or xi jinping are certain my view our
2:27:26biggest rival for this century
2:27:28a communist party dictator who's trying
2:27:31to export his authoritarian model
2:27:34around the world
2:27:36do they provide a platform for those
2:27:40kind of
2:27:41leaders who
2:27:43in my view clearly don't hold america's
2:27:45interests uh in mind
2:27:48because facebook provided
2:27:50i i during my time working with uh the
2:27:52threat intelligence org so i was a
2:27:54product manager supporting the threat of
2:27:56the counter-espionage team
2:27:59my team directly worked on uh
2:28:02tracking chinese participation on the
2:28:04platform surveilling say weaker
2:28:06populations in places around the world
2:28:09that you could actually find the chinese
2:28:11based on them doing these kinds of
2:28:12things so facebook yeah i'm sorry um we
2:28:15also saw
2:28:17active persuasion of say the iran
2:28:19government doing espionage on other
2:28:22state actors
2:28:24so this is definitely a thing that is
2:28:25happening and i believe facebook's
2:28:27consistent understaffing of the
2:28:29counter-espionage information operations
2:28:31and counter-terrorism teams is a
2:28:33national security issue and i'm speaking
2:28:35to other parts of congress about that so
2:28:37you are saying in essence that the the
2:28:38the platform whether facebook knows it
2:28:41or not is being utilized by some of our
2:28:44adversaries in a way that helps push and
2:28:46promote their interests at the expense
2:28:48of americas yes facebook's so very aware
2:28:51that this is happening on the platform
2:28:52and i believe the fact that congress
2:28:54doesn't get a report of exactly how many
2:28:56people are working on these things
2:28:57internally is is unacceptable because
2:29:00you have a right to keep the american
2:29:01people safe
2:29:03great thank you very much
2:29:06thanks senator sullivan uh you may have
2:29:07just opened
2:29:09an area for another year sorry yeah
2:29:12yeah i've i've i have strong national
2:29:13security concerns about how facebook
2:29:15operates today well mr chairman maybe we
2:29:17should right i mean it's a i'm i'm
2:29:19not being at all facetious uh thank you
2:29:22for your questions on this topic and i
2:29:24know you have a busy schedule but we may
2:29:26want to
2:29:27discuss this issue with you members of
2:29:30our committee uh at least informally and
2:29:33if you'd be willing to come back for
2:29:34another hearing
2:29:35that uh certainly is within the realm of
2:29:38possibility i haven't consulted the
2:29:39ranking member but
2:29:40uh or the chair
2:29:42woman but um
2:29:45thank you for your honesty and your
2:29:46candor on that topic
2:29:48uh senator scott
2:29:51thank you chairman um first off thanks
2:29:53for coming forward and thanks for coming
2:29:55forward in the matter that you wanted to
2:29:56have a have positive change so that's
2:29:58not always what what happens
2:30:01earlier this year i sent a letter to
2:30:02facebook and other social media
2:30:03platforms asking them to detail the
2:30:05harmful impacts the effects on mental
2:30:08health their platforms have on
2:30:10children and teens
2:30:12so your reports reveal that facebook has
2:30:14been clearly fully aware of this
2:30:16for a while
2:30:17um and the harmful impacts especially on
2:30:19young women so i think we all agree
2:30:21that's completely unacceptable and we've
2:30:23got to figure out how we protect
2:30:25the people that are vulnerable in this
2:30:26country from the harmful impacts of
2:30:28facebook and other social media
2:30:29platforms
2:30:31so first off do you think there should
2:30:32be
2:30:33a greater consideration for age when it
2:30:35comes to using any social media
2:30:37i strongly encourage raising age limits
2:30:39to 16 or 18 years old based on
2:30:42looking at the data around
2:30:44problematic use or addiction on the
2:30:46platform and uh children's
2:30:48self-regulation issues
2:30:51so
2:30:52so i think you addressed this a little
2:30:53bit but why do you think
2:30:55facebook didn't address this publicly
2:30:56when they they figured it out internally
2:30:58that they were having an adverse impact
2:31:00on
2:31:01young young people especially young
2:31:02women why didn't they come forward and
2:31:03say
2:31:04i've got we've got a problem we got to
2:31:06figure this out
2:31:07i i have a huge amount of empathy for
2:31:09for facebook these are really really
2:31:11hard questions
2:31:13and part of why i'm saying i think they
2:31:14feel a little a little trapped and
2:31:16isolated is
2:31:17the problems that are driving
2:31:19uh negative social comparison on
2:31:21instagram facebook's own research says
2:31:24instagram is actually distinctly worse
2:31:26than say tick tock or snapchat or reddit
2:31:30because instagram tic talk is about
2:31:33doing fun things with your friends
2:31:35snapchat is about faces and augmented
2:31:37reality
2:31:38reddit is vaguely about ideas but
2:31:41instagram is about bodies and about
2:31:43comparing lifestyles
2:31:45and so i think there are real questions
2:31:46where like instagram would have to come
2:31:48in and think hard about their product or
2:31:50about like what is their product about
2:31:52and i think i don't think those answers
2:31:53are immediately obvious that's why i
2:31:55believe we need to solve problems
2:31:56together and not alone because
2:31:58collaborating with the public will give
2:32:00us better solutions
2:32:01so do you think facebook was trying to
2:32:03trying to mitigate the problem
2:32:06i think within the set of incentives
2:32:08that they were working within they did
2:32:10the best they could unfortunately those
2:32:12incentives are not sustainable and they
2:32:14are not acceptable uh in in our society
2:32:17do you think facebook and other social
2:32:19media platforms ought to be able to be
2:32:20required to report any harmful effects
2:32:22they have on young people
2:32:24one of the things that i found
2:32:26very interesting after the report in the
2:32:28wall street journal on teen mental
2:32:30health was that a a former executive at
2:32:33the company said facebook needs to be
2:32:35able to have private research and the
2:32:36part that i was offended by this was
2:32:38facebook has had some of this research
2:32:40on the negative effects of instagram on
2:32:41teenagers for years
2:32:43i strongly support the idea that
2:32:45facebook should have a year maybe 18
2:32:46months to have private research but
