e book at c-span.org/thepresidents the complete guide to congress is now available. it has lots of details about the house and senate for the current session of congress. contact and bio investigation about every senator and representative, plus information about congressional committees, state governors, and the cabinet. the 2019 congressional directory is a handy spiral bound guide. >> next the house judiciary committee looks at how to combat white nationalism and hate crimes. a north carolina father spoke about how his daughters and online were killed execution style, a tragedy he said sparked from bigotry and hate. also officials from facebook and google talk about what they're

doing to remove hate speech and content. also testifying is candace owens a conservative company day t-- commentator. the judiciary committee will come to order. we welcome everyone to this hears on hate crimes and white nationalism. today the judiciary committee will hold a areaing that i wish we did not have to conduct if will examine an urgent crisis in our country. this goes to the heart of our country's long standing struggle to carry out what the preamble say it's is designed to do to form a more perfect union.

race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or other characteristics. some of these incidents bha crim -- may be crimes and some are not. unfortunately statistics confirm what most of us have observed, that hate incidents are increasing in the united states. even though it is woefully incomplete, these statistics have been on the rise with hate crimes surging last year. a poll conducted shows that 84% believe that hate incidents are varied or somewhat prevalent in

this country. this increase occurred in a disturbing rise of white nationalism in our country and across the globe. the deadly 2017 unite the right white nationalist rally in charlottesville, virginia, served as a frightening reminder posed to the united states. in just the last few years, the ideology. nine worshippers were murdered at the episcopalture nchurch in chalston. this year, 50 people were slaughtered at a mosque in the islamic center. they were motivated by a belief

that people were perceived to be nonwhite, african-americans, jews, muslims, or members of other communities that were part of a great replacement. the same idea that motivate ad 2011 norwegian attack that cost 77 lives, and the attack on a temple in milwaukee. in the age of instant communication with worldwide reach, white nationalist groups target groups of color and religion minorities. some of which operate in hidden corners of the web, these platforms are conduits to spread hate messages into every home and country. efforts for the companies to account for this have fallen short. social network platforms continue to be used to spread dangerous white nationalist speech.

as a new zee land attack showed, some hateful rhetoric is now used to inspire ster ror worldwide. unfortunately in a time when decisive leadership is needed, whether intentional or not they end bolden white sprem cyst movements. we only need to look at the violence and hate. . he supported president trump "as a symbol of renewed white identity. congress in recent years has also failed to take seriously the threat that white nationalism and hate crimes pose. last congress we did not even hold hearings after the charlottes vil -- charlottesville.

they have real consequences. americans have died because of it. we don't need to promote these messages, we must rebuke those with a message of hate. we will examine the response in more details in the future, i will say now it appears the federal law enforcement agencies have not considered the deadly and increasing dangers as seriously as foreign terrorist threats. occurring from january of 2008 of january of 2016. there was twice as many attacks compared to those identified as islamic domestic terrorism, 63. although the total number of deaths associated with islamic incidents was higher, this is largely due to the 2009 mass

shooting in ft.hood, texas. only 13% of islamist cases cause fatalities. by contrast a third of the attacks by right-wing threats have caused more deaths. the twha social media has been used to spread hate and violence, we have a diverse panel of witnesses before us today, i trust that our frank discussion will help the community and the public better understand the challenges we face and how we may best respond. we now recognize the gentleman from georgia for his opening statement. >> thank you for the opportunity for us to, again, con demt white nationalism. it is unfortunate, but it is not unimportant. it is a measurable value of

every person. we saw those lives take root. the attackers mind was ill, but his heart was sick as well. we unanimously support the white naltallism. in the action of one of our values. i appreciate the chance to consider how to combat the violence associated with this ideolo ideology. too often we have seen racial, ethnic superiority. at the individual and national level. hatred and western spirituality is where people are being detained. over and over again history

warned us, hate mobilizing people for violence and oppressi oppression. why haven't we come loser to the ideal that all men are created equal. the practical problem is that our hearts run quickly in hate. we want to embrace any data suggestion that we are better than our neighbors. are we more talented, do we have friends that agree our end group is superior to an out group. hate always makes us nest in fridayfulness. so we realize that the primary difference between ethnic cleansing is scale not substance. i think people have witnessed firsthand how quickly people become hate factories.

i am glad to have all of the democratic witnesses here to share from their heart. i think it makes us better people without the distractions of the headlines and the banners, that in mind we move forward and we suggest that republicans are hateful, dishonest, and disconnected to these spew hatred. house republicans lead the rejections. for those that said they could have been clear sooner, i hear you. we can't afford for them to build a home in our nation's capital. the rise that has been taken play tentfully this same body. we're holding this hearing and it is interesting to note that they traffic in an any semitism. what i don't know is why the tolerance for juish ster you types has been spilling over in this body. i don't know why the major if i

find it's so hard to condemn hateful language. so i hope that my friends will use this hearing to condemn anti-semiti anti-semitism. people of every et lick sbkd come to america because of the liberty and unsflabl many areas o in the globe. these very i thing that's foster hate. when justice is swift and behind, power shared among citizens and authorities they're less likely -- americans have

always understood these dynamic and identity politics have divides us and we have forgotten our core identity. we recognize that each of us have been endowed with inalienable rights. our unity depends on our equality as citizens. white nationalism denies this and i hit here today rejecting hate and violence of any kind. with that i yield back. thank you, i will now introduce today's witnesses. the senior suspect of the league. he is is the head of public policy for the policy. dr. mohammed is a medical professional from north carolina. before moving to the united states he worked as a general practitioner in iraq, kuwait,

and georgia. he went to eastern virginia medical school. eva paterson is the co-founder of the equal justice society. he is has a long career of antidiscrimination work. 13 of them as executive director cofounding and chairmanning the civil rights coalition for 18 years and serving as the vice president of the aclu. he is received her jd from the uc berkeley school of law. >> and overseeing the development and implementation of facebook's community standa d standar standards. prior to joining facebook, he worked as a ground intelligence officer in the u.s. marine core. he is also represents google as

the global network initiative, prior to joining google, he is has worked at the raven group, the center for american progress, and now legal defense and education. mr. mort klein has worked at the school of medicine. candace owens a political commentator, he is works for trending point usa. kristin clark is the present and executive director of the national alliance committee for the united states. he is graduated from harvard.

we welcome all of our distinguished witnesses and thank them for participating in the hearing. if you will please rise we will begin by swearing you in. >> do you believe that your testimony is true and correct. let the record show the witnesses hans witnesses answered in the affirmative. each of your written statements will be entered in the written record. when light turns red, it signals five minutes have exexpired. you may begin.

