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Twitter: Transparency and Accountability This is a preliminary, unedited transcript. The statements within may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misattributed to the speaker. A link to the final, official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available. 1 1 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC. 2 RPTS SAM WOJACK 3 HIF248000 4 5 6 TWITTER: TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY 7 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2018 8 House of Representatives 9 Committee on Energy and Commerce 10 Washington, D.C. 11 12 13 14 The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:30 p.m., in Room 15 2123 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Greg Walden [chairman 16 of the committee] presiding. 17 Members present: Representatives Walden, Barton, Upton, 18 Shimkus, Burgess, Scalise, Latta, McMorris Rodgers, Harper, 19 Lance, Guthrie, Olson, McKinley, Kinzinger, Griffith, Bilirakis, 20 Johnson, Long, Bucshon, Flores, Brooks, Mullin, Hudson, Collins, 21 Cramer, Walberg, Walters, Costello, Carter, Duncan, Pallone, 22 Rush, Engel, Green, DeGette, Doyle, Schakowsky, Butterfield, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com This is a preliminary, unedited transcript. The statements within may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misattributed to the speaker. A link to the final, official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available. 2 23 Matsui, Castor, Sarbanes, McNerney, Welch, Lujan, Tonko, Clarke, 24 Loebsack, Schrader, Kennedy, Cardenas, Ruiz, Peters, and Dingell. 25 26 Staff present: Jon Adame, Policy Coordinator, 27 Communications & Technology; Jennifer Barblan, Chief Counsel, 28 Oversight & Investigations; Mike Bloomquist, Deputy Staff 29 Director; Karen Christian, General Counsel; Robin Colwell, Chief 30 Counsel, Communications & Technology; Jordan Davis, Director of 31 Policy and External Affairs; Melissa Froelich, Chief Counsel, 32 Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Adam Fromm, Director 33 of Outreach and Coalitions; Ali Fulling, Legislative Clerk, 34 Oversight & Investigations, Digital Commerce and Consumer 35 Protection; Elena Hernandez, Press Secretary; Zach Hunter, 36 Director of Communications; Paul Jackson, Professional Staff, 37 Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Peter Kielty, Deputy 38 General Counsel; Bijan Koohmaraie, Counsel, Digital Commerce and 39 Consumer Protection; Tim Kurth, Senior Professional Staff, 40 Communications & Technology; Milly Lothian, Press Assistant and 41 Digital Coordinator; Mark Ratner, Policy Coordinator; Austin 42 Stonebraker, Press Assistant; Madeline Vey, Policy Coordinator, 43 Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Jessica Wilkerson, 44 Professional Staff, Oversight & Investigations; Greg Zerzan, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com This is a preliminary, unedited transcript. The statements within may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misattributed to the speaker. A link to the final, official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available. 3 45 Counsel, Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Michelle Ash, 46 Minority Chief Counsel, Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; 47 Jeff Carroll, Minority Staff Director; Jennifer Epperson, 48 Minority FCC Detailee; Evan Gilbert, Minority Press Assistant; 49 Lisa Goldman, Minority Counsel; Tiffany Guarascio, Minority 50 Deputy Staff Director and Chief Health Advisor; Carolyn Hann, 51 Minority FTC Detailee; Alex Hoehn-Saric, Minority Chief Counsel, 52 Communications and Technology; Jerry Leverich, Minority Counsel; 53 Jourdan Lewis, Minority Staff Assistant; Dan Miller, Minority 54 Policy Analyst; Caroline Paris-Behr, Minority Policy Analyst; 55 Kaitlyn Peel, Minority Digital Director; Andrew Souvall, Minority 56 Director of Communications, Outreach and Member Services; and 57 C.J. Young, Minority Press Secretary. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com This is a preliminary, unedited transcript. The statements within may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misattributed to the speaker. A link to the final, official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available. 4 58 The Chairman. The Committee on Energy and Commerce will 59 now come to order. The chair now recognizes himself for five 60 minutes for purposes of an opening statement. 61 Good afternoon, and thank you, Mr. Dorsey, for being before 62 the Energy and Commerce Committee today. 63 The company you and your co-creators founded 12 years ago 64 has become one of the most recognizable businesses in the world. 65 66 Twitter has reached that rarified place where using the 67 service has become a verb, instantly recognized around the globe. 