2:32:48given that they are the only people in
2:32:50the world who can do this kind of
2:32:51research
2:32:53that the public never gets to do it they
2:32:55shouldn't be allowed to keep secrets
2:32:56when people's lives are on the line
2:32:59so
2:33:00because because to be clear if they make
2:33:0240 billion dollars a year they have the
2:33:04resources to solve these problems
2:33:05they're choosing not to solve them yeah
2:33:07did that surprise you they wouldn't put
2:33:08more effort into this no because you
2:33:09know it's going to catch up with them
2:33:10eventually right yeah
2:33:12like like i mentioned earlier to senator
2:33:14hickenlooper
2:33:16right coming in and having oversight
2:33:18might actually make facebook a more
2:33:20profitable company five or ten years
2:33:21from now because toxicity facebook's own
2:33:24research shows
2:33:25uh they have something called an
2:33:27integrity holdout these are people who
2:33:29don't get protections from integrity
2:33:31systems to see what happens to them and
2:33:34those people who deal with a more toxic
2:33:36painful version of facebook use facebook
2:33:38less
2:33:39and so one could could rat could reason
2:33:42a kinder friendlier more collaborative
2:33:44facebook might actually have more users
2:33:46five years from now so it's in in
2:33:48everyone's interest do you think i've
2:33:49got a bill and there's a lot of bills
2:33:51that i think we've all talked about but
2:33:52mine's called the data act it's going to
2:33:54require express consent from users for
2:33:56large platforms to use algorithms on
2:33:58somebody you agree with that
2:34:00i mean i mean what shouldn't we consent
2:34:03before they get to take our on
2:34:05everything about us and go sell it
2:34:07uh like how they send things to us um
2:34:10for for um selling personal data that uh
2:34:12that is an issue i believe people should
2:34:14have substantially more control over um
2:34:17most people are not well informed on
2:34:18what the cost the cost personal costs of
2:34:21having their data sold are and so i
2:34:23worry about um pushing that choice back
2:34:26on individual consumers
2:34:28in terms of should people consent to
2:34:30working with algorithms um
2:34:32i worry that if facebook is allowed to
2:34:35uh give users the choice of do you want
2:34:38an engagement based news feed or do you
2:34:40want a chronological news feed like
2:34:42ordered by time maybe a little spammed
2:34:44emotion
2:34:45that people will choose the more
2:34:46addictive option that engagement based
2:34:48ranking even if it is leading their
2:34:51their daughters to eating disorders
2:34:53right thank you
2:34:56thanks senator scott i think we have
2:34:58concluded the first round
2:35:00unless we're missing someone who is
2:35:04uh
2:35:05on line
2:35:07and
2:35:08not hearing anyone um let's go to the
2:35:10second round uh thank you again for your
2:35:13patience uh i know you have a hard stop
2:35:16i think at 1 30.
2:35:18so we'll be respectful of that
2:35:20limitation and
2:35:21i'll begin by asking a few questions
2:35:24first let me say
2:35:26senator klobuchar
2:35:28very
2:35:29aptly
2:35:31raised with you
2:35:32the principal obstacle to our achieving
2:35:35legislative reform in the past which is
2:35:37the
2:35:38tons of money
2:35:40spent on lobbyists and other
2:35:44kinds of
2:35:46influence peddling
2:35:48to use a pejorative word that is so
2:35:51evident here in the united states
2:35:53congress
2:35:54some of it's dark money some of it is
2:35:56very overt
2:35:57but
2:35:59i guess the point i'd like to make to
2:36:01you personally is that
2:36:03your being here
2:36:06really
2:36:06sends a profound message to
2:36:10our nation that one person can really
2:36:11make a difference
2:36:13one person standing up speaking out
2:36:16can overcome
2:36:17a lot of those obstacles for us and you
2:36:19have crystallized
2:36:21in a way our
2:36:23consciousness here you've
2:36:25been a catalyst i think for change in a
2:36:28way that
2:36:29we haven't seen and i've been working on
2:36:31these issues for
2:36:3410 15 years
2:36:36and you have raised awareness in a way
2:36:39that i think is very unique
2:36:41so
2:36:42uh thank you not only for your risk
2:36:44taking and your
2:36:46courage and strength in standing up but
2:36:48also
2:36:49for the effect that it has had
2:36:51uh and i also want to make another point
2:36:53you can tell me whether i'm correct or
2:36:55not
2:36:56i think there are other whistleblowers
2:36:58out there
2:37:00i think there are other truth tellers
2:37:02in the tech world who want to come
2:37:04forward i think you're
2:37:06leading by example
2:37:08i think you are showing them that
2:37:10there's a path
2:37:11to make this industry more responsible
2:37:15and
2:37:17more caring about kids
2:37:19and about the nature of our public
2:37:21discourse generally are about the
2:37:22strength of our democracy and i think
2:37:24you
2:37:26have given them
2:37:28a boost
2:37:29those whistleblowers out there in
2:37:32potentially coming forward i think
2:37:34that's tremendously important i think
2:37:35also
2:37:37again you can tell me if i'm wrong
2:37:39there are a lot of people on facebook
2:37:41who are cheering for you
2:37:44because
2:37:47there are public reports and i know of
2:37:49some of my
2:37:51friends in this world who tell me
2:37:54that
2:37:56they're people working for facebook who
2:37:57wish
2:37:58they had
2:38:00the opportunity and the courage to come
2:38:02forward as you have done because they
2:38:04feel
2:38:06a lot of reservations about the way that
2:38:08facebook has used the platform used
2:38:11algorithms
2:38:13content and pushed it on kids in this
2:38:17way
2:38:18so
2:38:20those are
2:38:21sort of hypotheses
2:38:24uh
2:38:24that i hope you can confirm um and i
2:38:29also would like to ask you
2:38:32because a lot of parents are watching
2:38:35right now
2:38:36so you've advised us
2:38:38on what you think we should do the
2:38:40reforms some of them that you think we
2:38:42should adopt stronger oversight
2:38:44authorized by congress
2:38:47better disclosure
2:38:49because right now
2:38:50facebook essentially is a black box yes
2:38:53for most of america
2:38:55facebook is a black box
2:38:57that's designed by mark zuckerberg
2:39:00incorporated
2:39:03mark zuckerberg and
2:39:05his immediate codery
2:39:07and the buck stops with him
2:39:11and
2:39:12reform of section 203 so there's some
2:39:14legal responsibility so people have a
2:39:17day in court some kind of recourse
