STATEMENT OF JOAN DONOVAN PHD DIRECTOR OF THE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL CHANGE RESEARCH PROJECT AT HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL’S SHORENSTEIN CENTER ON MEDIA POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY HEARING ON “AMERICANS AT RISK MANIPULATION AND DECEPTION IN THE DIGITAL AGE” BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION AND COMMERCE OF THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE DECEMBER 5 2019 Online fraud is a great deal more widespread than many understand Beyond malware spam and phishing attacks beyond credit card scams and product knock-offs there is a growing threat from new forms of identity fraud enabled by technological design Platform companies are unable to manage this alone and Americans need governance 1 Online deception is now a multimillion-dollar global industry My research team tracks dangerous individuals and groups who use social media to pose as political campaigns social movements news organizations charities brands and average people This emerging economy of misinformation is a threat to national security Silicon Valley corporations are largely profiting from it while key political and social institutions are struggling to win back the public's trust 2 Platforms have done more than just given users a voice online They have effectively given them the equivalent of their own broadcast station emboldening the most malicious among us 3 To wreak havoc with a media manipulation campaign all one bad actor needs is motivation Money also helps But that's enough to create chaos and divert significant resources from civil society 1 Klonick Kate “The New Governors The People Rules and Processes Governing Online Speech ” 131 Harv L Rev 1598 https harvardlawreview org wp-content uploads 2018 04 1598-1670_Online pdf 2 Funke Daniel Susan Benkelman and Cristina Tardáguila 2019 “Factually How Misinformation Makes Money ” American Press Institute https www americanpressinstitute org fact-checking-project factuallynewsletter factually-how-misinformation-makes-money Vaidhyanathan Siva 2018 Antisocial Media How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy New York NY United States of America Oxford University Press 3 Glaser April 2019 “Bring Back the Golden Age of Broadcast Regulation Especially for YouTube and Facebook ” Slate Magazine https slate com technology 2019 06 youtube-facebook-hate-speechregulation-how html politicians newsrooms healthcare providers and even law enforcement who are tasked with repairing the damage 4 We currently do not know the true costs of misinformation Individuals and groups can quickly weaponize social media to cause others financial and physical injury For example 1 Fraudsters using President Trump's image name logo and voice have siphoned millions from his supporters by claiming to be part of his re-election coalition 5 In an election year disinformation and donation scams should be a concern for everyone 6 2 Along with my co-researchers Brian Friedberg and Brandi Collins-Dexter I have studied malicious groups particularly white supremacists and foreign actors who have used social media to inflame racial divisions 7 Even as these imposters are quickly identified by the communities they target it takes time for platforms to remove inciting content 8 A single manipulation campaign can create an incredible strain on breaking news cycles effectively turning many journalists into unpaid content moderators and drawing law enforcement towards false leads 9 Specific features of online communication technologies need regulatory guardrails to prevent them from being used for manipulative purposes These include 1 Registering buying and selling fake accounts comments and reviews to generate artificial attention sometimes using botnets and automated textgenerators to game algorithmic systems 10 4 Bradshaw Samantha and Howard P “The Global Disinformation Order 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation ” Working Paper 2019 3 Oxford UK Project on Computational Propaganda https comprop oii ox ac uk research cybertroops2019 5 Severns Maggie 2019 “Trump Campaign Plagued by Groups Raising Tens of Millions in His Name ” Politico https www politico com news 2019 12 23 trump-campaign-compete-against-groups-money-089454 6 Benkler Yochai Robert Faris and Hal Roberts 2018 Network Propaganda Manipulation Disinformation and Radicalization in American Politics Oxford University Press 7 Friedberg B Donovan J 2019 On the Internet Nobody Knows You’re a Bot Pseudoanonymous Influence Operations and Networked Social Movements Journal of Design and Science 6 https doi org 10 21428 7808da6b 45957184 Collins-Dexter B 2019 “The Dangers of Weaponized Truth ” Journal of Design and Science 6 https jods mitpress mit edu pub 273294u8 8 Donovan Joan 2019 “Opinion First They Came for the Black Feminists ” The New York Times https www nytimes com interactive 2019 08 15 opinion gamergate-twitter html 9 Donovan Joan 2019 “How Hate Groups’ Secret Sound System Works ” The Atlantic March 17 2019 https www theatlantic com ideas archive 2019 03 extremists-understand-what-tech-platforms-havebuilt 585136 10 Caplan Robyn Lauren Hanson and Joan Donovan 2018 “Dead Reckoning Navigating Content Moderation After ‘Fake News ’” Data Society https datasociety net output dead-reckoning 2 advertising products designed to inflate engagement metrics and or force misinformation into users’ search returns feeds and timelines 11 3 networked factions groups of loosely affiliated actors strategically coordinating harassment distributing hateful content or inciting violence for profit or political ends 12 4 misusing platforms’ donation features to raise funds for dangerous or imposter groups 13 5 promoting misinformation about health care to sell harmful or ineffective treatments and 14 6 using deceptively edited audio video like “deep fakes” and cheap fakes to drive clicks likes and shares 15 Regarding the last point the AI technology commonly called ‘deep fakes’ presents an immediate identity threat Deep fakes are audio and video that realistically depict a person saying and doing things that never happened 16 Social media companies are devising policies to prevent deep fakes Confessore Nicholas Gabriel J X Dance Rich Harris