>> please let me first say thank you for your leadership and recognizing the importance of addressing the increase in hate crimes and resurgence of white supremacy. first i would like to thank my local panelists for their testimony today. such horrific crimes affect entire communities but i know they affect the families most of all eni'm so sorry for your loss. since our founding in 1913, adl's mission has been to stop the defamation of the jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment for all.

we are one of the foremost authorities on hate crimes. we have been tracking white treatmentists and extremists and developing strategies to address these threats. in 1985 we discovered how they wosh talking on dial up bulletin boards and we have been combatting them ever since. you have my full testimony, but allow me to highlight a few points for you. white spremtiupremacists in thed states have experienced a resurgence in the last few years. there is also a clear corollary as our research shows to the part of candidates and elected

leaders. this is a particularly dangerous problem. white supremacists have been responsible for more than half, 54% of all domestic extremist related murders in the past ten years. in the last year, that figure has risen to 78% of all extremist related murders, that is white supremacists responsible for more than three quarters of all domestic extremist murders in 2018. there is a crucial need for this areaing focusen on white-collar white make thealinationalism. the other driving force for the resir -- resurgence is the role

of social media. just this morning adl issued a new report documenting how before carrying out the hateful murders in pittsburgh and new zealand, the alleged white supremacist gunmen frequented fringe websites that act and echochambers for the most racism and are recruiting grounds for potential terrorists. these are like round the clock digital rallies creating online communities that amplify their i have -- fantasies. we believe they must include revitalizing the federal government's attention to domestic terrorism, and in particular right-wing extremist

violence, incentivizing state and local law enforcement agencies so more comprehensively collect and report hate crimes data to the fbi. strengthening laws against perpetrators of online hate helping to increase transparency in ways they not now doing. i have submitted detailed recommendations for the tech industry that are included in my written testimony. finally i implore you and other leaders to call out bigotry and extremism at every opportunity. we all have a possibility to make clear that america is no place for hate. thank you. i'm happy to take any questions that the committee may have. >> thank you.

doctor? >> good morning ladies and gentlemen, november 10, 2015 is the day my lives changed forever. my daughters and son were shot to debt, execution style. we arrived to the scene with frozen blood in our vains. we waited six hours for the police officers to confirm that they had all been shot to death. at this attempt to make it be bearable, an officer said they did not suffer, it was a swift shot to the back of the head. news of their death spread over the internet and the globe. we never heard that the murder

hated them. my daughters were adorned with fair her hijabs. this made said he hated how they looked and dressed. he made it clear they were not welcome in their own neighborhood. i must be one of the few physicians that read my children's autopsy reports. my son took many bullets to the arms and chest before he fell to the ground. the murder saw he was still breather and shot him in the mouth. our daughter's forehead was bulging and her hassle eyes were n -- hazel eyes were life less.

my son had a broken tooth from his final shot to the mouth. thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify before you. i want you to remember more than their deaths. i want you to know who they were and what we have lost. . my daughter was a vibrant 21-year-old woman who find ways to give to others. he is volunteered at a dental clin clinic, and he is fed homeless in downtown raleigh. he is graduates from nc state university. . my other daughter was a gentle soul, a generous giver, he is was a freshman at nc state. he is aspired to be an ark tech. in her freshman year he is mentored and taught youth and

led the brejts downtown. . he is wrote. as american as apple pie, that can be muslim too. my sonl was studying industry. an avid basketball fan. but not at duke. i was so proud of his home tound. he was a come passional and caring individual that spent much of his time giving back to those in need including giving supplies to the homeless. they were married for six short weeks, but before they were murdered those were the happiest

days of our lives. three young americaning brutally murdered and there is no question in our mind that it was born of bigotry and hate. our families were fortunate to have muslim advocates to have important every step of the way, i'm afraid if our country in 2016 the fbi recording to 76% increase in muslim hate crimes. just weeks ago a young man in indiana was shot in the back of the head. at times the pain is just as sharp now as when they died. i plead to you do not let another american family go

through this because our government would not act to protect all americans. please do not forget them. they're my children, and they're gone. i'm happy to take questions afterwards. >> thank you very much. >> i'm so sorry, chairman nadler, vice chair statton, it is a great hop nor to be here, i'm president of the equal justice society. ranking member collins, i didn't see you, sorry. we're transforming consciousness on race and social science and the arts. so i have a favor to ask of the democrats and the republicans here today, but first a brief moment of silence for his children and all of the victims of hate crimes. for the next five minutes i would like you all to give me

the benefit of the doubt. i want you to listen as americans and not as partisan n enemies. i want to tell you who i am. i was born in your state, representatives, jackson, lee, escobar, i am a texan. my father was in the airforce and served in vietnam. i am a christian, a civil rights lawyer for 44 years. some thingsly share with you are difficult to hear but they are facts. 400 years ago, 20 african-americans arrived in jamestown arrived. thomas jefferson said they have no tenderness and love, they are inferior, and they're

unattracti unattractive. plaque people were said to only be good for physical play, inhuman, and violent. from the beginning of our country's inception to the constitution, the founding fathers knowingly and consciously embraced slavery and white supremacy. in 1857, the supreme court in the dredd-scott decision said black people have no rights that white people need respect. ultimately slavery ended. the reconstruction era happened. black men could vote, and then politics reared its ugly head once again.

federal troops were withdrawn from the south in order to place rutherford b. hayes in the presidency, and the reign of terror in the south began again. i'm a southerner. the ku klux klan came about. they were white spremtist -- supremacists. for many years women were not allowed to vote. fast-forward to 1864. our fellow texan got the civil rights law passed, but when it passed, he said we have lost a generation. six years later the southern strategy was devised to encourage white people to abandon the democratic party and vote for the gop. it was a shrewd and effective policy, but it drove another wedge between black and white people. fast-forward to 2008. america elects a black president. unfortunately, this bothered

many people who felt superior to black people when there's a black family in the white house. in 2015 donald trump started his campaign by calling mexicans s rapists. he chanted jews will not replace us in blood and soil, which is straight from the nazi playbook. mr. trump said there are good people on both sides. he recently called the asylum seekers animals. dylan roof goes into a place of worship and murders black souls, jews are slaughtered in pittsburgh, muslims are slaughtered in new zealand. we need the congress to stand up and rack. member collins i was so grad to hear your strong statement and white supremecy and republicans took a lead in denouncing it.

we need you to do more. where i live in california, we're not sure where the congress stands on white supremacy, so we're delighted you're speaking up. i would also like to address chief justice roberts in justin holder. he said racism had been eradicated. that's certainly not true. i hope he will talk to the justice in the sixth circuit who writes on racism. we hope the majority of you want to give the country a signal that we're one country under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. thank you very much and i'm happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time. >> thank you. mr. potts? >> thank you, chairman. chairman nadler, ranking member collins and distinguishing members of this committee. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. my name is neil potts and i'm a director at facebook with oversight over the development and implementation of facebook's standards which are the rules for what types of content we allow on the platform. i'm a graduate of the united states naval academy and the university of virginia school of law. prior to joining facebook, i

served as a ground officer in the united states marine corps, and was for operation of iraqi freedom and operation enduring freedom. first let me say i stand with the victims and their families in the terror attack in new zealand. i would also like to extend my condolences to the doctor with the massive loss he and his family have suffered. it's more important than ever we stand against hate and violence. i'm here to tell you today that at facebook we continue to make that a priority in everything we do. facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and to bring the world closer together. more than 2 billion people come to our platform every month to connect with family, to connect with friends, to find out what's going on in their world, to build their businesses, to volunteer and to donate to organizations they care about. and also to help those in need.

our user shared billions of pictures about their lives every day. their experience highlights much of what is best about facebook. but we want to make sure they're not using that voice to hurt others. facebook embraces the responsibility to make sure our tools are good and we take that responsibility seriously. i would like to be clear. there is no place for terrorism or hate on facebook. we remove any content that incites, bullies or harasses or threatens others. which is why we've been so good about security the last few years. facebook has human and technological capabilities.

facebook hires human reviewers across the globe who work in concert to keep violent, hateful and dangerous content from ever reaching our platform in the first instance and remove it quickly before it manages to get by our first line of defense. we have prime protocols in place to pass on threats of imminent violence and imminent danger to law enforcement as soon as we become aware of them. of course, hate can take many forms beyond overt terrorism, and none of it is permitted on our platform. facebook rejects all hateful ideologies. it has become clear that white supremacy is not allowed on the platform under any circumstance. in fact, we've banned 200 supremacist groups and we've included white nationalism and white separatism. we see these idealogies to be

linked to supremacy and intent of violence, more generally. our policy has been support of nationalism and supremacy to not spread words of pride. to be clear, they're intended to stop hateful and dangerous content from being shared on our platform and in part of our community. additionally we will be connecting people with search returns associated with white supremacy, white separatism and violence and hate. that is supported by the group outreach. determining what should and should not be removed from our site is challenging depending on what's on the platform. we continue to ensure that the platform is a safe place for every community.

