It was during a Senate Judiciary Hearing on November 17, 2020.
Josh Hawley: (02:45:56)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the late 19th century, the heads of the biggest corporations in America, the robber barons, got together and they set rates, they set prices, they determined how they would control information flow. They determined how they’d get rid of competition. And I’ll be darned if we aren’t right back there again. Except for this time, you’re the robber barons. Your companies are the most powerful companies in the world and I want to talk about how you’re coordinating together to control information. In recent days, my office was contacted by a Facebook whistleblower, a former employee of the company, with direct knowledge of the company’s content moderation practices. And I want to start by talking about an internal platform called Tasks that Facebook uses to coordinate projects, including censorship. The Tasks platform allows Facebook employees to communicate about projects they’re working on together. That includes Facebook’s censorship teams, including the so-called community wellbeing team, the integrity team, and the hate speech engineering team, who all use the task platform to discuss which individuals or hashtags or websites to ban. Now, Mr. Zuckerberg, you’re familiar with the test platform, aren’t you?Mr. Zuckerberg: (02:47:11)
Senator, we use the Task system for, I think it’s, as you say, for people coordinating all kinds of work across the company, although I’m not sure if I’d agree with the characterization specifically around content moderation that you gave.Josh Hawley: (02:47:28)
Well, let’s get into that. And let me see if we can refresh your memory and provide folks at home watching with an example. Here over my shoulder is an example, is a screenshot of the Task platform in use. You’ll notice, if the cameras zoom in, several references to election integrity throughout on these lists of tasks. Again, this is shared across Facebook sites, company locations by working groups. What particularly intrigued me is that the platform reflects censorship input from Google and Twitter as well. So as I understand it, Facebook censorship teams communicate with their counterparts at Twitter and Google, and then enter those companies suggestions for censorship onto the task platform so that Facebook can then follow up with them and effectively coordinate their censorship efforts. Mr. Zuckerberg, let me just ask you directly under oath now, does Facebook coordinate its content moderation policies or efforts in any way with Google or Twitter?Mr. Zuckerberg: (02:48:32)
Senator, let me be clear about this. We do coordinate on and share signals on security related topics. So for example, if there is signal around a terrorist attack or around child exploitation imagery or around a foreign government creating an influence operation, that is an area where the companies do share signals about what they see. But I think it’s important to be very clear that that is distinct from the content and moderation policies that we or the other companies have, where once we share intelligence or signals between the companies, each company makes its own assessment of the right way to address and deal with that information.Josh Hawley: (02:49:21)
Well, I’m talking about content moderation, I’m talking about individuals, websites, hashtags, phrases to ban. Is it your testimony that you do not communicate with Twitter or Google about content moderation, about individuals, websites, phrases, hashtags to ban? Just yes or no? Do you communicate with Twitter or Google about coordinating your policies in this way?Mr. Zuckerberg: (02:49:46)
Senator, we do not coordinate our policies.Josh Hawley: (02:49:49)
Do your Facebook content moderation teams communicate with their counterparts at Twitter or Google?Mr. Zuckerberg: (02:49:56)
Senator, I’m not aware of anything specific, but I think it would be probably pretty normal for people to talk to their peers and colleagues in the industry. [crosstalk 02:50:05]