and Mark Hansen 2018 “The Follower Factory ” The New York Times https www nytimes com interactive 2018 01 27 technology social-media-bots html https www nytimes com interactive 2018 01 27 technology social-media-bots html Woolley Samuel C and Philip N Howard 2016 “Automation Algorithms and Politics Political Communication Computational Propaganda and Autonomous Agents — Introduction ” International Journal of Communication 10 0 9 https ijoc org index php ijoc article view 6298 11 Braun Joshua A and Jessica L Eklund 2019 “Fake News Real Money Ad Tech Platforms Profit-Driven Hoaxes and the Business of Journalism ” Digital Journalism 7 1 1–21 https doi org 10 1080 21670811 2018 1556314 Noble Safiya Umoja 2018 Algorithms of Oppression How Search Engines Reinforce Racism New York NYU Press 12 Donovan Joan and Brian Friedberg 2019 “Source Hacking Media Manipulation in Practice ” Data Society https datasociety net output source-hacking-media-manipulation-in-practice Lukito Josephine Jiyoun Suk Yini Zhang Larissa Doroshenko Sang Jung Kim Min-Hsin Su Yiping Xia Deen Freelon and Chris Wells 2019 “The Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing How Russia’s Internet Research Agency Tweets Appeared in U S News as Vox Populi ” The International Journal of Press Politics December 1940161219895215 https doi org 10 1177 1940161219895215 13 Koh Yoree 2018 “Hate Speech on Live ‘Super Chats’ Tests YouTube ” Wall Street Journal https www wsj com articles hate-speech-on-live-super-chats-tests-youtube-1541205849 14 Zadrozny Brandy 2019 “These Are the Fake Health News That Went Viral in 2019 ” NBC News https www nbcnews com news us-news social-media-hosted-lot-fake-health-news-year-here-s-n1107466 15 Paris Britt and Joan Donovan 2019 “Deepfakes and Cheap Fakes ” Data Society blog 2019 https datasociety net output deepfakes-and-cheap-fakes 16 Paris Joan Donovan Britt 2019 “Deepfakes Are Troubling But So Are the ‘Cheapfakes’ That Are Already Here ” Slate Magazine June 12 2019 https slate com technology 2019 06 drunk-pelosi-deepfakescheapfakes-artificial-intelligence-disinformation html from misrepresenting public figures and average citizens but this does not mean companies will adequately enforce these terms of service and address the damage done to society For example in a recent report researchers found 96% of deep fakes are pornography mostly targeting women 17 This poses troubling questions about harassment and consent 18 Mary Anne Franks and Danielle Citron have advocated for laws prohibiting non-consensual images because the potential for profit exploitation and extortion is high 19 Unfortunately even the most cutting-edge detection technology can be fooled by skillful deep fakes For that reason we need governance My co-researcher Britt Paris and I argue that so-called 'cheap fakes' are a wider threat Like the doctored video of Representative Pelosi last week’s decontextualized video of Joe Biden seemingly endorsing a white supremacist talking-point poses a substantial challenge 20 Because the Biden video was clipped from non-augmented footage platforms refused to take down this cheap fake Millions have now seen it Platforms like radio towers provide amplification power and as such they have public interest obligations The world online is the real world and this crisis of counterfeits threatens to disrupt the way Americans live our real lives Right now malicious actors jeopardize how we make informed decisions about who to vote for and what causes we support while platform companies’ own products facilitate this manipulation placing our democracy and economy at significant risk 21 What makes manipulated content so dangerous is the ease of distribution and the hidden protocols of moderation 22 17 Ajder Henry Giorgio Patrini Francesco Cavalli and Laurence Cullen 2019 “The State of Deepfakes Landscape Threats and Impact ” Deep Trace Labs https deeptracelabs com mapping-the-deepfakelandscape 18 Chesney Robert and Citron Danielle Keats “Deep Fakes A Looming Challenge for Privacy Democracy and National Security ” 2019 California Law Review 1753 https ssrn com abstract 3213954 19 Danielle K Citron Mary Anne Franks 2014 “Criminalizing Revenge Porn” 49 Wake Forest Law Review 345 https scholarship law bu edu faculty_scholarship 643 20 PBS 2020 “How 2020 Candidates Are Grappling with Online Disinformation ” PBS NewsHour https www pbs org newshour show how-2020-candidates-are-grappling-with-online-disinformation 21 Charlet Katherine and Citron Danielle 2019 “Campaigns Must Prepare for Deepfakes This Is What Their Plan Should Look Like ” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace https carnegieendowment org 2019 09 05 campaigns-must-prepare-for-deepfakes-this-is-what-their-planshould-look-like-pub-79792 Acker Amelia and Donovan Joan 2019 “Data Craft A Theory Methods Package for Critical Internet Studies ” Information Communication Society 22 11 1590–1609 https doi org 10 1080 1369118X 2019 1645194 22 Gillespie Tarleton 2018 Custodians of the Internet Platforms Content Moderation and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media New Haven Yale University Press Roberts Sarah T 2019 Behind the Screen Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media New Haven CT Yale University Press Roberts Sarah 2017 “Social Media’s Silent Filter ” The Atlantic March 8 2017 https www theatlantic com technology archive 2017 03 commercial-content-moderation 518796 We must expand the public understanding of technology by guarding consumer rights against technological abuse including a cross-sector effort to curb the distribution of harmful and manipulated content As danah boyd and I have written platform companies must address the power of amplification—separately from content— so that media distribution is transparent and accountable 23 I urge Congress to do the same Platforms have politics 24 Regulation and technology must work in tandem or else the future is forgery 23 Donovan Joan and boyd danah 2019 “Stop the Presses Moving From Strategic Silence to Strategic Amplification in a Networked Media Ecosystem ” American Behavioral Scientist September https doi org 10 1177 0002764219878229 24 Gillespie Tarleton 2010 “The Politics of ‘Platforms’ ” New Media Society 12 3 347–64 https doi org 10 1177 1461444809342738