we want it to be a place where diverse viewpoints can exchange ideas, but they must feel safe to do that. fostering the sense of a safety imperative, but how it affects the work offline. there's a lot more to do. still, we know people have questions and i appreciate the opportunity to be here today. >> thank you. ms. walden? >> chairman nadler, ranking member collins, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i appreciate your leadership on the important issues of hate speech and free expression online and am glad to have the opportunity to discuss google in these areas. i serve in the role of policy rights and human expression for google. i find out how we can have free

expression in a complicated legal environment. broadly, if the internet has been a force for creativity, learning and access information. at google, supporting this brief role of ideas is to coordinate and make the information more accessible and useful. this openness has democratized what stories can be told. it's created a space for communities to tell their own stories and created platform where anyone can be a creator and succeed. around 2 billion people come to youtube every month and we stare at video for five hours every minute. we know, however, that the very platforms that have enabled these societal benefits may also be abused, ranging from the annoying, like spam, to the criminal, like child pornography. this is why, in addition to being guided by local law, we have community guidelines our users must follow.

before i begin on how we enforce our policies, i want to state clearly that every google product that host user content prohibits incitement to violence and heat speech against individuals or groups based on specified attributes. we view it as grave and social ills so we go beyond what is required. we are deeply troubled by the hate and violence increase in the world, particularly in new zealand. we take this seriously and want to be part of the solution. we agree that tough policies must be coupled with tough enforcement. over the past few years, we've invested heavily in machines and people to quickly identify and remost content thatle violate our policies to hate speech. i want to briefly outline how these policies work at youtube. first, youtube's enforcement system starts at point in which a user uploads a video. if it's somewhat similar to videos that violate our policy,

it's sent to others to review. if they determine it violates the policy, they remove them and make a digital footprint so it cannot be uploaded again. in 2018, more than 70% of the 800 videos reviewed were flagged from the machine. second, we rely on experts to find videos the algorithm might be missing. some of these experts are the in-house intel desk and it may violate our policies. we also allow expert ngos and governments to allow content in bulk. we reserve the final decision whether to remove any video that gets flagged by these entities, but we benefit by their expertise. finally we create programs to promote counter speech. our program supports the youtubers by gaining empathy and

being positive role models. google has discovered the way to put down radicalization. it's important to note that hate speech removal can in context. hate speech, because it often relies on spoken, rather than visual cues, is often harder than it is to detect propaganda. it can be specific and there can be contentious on it can be difficult to consider what's political speech. overaggressive movement can make themselves be heard on these issues. content can sit in a gray area that comes right up against the line. it may be offensive but it does not violate youtube's policies against violence and hate speech.

when this occurs, we build a policy to gradually reduce their ability and by removing ads. in particular, we understand it may be top of mind. this is why we reduced recommendations of even more borderline content or content that can harm users in some ways. google builds its product from all users, all political stripes around the globe. the long-term success of our business is directly related to the ability to keep and maintain the trust of our customers. we have a long-term incentive to make sure our products are used for viewers of all viewpoints. people will value these services as long as they are working well and are provided by our most useful information. that's why hate and extremism has no place in our group.

we believe we have developed a responsible approach to address the evolving an complex issues that manifest on our platform. thank you for the opportunity to outline our efforts in this space, and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you. mr. klein? >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking members and members of the committee. first i must say i have tourette syndrome. sometimes i make tics and noise i can't control. please excuse me. we work to protect relations and work to protect jews from anti-semitism and violence. as a holocaust survivor, i was born in the dp camp in germany. i grew up without the loving presence of my parents, aunts, and cousins who the nazis murdered.

front page article in the "new york times" friday's headlines, "bias shared by extremism of the right." a white supremacist hated president trump for not being supportive of jews. there was an ecofascist who supported social values to my own. most of us collectively treat neo-nazis and supremacists as horrifying. history reminds us we can't write anti-nazism off. this white supremacist sites promoting hatred against jews, blacks but also the lgbtq, femini feminism. we need to determine who is

funding and is behind this. the fbi reports that jews are the victims of 60% of the religiously motivated hate crimes in america. jew hatred is the canary in the coal mine. it is incumbent upon us to speak about the major issue threatening violence against jews and all americans which is muslim anti-semitism, which is strengthened by institutional support and support of e-moms and is becoming mainstream. on campuses, we've never received a single complaint by anti-semitism, neo-nazis. by contrast, we've received hundreds of complaints by students perpetrated by the left wing, hate groups and its allies. coa's letter to city -- coa's letter to the university has documented that it is common for

demonstrators screaming jews out of their campuses, jews are racist sons of bitches -- forgive me. when we take control of this campus, we're going to kick you out and make sure you don't graduate. last week at columbia university, sjp submitted a flyer with a picture of a jew that looked like it came out of a nazi. perpetrators have the most incidences on u.s. campuses. unfortunately, leftist campus groups are rarely satisfactorily resolved. let's look at the statistics. acl's worldwide survey found that 49% of muslims harbor anti-semitic attitudes. this is a chart of that. the non-muslims is far less. this is a painful fact that adl has studied. it's more than double the

anti-semitisms found in persons of other faiths. the data also finds that in the u.s. 34% shows a high level of anti-semitism. 16 countries and territories having the highest levels of ant anti-semitism were all in the middle east. it raised from 74 to 93%. in a recent conference on anti-semitism, a speaker said 20 years ago the major problem was they sent us to the far right, now it's flipped and it's the left and radical muslims. when danger of seeing it spread to the middle east and europe. the dangerous problem is there is support by imams. the west point of muslim academia, a high level of treatise said, quote, general persuasion can do no good with jews, so use force with them. treat them in the way you see as effective in ridding them of their evil. at sermons, they recited how we

have to commit genocide against the jews in order to honor the day of judgment. in the past year and a half in new jersey, pennsylvania, e-moms -- imams have made the same speech about genocide against the jews. can you imagine if ministers were called to murder christians or priests were called to murder muslims? ali, a well-known former muslim, said, i confess that if you're jewish, i want to apologize to you. when my half-sister showed me holy koran versus to support hatred of jews, i feared allah would burn me. as a speech said at the university, we need a religious resolution. you imams are responsible, the

entire world is waiting. let's speak frankly. we want to stop hate and stop institutions from supporting it -- i don't know how much time i have. >> you were 48 seconds over. >> but i was stopped. the outburst. i have something very important to say. as one of the holocaust survivors, i was horrified to see the speaker support ilhan omar after her vicious anti-semitic remarks -- >> the gentleman's time is expired. ms. owens? >> that was unfair. >> it was not unfair. you had plenty of extra time. >> no, i did not. >> ms. owens. >> mr. chairman, ranking member mr. collins, thank you for having me here today. i received word on my way in that many of the journalists were confused as to why i was invited, and none of them knew that i, myself, was a victim of a hate crime myself while i was in high school. that's something very few people know about me because the media

and the journalists were not interested in telling the truth about me because i do not fit the stereotype of what they like to see in black people. i'm a democrat, i support the president of the united states and i support the black community. i'm honored to be with you all because the person sitting behind me is my 75-year-old granddaughter. i always considered myself to be the child of my grandfather because my sense of humor and my work ethic are all like the man behind me. my grandfather grew up when racism and nationalism held great meaning. his job was to lay tobacco out to dry in an attic in the south. my grandfather has picked cotton and he has had experiences with the ku klux klan. they would regularly visit his home and shoot bullets into it.