2:39:21legally when they're harmed by facebook
2:39:24because right now it has this broad
2:39:26immunity most of america has no idea
2:39:30essentially you can't sue facebook
2:39:33you have no recourse
2:39:36most america doesn't know about section
2:39:39230
2:39:41and
2:39:42if you
2:39:44push
2:39:45a lot of members of congress they
2:39:46wouldn't know either
2:39:48it's actually slightly worse than that
2:39:49they facebook made a statement in a
2:39:52legal proceeding recently where they
2:39:53said they had the right to mislead the
2:39:55court because they had immunity
2:39:57right that 230 gave them immunity so why
2:40:00should they have to tell the truth about
2:40:01what they're showing
2:40:02which is
2:40:03kind of
2:40:04shocking
2:40:05well it is shocking to a lawyer yeah
2:40:09which some of us are
2:40:11uh it's also
2:40:13utter
2:40:14disregard and contempt for the rule of
2:40:16law and for the very legal structure
2:40:20that gives them
2:40:21that kind of protection so
2:40:24it's
2:40:25kind of a new low
2:40:28in
2:40:29corporate
2:40:30conduct at least in court
2:40:34so you've you provided us with some of
2:40:36the reforms that you think
2:40:39are
2:40:40important and i think that the oversight
2:40:42goes a long way because it in turn would
2:40:45make public
2:40:47a lot of what is going on
2:40:49in this black box
2:40:51but for now
2:40:54since a lot of teens and
2:40:57tweens will be going home tonight
2:41:00as you said
2:41:02to endure the bullying
2:41:06the eating disorders
2:41:08the invitations to
2:41:11feel insecure about themselves
2:41:13heightened anxiety they have to live
2:41:15with the real world as it exists right
2:41:16now
2:41:17and they will be
2:41:19haunted
2:41:20for their lifetimes by these experiences
2:41:24what would you tell parents
2:41:25right now
2:41:26what would you advise them
2:41:29about what they can do because they need
2:41:31more tools
2:41:32and some of the proposals that have been
2:41:34mentioned here
2:41:35would give parents
2:41:36more tools to protect their children
2:41:38right now a lot of parents tell me
2:41:42they
2:41:43feel powerless
2:41:45they
2:41:46need more information they're
2:41:48way behind their kids and their
2:41:50adeptness online
2:41:54and
2:41:55they feel that
2:41:57they need to be empowered
2:41:59in some way to protect their kids in the
2:42:01real world
2:42:02right now
2:42:03in real time so i
2:42:06offer you that
2:42:07open-ended opportunity to
2:42:10talk to us a little bit about your
2:42:11thoughts
2:42:13very rarely do you have one of these
2:42:15generational shifts where uh the the
2:42:18generation that leads like parents who
2:42:20who who guide their children
2:42:23have such um a different set of
2:42:25experiences that they don't have the
2:42:27context to support their children in a
2:42:29safe way
2:42:31there is an active need for
2:42:34schools or or maybe the
2:42:36national institutes of health
2:42:38to to make established information where
2:42:41if parents want to learn how they can
2:42:43support their kids it should be easy for
2:42:45them to know what is constructive and
2:42:46not constructive
2:42:48because
2:42:49facebook's own research says kids today
2:42:51feel like they are struggling alone with
2:42:53all these issues
2:42:54because their parents can't guide them
2:42:56and one of the things i'm sad is when i
2:42:58look on twitter is when people blame the
2:43:00parents for these problems with facebook
2:43:02they say just take your kids phone away
2:43:04and the reality is those issues are a
2:43:06lot more complicated than that and so
2:43:09we need to support parents because right
2:43:11now if facebook won't protect the kids
2:43:13we at least need to help the parents to
2:43:15protect the kids
2:43:16if they parents are anguished they are
2:43:20about this issue parents are hardly
2:43:25uncaring they
2:43:27need the tools they need to be empowered
2:43:30and
2:43:31i think that the
2:43:33major encouragement for reforms is going
2:43:36to come from
2:43:37those parents
2:43:39and
2:43:40you have pointed out i think in general
2:43:43but i'd like you to just confirm for me
2:43:47this research
2:43:49and the documents containing that
2:43:51research
2:43:53is not only findings and conclusions
2:43:55also recommendations for changes
2:44:00what i hear you saying is that again and
2:44:02again and again
2:44:04these recommendations were just rejected
2:44:06or disregarded correct
2:44:09there is a pattern of behavior that i
2:44:11saw at facebook of facebook choosing to
2:44:13prioritize its profits over people
2:44:16and any time that facebook faced even
2:44:18tiny hits to growth like point one
2:44:20percent of sessions one percent of views
2:44:24that it shows its profits over safety
2:44:27and you mentioned i think bonuses tied
2:44:30to
2:44:31downstream msis decor msi yeah could you
2:44:34explain what you meant um so msi is
2:44:37meaningful social interaction
2:44:38uh facebook's internal governance is
2:44:41very much based around metrics so
2:44:43facebook is incredibly flat to the point
2:44:45where they have the largest open floor
2:44:47plan office in the world it's a quarter
2:44:48of a mile long and one room right they
2:44:50believe in flat
2:44:52and instead of having internal
2:44:53governance they have metrics that people
2:44:55try to move
2:44:57in a world like that it doesn't matter
2:44:59that we now have multiple years of data
2:45:01saying msi maybe encouraging bad content
2:45:04might be making
2:45:05spaces where people are are scared where
2:45:09they are shown information that puts
2:45:10them at risk
2:45:12it's so hard to just lodge a ruler like
2:45:16that
2:45:16that a yardstick
2:45:19that
2:45:20you end up in the situation where
2:45:21because no one is taking leadership like
2:45:23no one is intentionally designing these
2:45:25systems it's just many many people
2:45:27running in parallel all moving the
2:45:28metric that these problems get amplified
2:45:30and amplified and amplified and no one
2:45:32steps in to bring the solutions
2:45:35and i just want to finish and then i
2:45:37think we've been joined by senator young
2:45:41and then we'll go
2:45:42to
2:45:43senator blackburn and senator klobuchar
2:45:46um
2:45:47you know
2:45:48i spent
2:45:49a number of years as an attorney general
2:45:52helping to lead litigation against big
2:45:54tobacco
2:45:56and
2:45:57i came to
2:45:59hear from a lot of
2:46:01smokers
2:46:03how grateful they were
2:46:05ironically and unexpectedly that someone
