Untitled episode

I now recognize recognize the ranking member the gentleman from Maryland Mr ivy for his opening statement thank you Mr chairman um I have to say I I I have a slightly different take on this than my friend from North Carolina um in a variety of ways I I think that the the claims about um sisa being a giant censorship entity uh completely misses the mark u

based on the transcripts that I've seen of testimony that's been given by this committee and uh to this committee and other committees here in the house uh for example this is a statement from Brandon Wales he's the assist executive director sisa does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship any such claims or patent false we can go through a few of these others and

we will uh including the testimony that I had mentioned a moment ago for example um Mr Masterson now Masterson was a an interesting individual who came up through the Republican Party in the Ohio state election boards um he now works for Microsoft but he made a couple of statements um with respect to this issue um one uh they were never compelled they never compelled the um

the platforms to take positions or take down information in other words they never forced censorship to happen of any kind uh no I don't recall that happening in my experience no uh and there's a couple other quotes from him that I'd like to share on this front too uh do you have any uh at any point in your experience working at sis were you advised that

you had the authority to compel a social media company to take any particular action related to any particular content on social media no I don't recall that happening in my experience no do you have that did you ever try to exercise that Authority no I don't recall ever perceiving that I had that Authority uh Mr Stamos who was just mentioned a moment ago um also is

testified here in the house um to be clear at no time did the EIP censor speech or have access to backend platform systems or data outside of public content the EIP did not take down posts or apply labels and had no power to do so the EIP did not create targeting lists or black list of accounts and the list of accounts included in our reports as

the top spreaders of false information were generated by our own analysis which importantly occurred after the election that Mr samel was the person who uh was the tape was played a moment ago um by the chairman we've got more of those but I I I need to move forward because I think on a couple of fronts here um we have to address the reality of what's

going on I think behind some of this there a lot of of conspiracy theories that persist that are in my view dangerously weaking America's ability to Def defend itself against foreign attacks from Russia China and Iran some of these attacks focus on Americans election and our election apparatus es especially since we haven't fully responded to uh in the wake of the 2016 and 20 attacks with

respect to those elections in 2017 the Trump administration's National Security strategy included a section on information statecraft naming Russia and China among the aderer seeking to quote weaponizing information close quote for strategic gain or uh and control adversaries of the United States leverage influence operations and disinformation campaigns to degrade confidence in key institutions so civil Discord and undermine us pillars of power for example Russian interference

in the 2016 presidential election um I I think is a powerful example I know there's been a lot of political debate about you know collusion and other issues but the Senate intelligence committee found that uh Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack Democratic party networks and accounts to leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton um there's also information with respect to Iranians uh trying to do the

same thing on the opposite side posing his proud boys to intimidate voters in the 2020 election uh that's based on an indictment the Department of Justice is Prosecuting individuals involved in that case but that's on the other side of this from my perspective this isn't a partisan issue uh that was an attempt apparently to in their view help the uh the Biden campaign um but I

also think we have to focus on this because we Face internal dangers that can come from the internet and some of the information that's being abused on that front the January 6th attack uh against the capital um was aimed at preventing the lawful and peaceful transfer of power uh the internet was used the social media platforms were used essentially as the the principal means of communications

from many of those activities um and also some of the in my view U false uh conspiracy theories that have grown out of that like the ghost buses issue that was raised here in this in this committee a few weeks ago uh I think is disinformation that uh we we need to address the recent Osama Bin Laden letter which um you know got viral on the

internet and ended up I think it had over two million views but essentially was espousing the uh Bin Laden's view that the United States is an evil country that 911 was an appropriate attack on the United States uh and um I'm concerned about the impact it could had for example on Lone Wolf individuals in the United States and there are other kind of efforts like that

that are aimed at reaching out directly to people in the United States to encourage them to Eng engage in Terrorist activities this is an article from The Washington Post how Osama Bin Laden's letter to America reached Millions online videoos citing the document had been viewed far less than many Tik Tock posts then a journalist made a compilation and posted it on X causing attention to the

manifesto to explode that was dated November 16 2023 and I offer it for the record uh ordered to be submitted I I think it's important for sisa to continue to not only exist but continue to operate at full capacity I know there have been some efforts to reduce its capabilities but um you know uh the 2018 and 20120 Cycles um the censorship issu s connected election