they had an issue with his father, my great-grandfather. i had the privilege of growing up in my grandfather's home. it's going to shock the committee, but not once did my grandfather tell me i can't do something because of my skin color. not once did my grandfather hold a gripe against the white man. i was never taught to view myself as a victim because of my heritage. i learned about faith in god, family and hard work. those were the only lessons of my childhood. there isn't a single adult today that in good conscience would make the argument that america is a more racist or more white nationalist society than it was when my grandfather was growing up. and yet we're hearing these terms sent around today because what they want to say is that brown people need to be scared, which seems to be the narrative that we hear every four years right ahead of a presidential election. here are some things we never hear. 75% of the black boys in california don't meet state reading standards. in inner cities like baltimore,

within five high schools and one middle school, not a single student was found to be proficient in math and reading in 2016. the single motherhood rate in the black community which was at 23% when my grandfather was growing up, is at a staggering 74% today. i'm sure there will be no hearings about that. there are month black babies aborted than born alive in cities like new york and you have governor cuomo lighting up buildings celebrating late-term abortions. i could go on and on. white supremacists did not do that. my point is that white nationalism did not do anything that i just brought up. democratic policies did. let me be clear. this is not about hate crimes, it is about fearmongering and control. it's the same democratic strategy as the 2016 strategy. they blame facebook, they blame twitter, and they blame the social media.

which has disrupted their monopoly on minds. they called this hearing because they believe that if it wasn't for social media, voices like mine would never exist, that my movie blexit, which inspires black people to leave the democratic party, and there would be a black president today. what they don't tell you in the statistics of the rise of white nationalism is they simply changed the dataset points by widening the definition of hate crimes and upped the number of reporting agencies that are able to report on them. what i mean to say is they are manipulating statistics. the goal here is to scare blacks, hispanics, and muslims to help them regain control of our country's narrative which they feel they lost. they feel that president donald trump should not have beat hillary.

if they actually were concerned about white nationalism, they would be holding hearings on antifa, a far left white gang that determined one day in philadelphia that i, a black woman, was not fit to sit in a restaurant. they chased me out. they yelled race traitor to a group. they threw water on me, and the police were silent on it. they perhaps should be examining themselves on the hate they've drummed up in this country. bottom line, white supremacy, racism, white nationalism, words that once held real meaning, have now become nothing more than election strategies. every four years the black community is offered handouts and fear. handouts and fear. reparations and white nationalism. this is the democrat preview. of course, society is not perfect, though we've heard testimony of that today. there are pockets of evil that exist and those things are horrible and they should be

condemned. but i believe the legacy and ancestry of black americans is being insulted every single day. i will not pretend to be a victim in this country. i know that makes many people on the left uncomfortable. i want to talk about real issues in black america. i want to talk about real issues in this country and real concerns. the biggest scandal -- this is my last sentence -- in american politics is democrats have been conning minorities to believe that we are perpetual victims, all but ensuring our failure. racism is essential to the platform. the blacks hate the whites, the rich hate the poor, and before long it will be the tall hating the short. >> the time of the witness has expired. miss clark. >> ranking members, i am the director of civil rights under law. thank you for the opportunity to testify during this critical hearing which is about real issues that are truly a life and

death matter for far too many. the lawyers' committee is a national civil rights and racial justice organization created at the request of president john f. kennedy in 1963, and for over 55 years, we've stood on the front lines for justice. we lead one of the most robust anti-hate and anti-extremism projects in the nation. from connecting real survivors on our no-hate hotline to training law enforcement and prosecutors, pushing reform in the tech sector and using the courts to hold violent white supremacists accountable, we work to confront hate every day. we know hate crimes are not new. we carry out this work with sensitivity to our nation's dark and sordid history of racial violence. african-americans in particular have experienced generations of racial terror.

between 1882 and 1968, there were over 4,700 lynchings in the u.s. and the majority of the victims were black. and since the fbi began publishing data on hate crimes in 1995, african-americans remained the single group most targeted for hate. how are we fighting back? we successfully disrupted online platforms that promote hate and racial violence, shutting down and obstructing some of the largest hate sites on line. we advocated facebook to abandon their ill-conceived policy that permitted white separatist activity because we know they are equally dangerous. we are pushing the tech sector to reform their policies to make sure they're not providing a breeding ground for violence of white supremacists, and we've asked our association of chief

of police to answer the response to hate as well. we're also holding white supremacists accountable through the courts. last year we filed suit on behalf of a young african-american woman who was serving as college president on her university. following her election she was followed with racist trolling. bananas and nooses were hung on trees with messages describing her as a gorilla. we secured a strong settlement last december with one of the defendants. but we can't do this work alone. we need our government to do its part. but today's national climate only fuels the fire. from an expletive to describe african and caribbean nations and much more, they promote animus against black and brown communities. we also see the fbi diverting

resources to investigate so-called black identity extremism, all at the expense of combatting real hate. thus, it's not surprising that we're seeing an increase in reported hate crimes today. corrosive white supremacist movements are tearing at the fabric of our nation, and without question, they are using online platforms to recruit new members, activate followers, establish communities, organize rallies, stream their murders and incite violence. instead of hiding under hoods, they now organize behind computer screens. they sought to rebrand themselves and employing new labels to try to become more palatable to audiences. whatever you call them, neo-nazis, the kkk, all pose the same threat today. what must we do now? as we continue to use aggressive

lawyering strategies to move towards a society that's true to its democratic ideals, we call on all communities to help tear down the structures that facilitate violent white supremacy in our country. the banks that facilitate commercial transactions, the tech companies that provide open platforms, the web hosts that prop up these sites are all part of an infrastructure that feeds hate that must be dismantled. congress must study and consider new laws for combatting this online threat and the federal government must abandon policies that fuel hate. at the lawyers' committee, we're inspired by the strength and courage of survivors and will continue to fight for a world in which no one is forced to endure such immeasurable pain. thank you. >> thank you. i'll begin the questioning by yielding myself five minutes.

ms. hershenov, are we or anybody else manipulating statistics to increase the apparent prevalence of white nationalist hate crimes, as was stated by one of the witnesses? >> no, mr. chairman. the adl is data driven. we go through the details of right-wing extremism. right-wing extremism was responsible for all but one of the domestic murders. we submitted details about that. that is 98%. 78% are white supremacy. one of the witnesses talked about the global attitudes that we look at. that's non-violent looking at attitudes. and the adl does track that. we feel it's incumbent that

global marginalized groups have bigotry. it is incumbent first for members of those communities to call it out. there are members of the jewish community that are bigoted, that are islamophobic, and my community needs to call that out just like other communities need to. but we are data driven. if you look at the trends, we have the fbi with 17% increase in hate crimes overall, we have the third largest -- the third highest year last year of muslim -- anti-muslim hate crimes. we have, as ms. paterson and others said, a huge increase in race crimes and incident. this is the data that is there, and the report we released today shows that there was an increase, a 100% doubling of anti-semitic slurs and content on the channels that the

murderer, bowers, in pittsburgh and the murderer in new zealand looked at, and a huge increase in racism since the 2016 election. i am not saying that anybody, one person, one elected official, caused that. but there are corollaries there that we need to understand. we need to look at the data. >> thank you. ms. clarke, white supremacist violence is on the rise in a 2017 report by the government accountability office found that it has accounted for 73% of deadly attacks since 1911. white supremacy is a continuance threat, end quote. the administration's response has asked congress to eliminate doj's community service dedicated to hate crimes and dedicated to preventing hate