2:46:08was fighting big tobacco because they
2:46:09felt they had been victimized as
2:46:11children
2:46:12they started smoking when they were 7 8
2:46:1512 years old because big tobacco was
2:46:18hooking them
2:46:19and as we developed the research very
2:46:22methodically and purposefully
2:46:25addicting them
2:46:26at that early age when
2:46:28they
2:46:30believed
2:46:32that
2:46:33they
2:46:34would make themselves more popular
2:46:36that they would be cool and hip if they
2:46:39began smoking and then nicotine
2:46:42hooked them now physiologically nicotine
2:46:45has addictive properties
2:46:49what is it about
2:46:51facebook's tactics
2:46:53of hooking young people
2:46:56that makes it similar to what
2:46:59big tobacco
2:47:00has done
2:47:02facebook's own research about instagram
2:47:06contains quotes from kids saying
2:47:09i feel bad when i use instagram
2:47:12but i also feel like i can't stop right
2:47:14i i know that the more time i spend on
2:47:16this the worse i feel but like i just
2:47:19can't like that they want the next click
2:47:20they want the next like
2:47:22they the the dopamine you know there's
2:47:24little hits all the time
2:47:26and
2:47:28i i feel a lot of pain for those kids
2:47:31right like they they they say they fear
2:47:33being ostracized if they step away from
2:47:35the platform so imagine you're in the
2:47:37situation in this relationship where
2:47:38every time you open the app it makes you
2:47:40feel worse but you also fear
2:47:43isolation if you don't
2:47:44um i think there's a huge opportunity
2:47:46here to make social media that makes
2:47:48kids feel good not feel bad
2:47:50and that we have an obligation to our
2:47:52youth to make sure that they're safe
2:47:53online
2:47:54thank you senator young
2:48:03uh thank you for your compelling
2:48:05testimony
2:48:06in that testimony you discuss how
2:48:08facebook generates self-harm and and
2:48:12self-hate
2:48:13especially among vulnerable groups like
2:48:17teenage girls
2:48:19i happen to be a father of four kids
2:48:21three daughters two of whom
2:48:24are teenagers and
2:48:27as you as you just alluded to most
2:48:29adults myself included
2:48:31i've never been a teenager
2:48:33during the age of facebook instagram and
2:48:36these other social media platforms
2:48:39and therefore i think it can be really
2:48:41hard
2:48:42for many of us to fully appreciate the
2:48:44impact that certain posts may have
2:48:48in including i would add
2:48:50on a team's mental health
2:48:53so can you discuss the short and
2:48:56long-term consequences of body image
2:48:59issues
2:49:00on these platforms please
2:49:06the patterns that children establish in
2:49:08their teenage years live with them for
2:49:10the rest of their lives the way they
2:49:12conceptualize who they are how they
2:49:13conceptualize how they interact with
2:49:15other people are patterns and habits
2:49:17that they will take with them as they
2:49:18become adults as they them because
2:49:21when you and i interact in person and i
2:49:24say something mean to you and i see you
2:49:26wince or i see you cry
2:49:28that makes me less likely to do it the
2:49:30next time right that's a feedback cycle
2:49:32online kids don't get those cues and
2:49:35they learn to be incredibly cruel to
2:49:37each other and they normalize it and i'm
2:49:40scared of what will their lives look
2:49:42like where they grow up with the idea
2:49:44that it's okay to be treated badly by
2:49:47people who allegedly care about them
2:49:49that's a scary future
2:49:53very scary future
2:49:55and i see some evidence of of that as to
2:49:57so many parents
2:49:59um
2:50:00on a on a regular basis are are there
2:50:03other specific issues of
2:50:06significant consequence that the general
2:50:08public may not be fully aware of that
2:50:10are impacting um
2:50:12vulnerable groups that you you just like
2:50:14to elevate
2:50:16during this testimony
2:50:18one of the things that's hard
2:50:20for people who don't look at the data of
2:50:22social networks every day it can be hard
2:50:25to conceptualize the distribution
2:50:27patterns of harms or justice of usage
2:50:30that there are these things called power
2:50:32laws it means that a small number of
2:50:34users are extremely intensely engaged on
2:50:37any given topic and most people are just
2:50:39lightly engaged
2:50:41when you look at things like
2:50:42misinformation facebook knows that the
2:50:44people who are exposed to the most
2:50:45misinformation are people who are
2:50:47recently widowed divorced moved to a new
2:50:50city
2:50:52are isolated in some other way
2:50:54when i worked on civic misinformation we
2:50:57discussed the idea of the misinformation
2:50:59burden
2:51:00like the idea that when people are
2:51:01exposed to ideas that are not true over
2:51:03and over again it erodes their ability
2:51:06to to connect with the community at
2:51:08large because they no longer adhere to
2:51:10facts that are consensus reality
2:51:14the fact that facebook knows that its
2:51:16most vulnerable users people who
2:51:18recently widowed like that they're
2:51:20isolated that that the systems that are
2:51:22meant to keep them safe like demoting
2:51:24misinformation stop working when people
2:51:26look at 2000 posts a day
2:51:28right and i just it breaks my heart the
2:51:31idea that these rabbit holes would suck
2:51:33people down and then make it hard to
2:51:34connect with others
2:51:38so miss miss hajin
2:51:40i desperately want to
2:51:43which is the american impulse i want to
2:51:44solve this problem
2:51:46and i
2:51:49i very much uh believe that uh congress
2:51:52not only has a role but has a
2:51:53responsibility to
2:51:56figure this out
2:51:57i don't pretend to have all the answers
2:52:00i would value your
2:52:02opinion though
2:52:04as to whether you believe that breaking
2:52:06up facebook would solve any of the
2:52:08problems that you've discussed today do
2:52:11you think it would
2:52:13so as an algorithmic specialist so this
2:52:15is someone who designs algorithmic
2:52:17experiences i'm actually against the
2:52:19breaking up of facebook because even
2:52:21looking inside of just facebook itself
2:52:23so not even facebook and instagram you
2:52:25see the problems of engagement based
2:52:26ranking repeat themselves
2:52:28so the problems here are about the
2:52:30design of algorithms of ai and the idea
2:52:33that ai is not intelligent
2:52:35and if you break up instagram and
2:52:37facebook from each other it's likely so