stakeholders to social media platforms and the nonpartisan manner by forwarding election disinformation reporting from election officials of both parties to the re platforms um I believe we've got an email here from the RNC that was sent uh to sisa this is um again in an effort to be bipartisan on this front the RNC detected um misinformation that was being circulated in Philadelphia during that campaign cycle

that election workers were going to be paid and uh that was incorrect uh it worked its way up the chain I didn't put all of the emails on this uh on this board here but at the end of it they sent it to sisa seeking help into uh dis you know taking down the information uh so the disinformation wouldn't spread I don't know if um you

know those that kind of funding is illegal in Pennsylvania but I think the the main point is that the RNC at least in that election cycle didn't view this as um some sort of censorship effort this was just an effort to make sure that they got correct information out to uh the public uh and that's true in other scenarios too one of the issues that we've

seen pop up false information with respect to elections it's the election is going to happen on Wednesday instead of Tuesday the government needs to be able to correct that kind of misinformation um also there's a point I want to make too about this I think the argument seems to be that um sisa was essentially compelling people uh these platforms to remove or edit information that was

available on that platform um but all the emails that we've seen had a a disclaimer that was displayed on the screen um up here okay this is attached and you can see down at the bottom of it there basically it says um quote siso affirms that it neither has nor seeks the ability to remove or edit what information is made available on social media platforms sisa

makes no recommendation about how the information that is sharing should be handled or used by social media companies thank you social media platforms make their own decisions regarding the content on their platforms and each had their own rules regarding the labeling and removal of Miss and disinformation um of the post flagged uh by the EIP platforms took action on 35% 21% were labeled 13% were removed

1% were soft blocked um no action was taken on 65% of those this is not government censorship or censorship by proxy social media companies are privately owned and make content decisions based on their terms of service I also want to raise this issue with respect to the elections that are coming up um state and local officials in these elections are seeking the assistance of not only

the federal government but of each other because a lot of these challenges that arise uh have nationwide impact and affect their different states even if it if the misinformation or or false information arises somewhere else so state and local officials from 21 different states requested cti's assistance leading up to the 2020 election including Republican officials to address foreign influence operations and disinformation uh Kentucky State officials

flag tweets that FL falsely indicated democr ratic votes were being undercounted in favor of Republican votes during a contentious Senate race uh a county in Florida for the the supervisor of election shared threats emailed to democratic voters the Donald Trump campaign in the RNC flagged in misinformation about an RNC volunteer stien program we showed that already according to an April 2023 survey 85% of local election

officials responded that it is beneficial quote for sisa to dispel false about elections by promoting accurate information on Election Administration and Technology close quote um I I will wind this up I do want to get to the testimony of of both panels but I did want to raise uh this point these points about the the Missouri V Biden case um I think it's important to note

that the fifth circuit um put a stay on the rulings that the district court had issued uh particularly with respect to the uh limitations on the government from having uh interactions with social media platforms um I guess the The District Court had imposed essentially a total restriction on it the the fifth circuit rolled that back uh and I I think it's fair I've read some versions

of this and I've read the opinion myself that some of the opinions The District Court's opin information is based on false information or misinformation as well so I'm hoping that U as this case Works its way through the courts and I wouldn't be shocked if the Supreme Court remanded it for additional findings effect uh that a lot of this will be addressed but the main point

I want to make uh before I wrap up is that uh I'm concerned that there's been a chilling effect with respect to uh sisa uh the social media platforms people who are doing re research um they're concerned about if they raise their head up the they get in trouble they get subpoenas they get um doxed um and I we got a couple of statements with respect

to that but uh I I think it's important for us to make sure that we want to make sure we there's no censorship going on I think that my colleagues on the other side have significantly overstated that B on based on the transcripts I've seen but importantly I think it's we have to keep in mind that not only do we have to worry about making sure

we have the apparatus in place for example to deal with child sexual exploitation and terrorism online uh but also that we're able to address election issues other types of foreign attacks that might be encouraging people to engage in terrorism or the like we have to make sure that we have that capability up and ready to go that people feel that they can uh do the work

and uh you know reach their own conclusions we might disagree about those conclusions whether particular social media platform takes information down or not I don't know there's going to be Universal agreement on all of that but I think we need to make sure that people feel they can operate and U in a in a safe environment and that includes exercising their first amendment rights so Mr

chairman we may draw the line in different places clearly we do but I think our ultimate goal is the same but with that I yield back thank you