crimes and combatting racial tensions. despite acknowledging the rise in such crimes. what is your organization doing to ensure there is appropriate enforcement against these types of hate crimes? >> i was a former federal prosecutor in the justice department civil rights division prosecuting hate crimes, and i know that this justice department has unique tools in its arsenal and the expertise to do more to combat hate crimes. they should be stepping in and providing support to local law enforcement when these hate incidents happen. there are churches burning in louisiana. we need the government to step up and do more. we also need the fbi to do a better job incentivizing local law enforcement agencies to turn over the data so we can locate the hot spots of where the hate crimes are going. we need to see the bully pulpit

used more often to condemn hate when it happens. as a civil organization, we are deeply disturbed by this ag and generals prior to him. we are disturbed by the violence and hate we've seen across the country. we are trying to ensure that congress uses its ability as well. we know we are extremely concerned about the black identity, and this is more than the real threat of white supremacy that we see today. >> why is that a distraction? >> it's not a real threat. it harkens back to the dark days of our government. abusing their power during the

civil rights movement. there is no such thing as black identity extremism. again, this is mere distraction to take the public's attention and the government's resources away from white supremacy and white nationalism which are the real threats we're up against today. >> thank you very much. my time has expired. the gentleman from georgia, mr. collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ms. potts, just curious. where were you at in iraq? >> i was with general madison in the division up through baghdad, retrograded out and pulled back to go to law school. >> very good. i was in bilad, so i was just curious if we traveled the same road. i want to say again what i said originally, anyone who encourages hate is bad and wrong, and get back to the issues we're dealing with every day. much of this has to do with the fact there is a desire for

publicity. there is a 15 minutes of fame of those who are evil enough to go do this. one of the things we saw was the livestream as technology has progressed. this is something i'm curious about, because in your written testimony you talked about the "viral videos" and the ability to recognize spliced or edited content, things like that. where are we heading to cut this off earlier with ai is important, but also there is a human element to this as well which leads to other issues not in this hearing that i'm sure will come up in other hearings, but i just wanted to say more on that issue right now. >> thank you. whether it's hate organizations, even hate speech to some level, we really try to combat that through a three-pronged approach. those three prongs would be the product, our people and our partnerships.

first in the product is the ai. we've made significant progress in our artificial intelligence to see this content before it is seen. before it is recorded. so we can act swiftly to remove it. we've made significant progress. going forward in the next few years, i think we can still see great gains to be made. secondly is the people. at facebook we have over 30,000 people that now focus on safety and security. subject matter experts, former prosecutors, former law enforcement officers, former intelligence officers like myself, ground intelligence officer. others that write the policies and help with the process. we have constant moderators that focus on this and build out those processes, and of course the engineers that write out the code for the ai. and the third prong and very important prong is the work that we do with our partnerships. we work throughout industry, we work with our colleagues at google, microsoft elsewhere on things like the global internet forum for counterterrorism. when we were able to share, it

works more quickly and we have trends, of course, working with the government as well. >> and i would think one of the concerns when you get into hate speech. what is the definition of hate speech? for some that might be someone who is pro-life, and we've got some issues there, but when we come to nationalism, this is the issue i think we're all addressing. i want to go back to ms. owens for a second. you made a statement at the beginning about why you're here. if you would, share how that's affected your view as you go forward in the issues you're wanting to address today. >> certainly. when i'm speaking about different classifications of hate crimes which obviously has increased and impacts statistics, when i was in high

school, i received a slew of messages from the democrat governor of connecticut's son, mr. daniel malloy, and at the time he was the mayor of stanford, and his son, along with three other boys referred to me as the "n" word and threatened to tar and feather my family, as they did to martin luther king. it turned into a political tool for people to gain power the naacp to use me to speak out against the crimes of course now i'm older and that's just a fund-raising mechanism and a lot of groups survive because they cannot have the problem fixed ever. the naacp never wants racism to go away. bottom line, i was looking for an apology. the youngest person in that car was 14 years old.

i understand that human beings can make mistakes and do stupid things, but we're in a society where an apology is not good enough and we're obsessed with labeling people as racists, as they did with those boys. i'm adamantly against victimhood, and i speak out about how it ultimately harms us. >> as i started my testimony with us, all of us need to be heard, this is what we're advocating, the more we hear, the more we can relate to, and i thank you for being a part of this, and i yield back. the gentlelady from texas. >> thank you, your viewpoints are crucial to us.

we are fact finders with our own personal emotion but we are grateful for your testimony. let me say that, coming from texas, i must take note of james bard, which as a member of the congress and this committee, provoked and generated the original hates crimes that was passed in the 1990s or early 2000s. james baird was dragged through the streets of jasper, texas and i think he was found by either two or three white males. that was 20 years ago. i give to his family my deepest

sympathy as well as our witness who comes to speak about his children and the horrific crime. so today i want to say i abhor racism and stereotypes of african-americans. i abhor anti-muslim views, anti-immigrant views, anti-lgbtq views, anti-ashaken and latino and any other hatred, religion or otherwise that plagues this nation. let me ask the representative from the adl, first of all. is hatred or racism a reality? >> absolutely, congresswoman. >> is the major target african-americans? >> yes. the core ideology, which is a euphemism for white supremacists, the core idea on the is the belief in the

imminent extinction of the white race because of a flood of non-white people and orchestrated puppetered by jews. >> may i continue again, let me prayerfully offer sympathy for the unspeakable tragedy. my brief question to you, sympathy to your family, is did you teach your children, your daughters hatred? >> absolutely not, congresswoman. i taught my children our faith on every sunday afternoon for three years and a half. that is why they were all loving and caring, and cooking and distributing food downtown to non-muslim people. i also sit on the board of my mosque, and we definitely make sure that anybody who is racist or hateful is out.

>> you are not fill children or those in the mosque with hatefulness? >> absolutely. thank you, sir, forgive me for my time. you had a very provocative. there was reference to reparations, i have produced hr-40, a commission to study the heinousness of slavery, but if you would quickly say it again, mr. thomas jefferson's assessment of slaves. can you say that again? >> intellectually inferior we are unattractive physically. and there's no tenderness in our love. we know what he was doing on the side, so these statements are -- >> do you think those themes have carried forward into the centuries? >> absolutely. there are many people who really hate us. my organization has a weekly newsletter, and every week we have 40 different items of people saying hateful things.

saying we're monkeys. it's pretty bad. not everybody -- >> thank you. i want mr. potts and ms. walden to answer this question very quickly and then ms. clark. what must the doj do. questions about generally how social media companies like facebook can take down hate speech and likewise google just precisely so i can give her two stocks. >> thank you, congresswoman. there's no place for hate or violence. we act swiftly through our a.i. and human removers to remove that -- we are going to remove it swiftly. >> thank you. >> we also use a combination of a.i. and human content, and we promote counter-speech across the platform.