2:52:39i used to work on pinterest and the
2:52:42thing that we faced from a business
2:52:43model perspective was that advertisers
2:52:45didn't want to learn multiple
2:52:46advertising platforms
2:52:49that they wanted to learn they got one
2:52:51platform for instagram and facebook and
2:52:52whatever and learning a second one from
2:52:54pinterest pinterest made radically fewer
2:52:57dollars per user and what i'm scared of
2:52:59is right now facebook is the internet
2:53:01for lots of the world if you go to
2:53:03africa the internet is facebook if you
2:53:05split facebook and instagram apart it's
2:53:08likely that most advertising dollars
2:53:09will go to instagram and facebook will
2:53:11continue to be this frankenstein that is
2:53:14altering like that is endangering lives
2:53:16around the world only now there won't be
2:53:17money to fund it and so i think
2:53:19oversight and regular
2:53:21oversight and
2:53:23finding collaborative solutions with
2:53:24congress is going to be key because
2:53:26these systems are going to continue to
2:53:27exist and be dangerous even if broken up
2:53:32thank you thank you
2:53:35senator
2:53:36blackburn uh thank you mr chairman
2:53:40uh
2:53:41i have a text that was just put up by
2:53:45facebook spokesperson
2:53:48it says just pointing out the fact that
2:53:52francis hogan did not work on child
2:53:55safety or instagram or research these
2:53:58issues and has no direct knowledge of
2:54:01the topic from her work at facebook
2:54:04so i will simply say this to mr stone if
2:54:08facebook wants to discuss their
2:54:10targeting of children
2:54:13if they want to discuss
2:54:16their practices
2:54:18of
2:54:19privacy invasion or violations of the
2:54:22children online privacy act i am
2:54:25extending to you an invitation to step
2:54:29forward be sworn in and testify
2:54:33before this committee we would be
2:54:36pleased to hear from you and welcome
2:54:39your testimony
2:54:41um
2:54:42one quick question for you what's the
2:54:44biggest threat to facebook's existence
2:54:46is it greed is it
2:54:49regulators
2:54:51is it becoming uh extinct or obsolete
2:54:56for teenage
2:54:57users what is the biggest threat to
2:55:00their existence
2:55:02i think the fact that facebook is driven
2:55:03so much by metrics and that these lead
2:55:06to a very heavy emphasis on
2:55:08short-termism
2:55:10that every little individual decision
2:55:12may seem like it helps with growth but
2:55:15if it makes it more and more toxic
2:55:16platform that people don't actually
2:55:18enjoy like when they passed meaningful
2:55:20social interact meaningful social
2:55:21interactions back in 2018 facebook's own
2:55:24research said that users said it made it
2:55:26less meaningful
2:55:28right i think this aggregated set of
2:55:31short-term decisions endangers
2:55:33facebook's future
2:55:35but sometimes we need to pull it away
2:55:37from
2:55:38business as usual help it write new
2:55:40rules if we wanted to be successful in
2:55:42the future so they can't see the forest
2:55:44for the yes yes
2:55:46very cute
2:55:47and i know senator klobuchar is waiting
2:55:50so i'll yield my time back and i thank
2:55:52you thanks senator blackman
2:55:55thank you very much and thank you to
2:55:56both of you for leadership and all three
2:55:59of us are on the judiciary committee so
2:56:01we're also working on a host of other in
2:56:03issues including
2:56:05the app store issues
2:56:08which is unrelated to facebook actually
2:56:11including issues relating to
2:56:13dominant platforms when they promote
2:56:15their own content or engage in
2:56:17exclusionary conduct which i know is not
2:56:19our topic today i see the thumbs up from
2:56:22you ms hogan which i appreciate
2:56:24i think this idea of establishing some
2:56:27rules of the road uh for these tech
2:56:29platforms um goes beyond
2:56:32the kid protection that we so dearly
2:56:35need to do and i just want to make sure
2:56:37you agree with me on that totally uh i
2:56:39was shocked when i saw the new york
2:56:41times story a couple weeks ago about
2:56:42facebook using its own platform to
2:56:44promote positive news about itself
2:56:46i was like wow
2:56:48i knew you shaped our reality i wasn't
2:56:50aware it was that much right and that's
2:56:52a lot of the work uh that we're doing
2:56:53over there so i want to get to something
2:56:56senator young was talking about
2:56:57misinformation and
2:56:58senator lujan and i have put together a
2:57:01an exception actually to the 230
2:57:03immunity when it comes to
2:57:05vaccine misinformation in the middle of
2:57:07a public health crisis
2:57:09last week youtube announced it was
2:57:11swiftly banning all anti-vaccine
2:57:14misinformation and i've long called on
2:57:17facebook to take similar steps they've
2:57:18take taken some steps
2:57:21but do you think they can remove this
2:57:22content and
2:57:24do they put sufficient resources we know
2:57:27the effect of this we know that over
2:57:29half the people that haven't gotten the
2:57:30vaccines it's because of something that
2:57:32they've seen on social media i know the
2:57:34guy i walked into a cafe and said his
2:57:36mother-in-law wouldn't get a vaccine
2:57:38because she thought a microchip would be
2:57:39planted in her arm could you
2:57:42which is false i'm just saying that for
2:57:44the record here um could in case it gets
2:57:46put on social media could you uh talk
2:57:49about are there
2:57:50are there enough resources to stop this
2:57:52from happening
2:57:54um i do not believe facebook ad is
2:57:56currently structured has the capability
2:57:58to stop vaccine misinformation because
2:58:00they're overly reliant on artificial
2:58:02intelligence systems that they
2:58:03themselves say will likely never get
2:58:05more than 10 to 20 percent of content
2:58:07there you go
2:58:09and yet it's a company that what the cap
2:58:11over a trillion dollars from the world's
2:58:14biggest companies that we've ever known
2:58:16and that's what really bothers me here
2:58:19senator lujan and i also have pointed
2:58:21out
2:58:22the issue with content moderators does
2:58:24facebook have enough content moderations
2:58:26for content in spanish and other
2:58:28languages besides english
2:58:31um one of the things that was disclosed
2:58:35we have we have documentation that shows
2:58:38how much operational investment there
2:58:39was by different languages
2:58:41and it showed a consistent pattern of
2:58:44under investment in languages that are
