Statement of Nick Pickles Senior Strategist Public Policy ​T​witter Inc Before the Committee on the Judiciary United States House of Representatives July 17 2018 Chairman Goodlatte Ranking Member Nadler and Members of the Committee Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today We appreciate the Committee’s inquiries about Twitter’s content moderation policies and we are pleased to be here to share our story We are delighted that in the United States all 100 senators 50 governors and almost every member of the House of Representatives have official Twitter accounts which are used to engage in local national and global conversations on a wide range of issues of civic importance We also partner with news organizations on a regular basis to live-stream congressional hearings and political events giving users a front-row seat to history from their smartphones or computer screens Our purpose is to serve the public conversation As part of that there are certain responsibilities we consider core to our company We must ensure that all voices can be heard We must make it so that everyone feels safe participating in the conversation ‒ whether they are speaking or simply listening And we must ensure people can trust in the credibility of the conversation and those taking part Our commitment to this work is at the very heart of why people come to Twitter We are also committed to improving the health of the public conversation and the health of the conversation on Twitter Consistent with that effort we have made more than 30 policy and product changes since the beginning of last year aimed at improving health on our platform Our data show we are making progress in advancing this goal We are also seeking to collaborate with outside experts to better define and measure the health of the public conversation We have requested proposals and will be announcing the outcome of 1 that process soon And we are committed to sharing the results of our collaboration so that other organizations can benefit from that work Threats of violence abusive conduct and harassment can have the effect of bullying voices into silence thereby robbing other Twitter users of valuable perspectives and threatening the freedom of expression that Twitter seeks to foster We want to ensure that Twitter continues to be a safe space for our users to share their viewpoints with the broader Twitter community To do that we must keep Twitter safe for all viewpoints and opinions even those viewpoints and opinions that some of our users may find objectionable or with which they vehemently disagree ‒ so long as the content is not in violation of the Twitter Rules We do not believe that censorship will solve political or societal challenges or that removing certain content could resolve disagreements or address prejudices We are committed to protecting speech and promoting the health of the public conversation on our platform Accordingly the Twitter Rules prohibit certain types of behavior on our platform Because abusive activity ‒ and the challenge of detecting and curtailing it ‒ is not static and has evolved over time those rules continue to be developed and refined over the years as well Our rules are laid out in detailed and plain language in our Help Center which can be found at help twitter com​ They are not based on ideology or a particular set of beliefs Instead the Twitter Rules are based on behavioral contexts For example our rules prohibit making specific threats of violence or wishing for the serious physical harm death or disease of an individual or group of people Our rules also govern other abusive activity on the platform For example we prohibit malicious automation spam impersonation accounts and the use of multiple accounts for overlapping purposes Again all of these rules are based on problematic behaviors not the content of the Tweets or any ideology We also have stringent rules and policies that govern advertising on the platform Advertising on Twitter generally takes the form of promoted Tweets which advertisers can use to reach new users Because promoted Tweets are presented to users from accounts they have not yet chosen to follow Twitter applies a robust set of policies that prohibit among other things ads for illegal goods and services ads making misleading or deceptive claims ads for drugs or drug paraphernalia ads containing hate content sensitive topics and violence and ads containing offensive or inflammatory content These policies are laid out at twitter com adspolicy 2 We see a range of groups across the political spectrum use our advertising products to promote content about a variety of issues ranging from immigration to tax reform Like any account that uses our advertising products those groups are all bound by the same Twitter ads policies and Twitter Rules Both organic and promoted content can be reported by our users We address such reports with a combination of technology and human review approaches Machine learning improvements are enabling us to be more proactive in finding those who are being disruptive but user reports are still a highly valuable part of our work When evaluating these reports we take into account a variety of factors and context including whether the behavior is directed at an individual a group or a protected category of people We also take into account whether the user has a history of violating our policies as well as the severity of the violation Accounts that violate our policies and the Twitter Rules can be subject to a range of enforcement actions including temporary and in some cases permanent suspension We recognize that a lack of transparency in enforcement actions can lead to a lack of public understanding about what an individual may have done to warrant action and we have taken meaningful steps to address this where possible For example where appropriate users are now notified of the specific Tweet that we determined to be in violation of our rules we also alert those users to the specific rule they violated Our Safety Center houses information about our rules tools philosophy and partnerships to further explain our work in this area We explain our approach to enforcement in greater detail here ​help twitter com en rules-and-policies enforcement-philosophy Because our enforcement process typically relies on both automated and manual human review we often have to make tough calls and we do not always get things right ‒ especially given the scope and scale of a platform such as Twitter where users collectively post hundreds of millions of Tweets each day When we make a mistake we acknowledge it and strive to learn from it We are committed to being direct and engaged with our users and the public ‒ including elected officials ‒ when we get things wrong Where we identify suspicious account activity ​e g ​ exceptionally high-volume Tweeting with the same hashtag or mentioning the same @handle without a reply from the account being addressed we automatically send the account owner a test to confirm he or she is still in control of the account These automated tests vary depending on the type of suspicious activity we detect and may involve the account owner completing a simple reCAPTCHA challenge or a password reset request We do not immediately remove content as part of these automated tests but limit its visibility until the test is passed 3 This approach has proven effective in helping us address malicious automation and spam on our platform In May 2018 for example our systems identified and challenged more than 9 9 million potentially spammy or automated accounts per week That is an increase from 6 4 million in December 2017 and 3 2 million in September Due to technology and process improvements during the past year we are now removing 214 percent more accounts for violating our spam policies on a year-on-year basis At the same time the average number of spam reports we received through our reporting flow continued to drop ‒ from an average of approximately 25 000 per day in March to approximately 17 000 per day in May We’ve also seen a 10 percent drop in spam reports from search as a result of our recent changes These metrics demonstrate our progress but our work will never be complete Bad actors change their behavior and we are constantly evaluating new threats and behavior Among other things we rely on our detection tools to identify people who have been suspended from the platform and who have created a new Twitter account or those who use multiple accounts for the same purpose We have also taken additional proactive steps recently to make follower counts more meaningful and accurate by removing locked accounts from follower counts globally This step is a reflection of our ongoing commitment to the health of Twitter and a desire to ensure indicators that users rely on to make judgements about an account are as accurate as possible Our process applies to all accounts active on the platform regardless of the content they post Another critical part of our commitment to health is changing how we think about the areas on Twitter where our systems curate how information is presented In places like search and conversations where we try to present content we believe you are most likely to find interesting we are increasingly relying on behavior to help us make those determinations To help us do that we recently took steps to more effectively address behaviors and activity on the platform that do not necessarily violate our policies but that distort and detract from the public conversation Most significantly this approach enables us to improve the overall health of the conversation without needing to remove content from Twitter Ultimately everyone’s comments and perspectives are available but those who are simply looking to disrupt the conversation will not be rewarded by having their Tweets placed at the top of the conversation or search results 4 Early results demonstrated that this approach has a positive impact resulting in a four percent decrease in abuse reports from search and eight percent fewer abuse reports from conversations Some critics have described the sum of all of this work as a banning of conservative voices Let me make clear to the Committee today that these claims are unfounded and false In fact we have deliberately taken this approach as a robust defense against bias as it requires us to define and act upon bad conduct not a specific type of speech Our purpose is to serve the conversation not to make value judgments on personal beliefs Our success as a company depends on making Twitter a safe place for free expression and a place that serves healthy public conversation We know that Twitter plays an increasingly vital role in the world and we know there is much work for us to do to make it even better And we are committed to continue to improve transparency and visibility to the people using our service Thank you again and I look forward to your 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