>> the department of justice must come to the aid of law enforcement. they themselves should be bringing more cases accountable. the fbi should abandon the black identity extremist designation and most importantly use their bully pulpit to speak out and incentivize better data collection. >> thank you. burning churches, thank you. the gentleman from ohio, mr. chabbot. >> i reject white supremacy and all forms of hate. i'm quite sure that my colleagues on the dais share my view. you didn't start off on the

conservative side of the ledger, is that correct? >> that's correct, i was a liberal. >> you mention in your statement, but just to go back. if you could tell us, again, what they are and what hatred that you've experienced as a result of having this point of view. you mentioned the term blexih. would you describe what that is and what type of hate you've experienced. >> i launched a movement on blexit. i realized that they are dissuading us against our own best interests. i wanted to have a more productive die lindsey graham with a black community about issues that are impacting us.

when i announced i was a conservative, i never saw anything more racism, disgusting, more hate that's come my way in my entire life and what democrats and the media say to me today. i've been referred to as an uncle tom. a house nigger. >> let me ask you this. on the life issue. you're pro life, is that correct? >> that's correct. i started off pro-choice. >> what sort of hatred have you experienced or do you get? >> well, that hate tends to come, a majority, from caucasian democrats. when i start telling the truth about the fact that the community that is the most impacted by abortion is the black community, 800 to 900 black babies are aborted every single day. that amounts to about 18 million

black babies aborted since 1973. the black population has stagnated or population growth has stagnated completely. these are the logical discussions that have earned me all the titles that i've discussed before. >> i have a bunch more questions. thank you for your time. i'd like to turn to mr. kline, if i could. when you were giving your opening statement, you got interrupted. i'd like to -- what were you going -- i'm not blaming the chair, because it was over time. there were several witnesses that did that. i get it, it's tough being chair sometimes, but what was your point? >> i was going to make two important points that it was very painful to me in light of the vicious anti-semitic remarks made be representive omar and others that no one -- many in that party defended her saying she's not an anti-semite. and there was no consequences,

she was not thrown off any committee as stephen king was for his outrageous remarks. we need to investigate the terror connections. we need to demand university leaders, condemn ssjp hate groups by name. they won't condemn them by name. colleges must expel students that commit these acts, and they should lose federal funding if they don't do the right thing, and finally we should be having consequences for members of congress who make hateful and outrageous comments against blacks, muslims or jews. when it comes to jews, we have not seen that. >> you mentioned members of congress a former member who made, about recently, are you

familiar with that and what is your understanding and what's your understanding of that? >> well, that was beto o'rourke, he called benjamin netanyahu a racist. he helped black jews come to israel, he's actually had the most positive policies towards the israeli arabs of any prime minister we ever had. this is a ridiculous statement. benjamin netanyahu has not built a single new community in judean samaria since he's become prime minister. >> by him you're referring to who? >> beto o'rourke. >> my time has expired.

>> the gentleman from tennessee, mr. cohen. >> first, i would like to mention that there was a fire just outside of knoxville about a week ago, the ten days ago, where highlander education research center was burnt to the ground. highlander is a famous think tank for activists for people against violence, where many people involved in the union movement have been trained. when they looked at the damages, they found a symbol of white nationalism ocean, similar to what was in new zealand, and i have written a letter to attorney general barr asking him to look at the possible hate crimes or white nationalism that was exhibited there. i would like that letter and the pertain innocent attached stories about highlander and a

swastika publicly entered into the record without objection. >> without objection. >> thank you, sir. first, i would like to ask, miss jackson-lee asked you about white nationalism and the main folks that are against african-americans or blacks. i'm not competing in any way whatsoever, but isn't it a close race between african-americans and jews for the hatred of white nationalists? >> i agree with you that we shouldn't compete. these things are absolutely linked. you might start with some white supremacists on anti-semitism and you'll get to anti-immigrants, refugees, muslim, african-americans and vice versa. i think, again, that if you look at these ideologies, and our

researchers spent time, we looked through tens and in some cases hundreds of millions of comments, images and videos online. what you see on this is that there is -- you know white supremacists used to want to keep dominance. after the civil rights era they became more scared of extinction of the white race by lgbtq degenerate or sodomites. i'm sorry i'm going to use the words we hear over and over and over again. they say again and again who are the ones who orchestrate this? they are the jews. that's what the pittsburgh shooter came in and said i don't want these refugees, et cetera the jews doing it.

all jews must die. mr. cline said something about islam and imams calling for certain action. of ale the crimes you looked into and studied have there been where muslim terrorists have killed jews? >> in the last ten years, about 23% of the extremist murders domestically have been perpetrated by people who adhere to a radical and violent interpretations of islam. however, the reason i understand we are having this particular panel, this hearing is what we're seeing in the last three years is a resurgence where most of the crimes are from right-wing extremists. >> that's true. let me ask you the question. do you have any record of people of the muslim faith doing terrorist acts, killing jews?

>> yes. in some years before. >> when? >> i believe there was a group a few years ago, a gentleman a few years ago who -- he was not jewish, but thought they were jewish. >> was that in kansas city? >> no, that wasn't a house. the recent jccs were a troubled jewish israeli bomb threats. >> there are not many cases? you can't remember where it was -- >> there are not many cases in the u.s. recently. >> that's enough. we're running out of time. if president trump would have come out after charlottesville and condemned neo-nazarethism and klansmen do you think that would have helped in the atmosphere of people standing up and saying white nationalism as being something bad? >> absolutely.

the bully platform has to be used to tamp this down, and to call out the gentleman. mr. potts, twitter has an opportunity for a person to report a tweet if it's harmful or hateful. does facebook have that ability? agree, that all agree, but i think we all agree.

no one should have to suffer like any of you have, your children. family members, nobody should. it is outrageous. and in this effort of trying to bring people together, go back to the words of abraham lincoln, at least it's acontribute united. you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you most assuredly will. it's also true you look for the good in people. you're going to only find something. i want to ask mr. klein. what are your thoughts about president trump's remarks regarding the charlottesville demonstration, where he's quoted as saying, you also had some very fine people on both sides? >> well, i'm glad you asked that, because the media has really distorted the truth of that episode. what he said was, there's fine people that want to get rid of

the robert e. lee statue. and there are people who want to keep that clear. he made that clear. in the same breath, he said, i'm not talking about the neo-nazis and the white nationals when i say fine people, they should be condemned totally. the media has never made that clear. in that statement he condemned neo-nazis. he did not mean they were fine people. quite the contrary, he's disgusted by those people. >> i look forward to the day when martin luther king jr.'s dream is a reality, where we judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. i'm amazed many times when there's an option to something someone says that -- if the person making the option will comment -- happens to be black

or jewish, then you're a racist or anti-semite. and i'm been amazed, mr. klein, anti-defamation league has called you, as i understand, a jewish person to be anti-jewish. it's just interesting -- and i tell you, what mr. potts, and i certainly appreciate your noble service to our country. facebook owns instagram, correct? >> thank you, congress, yes, facebook does own instagram. >> does instagram have the same standards as face book? >> for the most part, we apply standards across instagram too. there are certain instances where things are different. >> i'm told i can have the screen shot at the back, reports of violence or threats of violence. it talks about photos, videos, and there's a second screen shot

if i can see that. here you have someone that's calling -- crush the united states under our feet, et cetera, that was reported and within a minute the report came back from instagram that there's no problem here basically. these aren't the ones you're looking for, move on. if you're going to enforce these standards, why are they so quickly enforce d -- erroneousl enforced against people -- dominick silk. i said, are you still having trouble with facebook? any time we say something nice about donald trump, we spend forever just trying to prove that we're not a russian robot. and that they send us through all kinds of things just to keep using the service.

here you have people that as a result of their misunderstanding of their own religion, they want to crush the united states, they think of us as the big satan, israel is the little satan, and i would just encourage you to take a look at that and why someone who wants to destroy the united states and kill everyone in this room gets a pass when others don't. i would welcome any explanation you can find for that. >> i'm not familiar with that exact example. >> i know, it just happened. >> i would be happy to get that back to our team. >> any calls for violence -- >> i know it's -- the way it's supposed to be. >> we would remove it. i am not familiar with that case, but that does go against our principles. >> i understand, my time is expired.