2:58:45not english
2:58:48i
2:58:49am deeply concerned about facebook's
2:58:51ability to operate in a safe way in
2:58:52languages beyond maybe the top 20 in the
2:58:55world okay thank you
2:58:57we go back to eating disorders today
2:58:59you've said that you have documents
2:59:01indicating facebook is doing studies on
2:59:03kids under 13 even though technically no
2:59:05kids under 13 are permitted on the
2:59:07platform
2:59:08uh the potential for eating disorder
2:59:10content to be shown to these children
2:59:12raises serious concern senator
2:59:14blumenthal's been working on this i've
2:59:16long been focused on this eating
2:59:17disorder issue given the mortality rates
2:59:20are you aware of studies facebook has
2:59:22conducted about whether kids under 13
2:59:25under 13 on the platform are nudged
2:59:27towards content related to eating
2:59:29disorders or unhealthy diet practices
2:59:31cnn also did investigation on this front
2:59:35i have not seen specific studies
2:59:37regarding
2:59:38uh eating disorders in under the age of
2:59:4013 but i have seen research that
2:59:43indicates that they are aware
2:59:45that teenagers coach tweens who are on
2:59:49the platform
2:59:50to not reveal too much
2:59:52to
2:59:53not post too often and that they have
2:59:55categorized that as a myth that you
2:59:57can't be authentic on the platform
3:00:00and that the marketing team should talk
3:00:01should try to advertise to teenagers to
3:00:04stop coaching tweens that way
3:00:06um so we i believe we've shared that
3:00:08document with congress exactly well
3:00:10thank you and we'll be looking more
3:00:12speaking of the research issue
3:00:14um facebook has tried to downplay the
3:00:17internal research that was done saying
3:00:19it was unreliable reliable
3:00:22it seems to me that they're trying to
3:00:24mislead us there the research was
3:00:25extensive surveying hundreds of
3:00:27thousands of people traveling around the
3:00:29world to interview users in your view
3:00:31are the uh internal researchers at
3:00:33facebook who examine how users are
3:00:35affected by the platform
3:00:39is their work thorough
3:00:41are they experienced is it fair for
3:00:43facebook to throw them under the bus
3:00:45facebook has one of the top ranked
3:00:47research programs in in in the tech
3:00:49industry like they've invested more in
3:00:51it than and i than i believe any other
3:00:52social media platform and
3:00:55the some of the biggest heroes inside
3:00:57the company are the researchers because
3:00:59they are boldly asking real questions
3:01:01and being willing to say awkward truths
3:01:04um the fact that facebook is throwing
3:01:05them under the bus i think is
3:01:06unacceptable and i just want researchers
3:01:09to know that i stand with them and that
3:01:10i see them or maybe we should say as the
3:01:13name of one book the ugly truth
3:01:15uh what about facebook blocking
3:01:17researchers at nyu from accessing the
3:01:20platform does that concern you these are
3:01:22outside researchers um i am deeply
3:01:24concerned so for context for those who
3:01:26are not familiar with this research uh
3:01:27there are researchers at nyu who because
3:01:30facebook uh does not publish
3:01:33enough data on political advertisements
3:01:35or how they are distributed these are
3:01:37advertisements that influence our
3:01:39democracy and how it operates
3:01:42they created a plug-in that allowed
3:01:44people to opt-in to volunteer to help
3:01:46collect this data collectively
3:01:48and facebook lashed out at them and even
3:01:50banned some of their individual accounts
3:01:52the fact that facebook is so scared of
3:01:54even basic transparency that it it goes
3:01:57out of its way to block researchers who
3:01:59are asking awkward questions shows you
3:02:01the need for congressional oversight and
3:02:03why we need to do federal research and
3:02:05federal regulations on this very good
3:02:07thank you thank you for your work
3:02:10thanks senator klobuchar senator markey
3:02:15thank you um
3:02:16thank you mr chairman thank you for your
3:02:19incredible leadership on this issue
3:02:21um
3:02:22as early as 2012
3:02:25facebook has wanted to allow children
3:02:28under the age of 12
3:02:29to use this platform
3:02:31at that time in 2012 i wrote a letter to
3:02:33facebook
3:02:34asking questions about what data it
3:02:37planned to collect and whether the
3:02:39company intended to serve targeted ads
3:02:42at children
3:02:43now here we are nine years later
3:02:45debating the very same issues
3:02:48today um ms hogan
3:02:51you've made it abundantly clear why
3:02:53facebook wants to bring more children
3:02:55onto the platform
3:02:57it's to hook them early just like
3:02:59cigarettes so that they become lifelong
3:03:00users so facebook's profits increase
3:03:04yet we should also ask why in the last
3:03:07nine years
3:03:08has the company not launched facebook
3:03:10for kids or instagram for kids after all
3:03:13from the testimony here today facebook
3:03:14appears to act without regard to any
3:03:17moral code or any conscience or instead
3:03:20puts profit about people profit above
3:03:22all else the reason why facebook hasn't
3:03:26officially permitted kids 12 and under
3:03:29to use its platform is because the child
3:03:32online privacy protection act
3:03:34of 1998 that i'm the author of exists
3:03:39because there is a privacy law on the
3:03:41books which i authored that gives the
3:03:43federal trade commission regulatory
3:03:45power to stop websites and social media
3:03:48companies from invading the privacy of
3:03:51our children 12 and under
3:03:54that's why we need to expand the child
3:03:56online privacy protection act that's why
3:03:59we need to pass
3:04:01the kids act that senator blumenthal and
3:04:03i have introduced and why we need an
3:04:06algorithmic justice act
3:04:08to pass because the absence of
3:04:10regulation
3:04:11leads to harming teens stoking division
3:04:14damaging our democracy
3:04:17that's what you've told us today so ms
3:04:19hogan i want you to come back to the
3:04:21protections
3:04:22that you are calling on us
3:04:25to enact this isn't complicated
3:04:28we're going to be told online all day
3:04:31with these paid
3:04:33facebook people oh congress can't act
3:04:36they're not experts it's too complicated
3:04:39for
3:04:40uh congress just get out of the way
3:04:41you're not experts well
3:04:43this isn't complicated facebook and its
3:04:46big tech lobbyists are blocking