68 Just as people can Google a question or Gram a photo, everyone 69 knows what it means to tweet one's thoughts or ideas. 70 The list of superlatives to describe Twitter certainly 71 exceeds 280 characters. It is one of the most downloaded apps 72 in the world, one of the most visited websites. 73 It is one of the world's premier sources for breaking news. 74 Its power and reach are so great that society-changing events 75 like the Arab Spring have been dubbed the Twitter Revolution. 76 The service allows anyone with access to the internet the 77 power to broadcast his or her views to the world. It's truly 78 revolutionary in the way that the Gutenberg press was 79 revolutionary. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com This is a preliminary, unedited transcript. The statements within may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misattributed to the speaker. A link to the final, official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available. 5 80 It helps set information free. It allows ideas to propagate 81 and challenge established ways of thinking. Twitter's success 82 and growth rate has been extraordinary but it is not without 83 controversy. 84 The service has been banned at various times and in various 85 countries, such as China and Iran. Here in the United States 86 the company itself has come under criticism for impeding the 87 ability of some users to post information, remove tweets, and 88 other content moderation practices. 89 For instance, in July it was reported that some politically 90 prominent users were no longer appearing as auto-populated 91 options in certain search results. 92 This led to concerns that the service might be, quote, 93 unquote, "shadow banning" some users in an attempt to limit their 94 visibility on the site. 95 Now, this was hardly the first instance of a social media 96 service taking actions which appeared to minimize or de-emphasize 97 certain viewpoints, and in the most recent case, Twitter has 98 stated that the action were not intentional but, rather, the 99 result of algorithms designed to maintain a more civil tone on 100 the site. 101 Twitter is also -- Twitter has also direction the issue of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com This is a preliminary, unedited transcript. The statements within may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misattributed to the speaker. A link to the final, official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available. 6 102 "bots," or automated accounts, not controlled by one person. 103 Even the removal of these bots from the service raise questions 104 about how the bots were identified because the number of followers 105 someone has on Twitter has real economic value in our economy. 106 We recognize the complexity of trying to manage your service, 107 which posts over half a million tweets a day. I believe you were 108 once temporarily suspended from Twitter due to an internal error 109 yourself. 110 We do not want to lose sight of a few fundamental facts. 111 Humans are building the algorithms, humans are making decisions 112 about how to implement Twitter's terms of service, and humans 113 are recommending changes to Twitter's policies. 114 Humans can make mistakes. Now, Twitter manages those 115 circumstances as critically important in an environment where 116 algorithms to decide what we see in our home feed, ads, and search 117 suggestions on. 118 It is critical that users are confident that you're living 119 up to your own promises. According to Twitter rules, the company 120 believes that everyone should have the power to create and share 121 ideas and information instantly without barriers. 122 Well, that's a noble mission and one that as a private company 123 you certainly do not have to take on. The fact that you have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com This is a preliminary, unedited transcript. The statements within may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misattributed to the speaker. A link to the final, official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available. 7 124 done so as enriched the world, changed societies, and given an 125 outlet to voices that might otherwise never be heard. 126 We, and the American people, want to be reassured that you're 127 continuing to live up to that mission. We hope you can help us 128 better understand how Twitter decides when to suspend a user or 129 ban them from the service and what you do to ensure that such 130 decisions are made without undue bias. 131 We hope you can help us better understand what role automated 132 algorithms have in this process and how those algorithms are 133 designed to ensure consistent outcomes and a fair process.
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