>> the gentleman from georgia. >> thank you. many white nationals have used misinformation to radicalize users. how is youtube working to stop the spread of far right conspiracy. >> thank you for the question. most recently, we have made updates to our recommendation algorithm, so that content is not pushed out through our recommendation algorithm. anything that promotes and incites violence against individuals or groups or promotes hatred against individuals or groups, including race, gender,ethnicity, religion.

content that that's on the border is no longer content that we include in our recommendation algorithm. comments are disabled. we do our best to ensure content on the border isn't fully distributed across the platform. >> thank you. >> mr. potts, while facebook has worked to stop the spread of the new zealand video on their platform. three days later, it was still spreading on whatsapp. they do not have the ability to stop the spread of videos like this. what is facebook doing to prevent what's up from spreading hate speech? >> thank you, congressman. on facebook and instagram, we took immediate action toward that video. once we're made aware, we're able to remove the video within

10 minutes, and we were able to leverage our artificial intelligence by uploading the vidindividuavideo to prevent an 1.5 million uploads, we prevented 1.2 million and were able to find 300,000 uploads of that video, and had a force of the and swift response. one of the issues in this case, is that there were many varieties of that video, but we continued to im3r0e6prove the database and have the video blocked. they are working with law enforcement and they do. >> mr. potts, they use conspiracy theories and hate based information? >> now is facebook working toe mitigate the power of the bots

that amplify the misinformation campaign. >> thank you, again, congressman. >> when we talk about bots, to get at the root of the cause, which are networks of fake accounts or inauthentic people, working in concert to hide what they are, what they're doing and what their intentions are. over the course of the last year we've taken down multiple networks, arranging globally throughout the world. some with fiscal motives, some other motives, and we're continuing to invest in that work, and it will be a priority going-forward. >> thank you. dr. ahan, my deepest condolences to you on the loss of your three children. >> thank you, sir. >> does islam teach muslims to hate jewish people?

>> no sir. i'm a muslim, we prohibit hating anyone, any faith or nationality. killing any human being is killing humanity. i have to tell you that in the middle east, where i come from, muslims, christians and jews live peacefully together for centuries and centuries, only interrupted by politics at times or invasions and division. what you hear in the media is sometimes radical muslims and we in american mosques are growing, to where we have a process of choosing and electing our board members of the mosques, and we have policy to keep radicalism outside.

>> thank youp iz will note the way in which miss patterson and miss herschel touched you as will were sharing your pain about the loss of your three children. my heart goes out to our nation for the pain that it has collectively due to just rampant violence based on hate. >> sir -- >> with that i yield back. >> may i add one line only, is that after the tragedy, the funeral was about 6,000 people of black, white, jewish, christian, multidenominational, even the atheist community denounced the crime. it was a scene that was american, actually. >> thank you. >> before we go to the next witness, our next member, we have -- i have announced we have received a number of statements that will included in the

hearing record. i will not be able to read all the names of the organizations, but they include the leadership conference for civil rights. the sikh organization. i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the letter to the committee from the naacp requesting that we conduct there hearing in the first place, begin without option. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. miss owens, i'm going to direct these questions to you if i may. i don't know if you've seen this, it's a memorandum that the imagine off the of democrats prepare for the committee members. they go through the various organization names and the people they represent. lawyers committee for civil rights and law. and then we get to you. oh, my goodness, candace owens,

director of communications at the conservative -- nobody else is described as progressive or liberal. you are described as a conservative advocacy group, and a conservative commentator known for her kritism of black lives matter and the democratic party. i think you caused my friends on the left to go to their safe spaces, i'd like to explore with you a little more of the reason for that. do you consider yourself a conservative? >> i am a conservative, yes? >> are you prolife? >> i am prolife. >> does that trigger people when they see you? >> it makes them upset and democrats hate me. >> do you own a gun? >> no, sir. >> next time you come to colorado, we'll take you shooting. are you a christian? >> yes, i am. >> where you proud of your family? >> i'm very proud of my family. >> do you hate americans with

black skin color? >> absolutely not. i love them so much, i will willing to fall on the sword a million times to have them learn we are being used. >> do you hate white people? >> i do 2340e9 about. >> do you hate hispanics? >> i do not. >> do you hate lesbians or gays? >> no. i have all of that in my family. >> i'm baffled. the chairman said that you openly associate with per have aers of hate? >> anyone who supports the president. i support the president, because he's done a tremendous job helping the black community despite all the rhetoric from the media. >> tell me how the president has helped the black community? >> he's getting us off of our feet. the last number i checked was

3.5 million people are off of food stamps, something that the black caucus didn't sit down and applaud, because they want a system where blacks are dependent on the government. they are people that couldn't place the policies that broke down the black family, and the biggest problem that's facing our community is father absence. in every room i've been with in with the fwrez, he talks about real issues, he doesn't do a southern draw accent and speaking to us like we're saves. he asks important questions, what do you have to lose? >> do you believe you openly associate with purveyors of hate? >> i do not. >> do you believe that college campuses should be open discussions or there should be open discussions on college campuses for various issues? >> i absolutely do. i do a campus tour tonight i'm flying up to the university of connecticut, we're being met with aggressive leftist groups,

three chapters have vowed to shut it down. we face this violence every day and no one wants to talk about it. >> you went on to speak about it, have you ever been disinv e disinvited because of your conservative views? >> all the time. >> is that a form of hatred? >> of course it is. and we're not talking enough about political hatred in this country. conservative activists being attacked, like myself. we have a student whose dorm was set on fire for being a member of the turning point chapter. all we preach is a means to lift the most people out of poverty. that is my belief, and black people do not have to be democrat, we are not owned by the left, i understand that causes some people trouble. >> so as a conservative, you've attended many conservative events. and visited with many conservatives. and i am not denying for a moment that there are white supremacists and we should condemn white supremacy.

>> of course. >> there are hateful groups all across the political spectrum and we should condemn those. in your interactions with conservatives, have you seen hateful speech, bigotry, racism among the conservatives you've associated with? >> i speak in front of conservatives probably three times a week. i jump on a stage and say everything problack. they are so supportive. they want black americans to realize they are americans first and foremost. conservatives are patriots. the president is a patriots. and there is no skin color in patriotism. >> thank god we have you. >> thank you. the gentlemen woman from california is recognized. >> thank you much i want to thank all the witnesses that are here today. >> i offer you my condolences along with everyone else and

sadly know your pain. >> thank you. i wanted to know if after your tragedy, you have received any threats or harassment experiences of people harassing you for speaking out as a muslim? >> i personally did not. i read the email last night that warned me of coming here to testify but after the tragedy, there was a tweet that said three down, 1.6 billion to go. there was another tweet that said, rag heads should be given the medal of honor and released. from custody. >> thank you, i'm very sorry to hear that. >> miss patterson, you mentioned that you had some specific recommendations for us, in terms of regarding white supremacy, i wanted to know if you could give

us a couple examples of your recommendations? >> we would like the national commission to be formed. we think there should be a joint law enforcement civilian task force to outline an organized counter insurgency strategy. we don't like the notion of the lone wolf narrative, we think there's an organized white nationalist group around the world that is being connected. we want to study the role of social media has played in enabling this threat. we need to develop a clearinghouse for data collection reporting, and analysis on white nationalism, we need to fortify the 15th amendment so there's more voting on the part of disenfranchise groups. we think there should be humane immigration policy. one thing we need to talk about is that right now there are

latino children in cages, we think this is a definite man fess station of white supremacy. >> thank you very much. i think one of the first steps in addressing white supremacy, though, is really acknowledging the seriousness and the fact that it exists at all. before our last election, we had four acts of domestic terrorism, the week or two before, and they were not called that from the man who had the bombs that didn't go off. the individual that was in search of african-americans to kill in kentucky. he tried to enter a church, and he couldn't. and so he killed two random black folks. the horrible massacre at the synagogue, and then the shooting several days later at a yoga studio, where someone was looking for women of color. but in that, we have the fbi that is very concerned about black identity extremists much and i just wondered if you could