3:04:49my bills to protect kids because it
3:04:50would cost them money that's how
3:04:53complicated it is so let's start with
3:04:55the kids act that senator blumenthal and
3:04:57i that would ban influencer marketing to
3:05:00kids today's popular influencers pedal
3:05:04products while they flaunt their lavish
3:05:06lifestyles to young users can you
3:05:09explain
3:05:10how allowing influencer marketing to
3:05:12teens and children makes facebook more
3:05:15money
3:05:21the business model that provides mostly
3:05:23a great deal of the content on instagram
3:05:26is one where um people produce content
3:05:28for free
3:05:29they put on instagram free no one's
3:05:31charged for it but many of those content
3:05:33creators have sponsorships from
3:05:37from brands or from other
3:05:39affiliate programs
3:05:42facebook needs those content creators to
3:05:44continue to make content so that we will
3:05:46view content and in the process view
3:05:49more ads
3:05:50facebook
3:05:52provides tools to support influencers
3:05:54and who do influence their marketing
3:05:56because it gives them the supply of
3:05:58content that allows them to keep people
3:06:00on the platform viewing more ads making
3:06:02more money for them
3:06:03yeah so
3:06:05i am actually the author of the 1990
3:06:08children's television act what does that
3:06:11do
3:06:11well it says to all the television
3:06:13networks in america stop preying upon
3:06:15children
3:06:16stop using all of your power in order to
3:06:20try to get young children in our country
3:06:22hooked on the products that are going to
3:06:24be sold we had to pass a law
3:06:26to ban television stations from doing
3:06:28this
3:06:29that's why i knew that after my law
3:06:32passed in 1996 to break up the
3:06:34monopolies
3:06:36of the telecommunications industry and
3:06:38allow in
3:06:39the googles and the facebooks and all
3:06:43the other companies
3:06:44you name it that we would need a child
3:06:47privacy protection there because
3:06:48everyone would just move over to that
3:06:50new venue
3:06:51it was pretty obvious and of course the
3:06:53industry said no way we're going to have
3:06:55privacy laws
3:06:56for adults and they blocked me from
3:06:58putting that on the books in 1996.
3:07:00but at least for children i got up to
3:07:02age 12 that's all i could get out of the
3:07:05industry but
3:07:07we also
3:07:09know that
3:07:11as time has moved on it they become even
3:07:14more sophisticated
3:07:16so that
3:07:17the kids act is necessary to stop
3:07:20children and teen apps from being
3:07:22features such as likes and follower
3:07:25accounts that quantify popularity
3:07:28ms hogan can you explain how allowing
3:07:30these features that create an online
3:07:33popularity contest makes facebook more
3:07:35money
3:07:38um
3:07:40just to make sure so i i am only
3:07:42familiar with issues regarding teens
3:07:44from the the research i have read at
3:07:46facebook's um so i want to put that
3:07:48caveat on there
3:07:49the research i have seen with regard to
3:07:51quantifiable popularity is that as long
3:07:54as comments are allowed so this is not a
3:07:56quantitative thing which is just
3:07:57comments as long as long as comments are
3:08:00still on posts on instagram
3:08:02just taking likes off instagram
3:08:05doesn't fix the social comparison
3:08:07problem that you know teenage girls are
3:08:09smart they see that sally is prettier
3:08:11than them her pictures are really good
3:08:13she gets tons of comments they don't get
3:08:15very many comments right um and so uh i
3:08:18do think we need larger interventions
3:08:20than just removing quantitative measures
3:08:23um
3:08:25facebook has a product that is very
3:08:27attractive
3:08:29the reason why they have the study of
3:08:31problematic use is because it is kind of
3:08:32addictive and those kinds of things like
3:08:35having lots of little feedback loops
3:08:37keeps kids engaged and like i mentioned
3:08:40earlier part of why facebook switched
3:08:42over to meaningful social interactions
3:08:44was it found that if you got more likes
3:08:46more comments more research you produced
3:08:48more content
3:08:50and so having those systems of little
3:08:53rewards makes people produce more
3:08:55content which means we view more content
3:08:57and we view more ads which makes them
3:08:58more money okay and
3:09:00the kids act that senator blumenthal and
3:09:03i are advocating for also
3:09:05um prohibits amplification of dangerous
3:09:07and violent
3:09:09content to children and teens can you
3:09:11explain how algorithms pushing that
3:09:13dangerous content makes facebook more
3:09:15money
3:09:18i don't think facebook ever set out to
3:09:20intentionally promote
3:09:22divisive extreme polarizing content
3:09:25i do think though that they are aware of
3:09:27the side effects of the choices they
3:09:29have made around amplification and they
3:09:31know that algorithmic based ranking so
3:09:34engagement based ranking keeps you on
3:09:36their sites longer
3:09:37you have long you have longer sessions
3:09:39you show up more often and that makes
3:09:41them more money
3:09:42so do you believe we have to ban all
3:09:45features
3:09:46that quantify popularity as a starting
3:09:50point in legislation
3:09:52um
3:09:53as i as i covered before the internal
3:09:56research i've seen is that removing
3:09:58things like likes alone if you don't
3:09:59remove things like comments
3:10:01doesn't have a huge impact on social
3:10:03comparison so i do believe we need to
3:10:05have a more integrated um solution for
3:10:07these issues do should we ban targeted
3:10:10advertisements to children i strongly
3:10:12encourage banning targeted
3:10:13advertisements to children and we need
3:10:15to have oversight in terms of i think
3:10:18the algorithms will likely still learn
3:10:20the interests of kids and match ads
3:10:22those kids even if the advertiser can't
3:10:24articulate and want to target on this
3:10:26interest right how much money does
3:10:28facebook made make from targeting
3:10:30children
3:10:31i don't know what fraction of their
3:10:32revenue comes from children okay so
3:10:34ultimately children are not commodities
3:10:36no they've always been given
3:10:38historically special protections that's
3:10:41what the children's television act of
3:10:431990 is all about
3:10:46they've always been given this special
3:10:48safety zone so that children can grow up
3:10:51without being preyed upon
3:10:54by marketers
3:10:56and i was a boy
3:10:58and the salesman would knock on the
3:10:59front door my mother would just say tell
3:11:01them i'm not home
3:11:03that man is not getting into our living
3:11:05room
3:11:06well i would say to my
3:11:08mother but you are home not to him
3:11:12well
3:11:13we need to give parents the ability just
3:11:15to say
3:11:16no one's home for you
3:11:19and your company and your attempts to
3:11:20prey upon children to get into our
3:11:22living room
3:11:23that's our moment in history we have to
3:11:25make sure that we respond to the
3:11:27challenge thank you mr chairman
3:11:29thank you uh senator markey and my
3:11:31thanks to senator markey for his
3:11:33leadership over many years
3:11:35on protecting children
3:11:37as you've heard he
3:11:39was a
3:11:41champion in the house of representatives
3:11:43for coming here well before i was in
3:11:46the united states senate but around the
3:11:48time i was elected attorney general i've
3:11:50been very pleased and honored to work
3:11:52with him on
3:11:53legislation now going forward and i
3:11:56joined him in thanking you i have just a
3:11:58few concluding questions and
3:12:00i seem to be the last one left standing
3:12:03here so the good news is i don't think
3:12:07we'll have others but
3:12:09as you may know
3:12:10um
3:12:12you do know my office created
3:12:14an instagram user identified as a 13
3:12:17year old
3:12:18girl
3:12:20she followed a few
3:12:21easily identifiable
3:12:23accounts on
3:12:26weight loss dieting eating disorders and
3:12:29she was deluged literally within a day
3:12:33of
3:12:35content
3:12:36pushed to her by
3:12:38algorithms
3:12:40that
3:12:41in effect promoted
3:12:44self-injury and eating disorders are you
3:12:46surprised by that fact
3:12:48i'm not surprised by that fact facebook
3:12:50has internal research where they have
3:12:52done even um more gentle versions of
3:12:55that experiment where they have started
3:12:56from things like interest in healthy
3:12:58recipes so not even extreme dieting and
3:13:01because of the nature of engagement
3:13:03based ranking and amplification of
3:13:05interests
3:13:06that ver that that imaginary user was
3:13:08pushed or that that really count was
3:13:11pushed towards extreme dieting and pro
3:13:12anorexia content very rapidly
3:13:15and that's the algorithm that's the
3:13:17algorithm
3:13:19that algorithm could be changed
3:13:21the algorithm definitely could be
3:13:22changed i i have first-hand experience
3:13:24from having worked at pinterest
3:13:25pinterest used to be an application that
3:13:27was heavily based just on you follow
3:13:29certain people's pins
3:13:31and those are put into your feed
3:13:33and over time it grew to be much much
3:13:35more heavily based on recommendations
3:13:37that the algorithm would figure out what
3:13:39are you interested in
3:13:42you can have wonderful experiences that
3:13:44are based on human interactions so these
3:13:46are human scale technologies not
3:13:48computers choosing what we focus on
3:13:52so the average parent listening here
3:13:55worried about
3:13:56their daughter or son
3:13:59being deluged with these kinds of
3:14:03content
3:14:05would want that kind of algorithm
3:14:07changed i would think and would welcome
3:14:09the oversight that you're recommending
3:14:12i i believe parents deserve more options
3:14:14and more choices and today they don't
3:14:16know even what they could be asking for
3:14:19i just received by text literally
3:14:23about
3:14:2415 minutes ago
3:14:26a message from someone in connecticut
3:14:30and i'm going to read it to you
3:14:32it's from a dad
3:14:34um
3:14:38i'm in tears right now
3:14:41watching your interaction
3:14:44with francis haugen
3:14:46my 15 year old daughter loved her body
3:14:48at 14
3:14:49was on instagram constantly
3:14:53and maybe posting too much suddenly she
3:14:56started hating her body
3:14:58her body dysmorphia now anorexia
3:15:01and was in deep deep trouble before we
3:15:03found treatment
3:15:05i fear she'll never be the same
3:15:09i'm brokenhearted
3:15:12i think people tend to lose sight of the
3:15:14real world impact yeah
3:15:17and
3:15:19i think that's the reason that you're
3:15:20here
3:15:23i'd just like to invite you
3:15:26if you have any words to those
3:15:28other
3:15:31employees at big tech the workers who
3:15:33may be troubled by the misconduct or
3:15:36unethical conduct
3:15:38that they see what you would tell them
3:15:44we live in
3:15:45a pattern that we have seen throughout
3:15:46time with regard to technologies is that
3:15:49humans are very crafty people like we
3:15:51find interesting solutions but we often
3:15:53get out over our skis
3:15:55right we develop things that are of a
3:15:57larger scale than we know really know
3:15:59how to handle
3:16:00and what we have done in the past is
3:16:02when we see this happen we take a step
3:16:04back and we find institutions and we
3:16:06find frameworks for doing these things
3:16:08in a safe way
3:16:11we live in a moment where whistleblowers
3:16:13are very important because these
3:16:15technological systems are walled off
3:16:17they are very complicated they're things
3:16:19that you need to be a specialist to
3:16:21really understand the consequences of
3:16:23and the fact that we've been having the
3:16:24exact same kinds of false choice
3:16:27discussions about what to do about
3:16:28facebook you know is it about privacy or
3:16:30oversight is it about censorship or
3:16:33safety like the fact that we're being
3:16:35asked these false choices is just an
3:16:37illustration of what happens when the
3:16:39real solutions are hidden inside of
3:16:41companies
3:16:42we need more um tech employees to come
3:16:45forward through legitimate channels like
3:16:47the sec or congress
3:16:49to make sure that the public has the
3:16:51information they need in order to have
3:16:53technologies be human-centric
3:16:55not not not computer-centric
3:16:58thank you
3:16:59uh on that note we'll conclude
3:17:02thank you for an extraordinary
3:17:05testimony
3:17:07uh i think that uh anybody watching
3:17:09would be impressed and much better
3:17:11informed
3:17:12and you've done
3:17:14america real public service thank you
3:17:18the record will remain open for a week
3:17:20i'm sorry for two weeks any senators who
3:17:22want to
3:17:23submit questions for the records should
3:17:25do so by october
3:17:27october 19th
3:17:28this hearing is adjourned thank you
3:17:49so
3:18:35you

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