tell me of examples -- how many acts of domestic terrorism were carried out by african-americans in the last few years? >> it is our view that this black identity extremist designation is false. this was something created by the fbi's domestic terrorism analyst units to essentially target black activists today, who are focused on issues like promoting police accountability. we don't see any evidence that black civil wrights activists pose -- >> i know there was a case in texas, where there was a young man who was arrested and incarcerated for a while, supposedly for being a black identity extremist. do you know of any other cases like that? >> not familiar with other cases, i will say that we have a pending freedom of information act why that we sent to the fbi

several months ago, and just a few days ago, we received mere acknowledgement of our request. we think it's time for us to shine a light on what's happening at the fbi, it's time for us to get more information about the scope of their activities, who they're investigating, most importantly, it's important that we find out why they're diverting resources away from the real threat that drives the purpose of this hearing today, white supremacy and white nationalism. >> thank you very much. i just wanted to also acknowledge. when there was a threat by the threats that were made, president trump was asked about whether i sees white nationalism as a threat. he responded he does not. it's a small group of people that have very serious problems. i believe the woman from the anti-defamation league, when you

talked about the incidences of white supremacists, terrorist acts in the united states, what would the percentage that has risen? >> oefrn the last ten years it was 54% over half. last year it was 78% of extremist murders were by white supremacists. >> it's unfortunate the president considers that insignificant. and it's unfortunate that after all of these acts, whether they've taken place in the united states or around the world, he cannot bring himself to have a full throated denunciation of white supremacy. thank you. >> before we go to the next witness, i want to read two paragraphs from a story that was just posted on line. a congressional hearing to explore the spread of white nationalism, meaning this hearing, quickly served to show

the problem silicon valley faces. the hearing held by the house judiciary committee was streamed line by google. a live chat featured posts from users, some who posted anti-semetic screeds and claim that white nationalism is not a hate group. this illustrates the problem we're dealing with. >> could that be another hate hoax? >> all i know is what i read. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i ask unanimous consent to include in the record violence into the record perpetrated by leftist organizations. >> i'm riffing on something that mr. buck -- the gentleman from

colorado was talking about, in the listing of witnesses, in the chairman's memo, it's something i've not seen in my brief time in congress or in my legislative service in my home state. that is an editorial comment about a witness. some might even consider that not so subtle advertising. it's unfortunate, but it demonstrates how easy it is to let one's bias appear, even in what is supposed to be an innocuous listing of witnesses -- >> will the gentleman yield? >> yes, i will. >> i assume you're referring to what was written about candace owens, where it says she's a director of communications a conservative commentator known for criticism of black lives matter. i don't think she could borrow with the accuracy of that, it's a simple statement who she is.

>> what i will say about this is, you never ever see anybody characterized in any other list of witnesses. this is the first time we've ever seen that, other than stating what they represent. or the group they're from. this is seemingly -- seemingly anyway, going beyond the bounds of what is the norm that is an indication to me of how easy it is to demonstrate animous. so it meets for a logical question -- as you talk. you go to universities, i'm going to uconn tonight. do you receive hate speech directed at you? >> all the time, and i really do feel like the media on the left has made it okay. i want to add that my biography which you reduced to one sentence. it wasn't what i said or submitted to injure office last

night. >> and i -- >> i think you opened with anti-black bias, and i see it coming from the chairman today. >> miss owens, these efforts to shut you down when you speak publicly on issues you care about, are they peaceful? >> no, they're really scary, they threaten us online perpetually. i receive threatening letters to my home when the media pretends that i hate black people, gays or muslims, with no evidence supporting any of those claims. but they're inviting people to think it's okay to be violent toward me when they see me. >> there are on occasion false accusations and staged hate crimes. what impact do those have on actual real hate crimes. >> it makes it harder for people to come forward.

i don't see enough condemning in terms of what jussie smollett did. the left was quick to believe him and put him on a platform, despite no evidence, it makes it harder for us to come together as a nation, which i think is it what the president is trying to do, bring everyone together. >> are you familiar with the case of isabella chow who uc berkeley senator who was harassed because of a position she took? >> i am not. >> she abstained from a vote and was marsed out of her position, and she was hate speech galore all arising and o going-forward. it isn't that there isn't hate speech. it's that we need to condemn all hate speech. >> that's correct. i definitely agree, we need to condemn all hate speech. there is a double standard in this country, and the double

standard is being felt the most by black conservatives, the jewish community and christians. >> thank you. you remember the chairman agreeing to give you an extra 30 seconds because of the corruption you experienced during your opening statement. do you remember being gaveled down by the chairman once you beg began? we just timed this, you only have 12 seconds, i have 30 seconds left. i'm going to give you those 30 seconds you were promised. >> well, i am deeply pained that after a congresswoman from minnesota called israel evil, hypnotized the world, jews used their money to promote what they want out of congress, that this woman was defended by leaders of her party, defended by at least three members of her party, with

no consequence. she should have been removed from all of her committees, just the way steven king was for this unbelievable outburst of hatred toward jewish people. there's a member of this committee who publicly called jews termites. there was no outrage to that statement. this is frightening to me, if there's not consequences to this type of hate speech against jews, we're only going to embolden people to continue this, and ultimately hate speech turns to physical violence. that really frightens me. >> the time for the gentleman has expired. the gentleman from florida? >> thanks for your service to

our country. dr., issala, thank you for being here today, i cannot imagine the pain that you feel every day, but your being here and speaking out is helpful for this committee as we work to make sure that the government is doing everything that it can to address hate crimes. >> there was an episode of the new york times pod cast last year about a florida police officer who was shocked by the murder of heather heyer and was concerned because richard spencer was going to be coming to the university of florida. he tried to prevent violence in gainesville. and found a complete lack of

help. the state police didn't have information for him. you look at the story from just a week or so ago, about the about the department of homeland security and the branch of unless to focus on the threat from home grown violent extremists and domestic terrorists. share that with state and local law enforcement, that group was -- that branch of i & a focused on domestic terrorism was eliminated and the an lifts were reassigned and there are expectations as to what that was. the question these get at is, since the adl tracks and reports on extremism, if you could tell us whether -- what you think the government in particular the

justice department, the department of homeland security can be doing more of in order to track and respond to these kinds of threats and whether the kinds of reporting like the one that the new york times reported on last year or this article just a week or so ago accurately reflect a sense that there is not enough attention. what more can the government -- what more should they be doing, what should we be focused on? >> thank you for that question. i agree with what you imply. that there is not enough attention and again that is what this hearing is about, not other forms of extremism, but one that has been underresourced, underdiscussed. we at the adl are very concerned about the disbanding of the dhs intelligence group. we think that the dhs need to do much more to coordinate dhs,

doj, fbi in tracking extremism and domestic extremism, to disband that in an uncoordinated way in other places is not the best thing to do. that being said and we've supported legislation that you have sponsored, sir, we are well aware that you have to be careful in tracking, and you can't go over the edge of what is constitution ali protected. and we'll work with you and continue on that, this disbanding is absolutely the wrong direction. this is not paying attention to a rising threat. and this government can do more than one thing. you do not have to stop paying attention to other threats, by putting the necessary resources into this one. >> we've talked about the way that online platforms have responded. i'd like to focus on a different

direction and ask you how white nationalist groups actually organize online. whether it's on existing platforms or on the dark web, are and why is it that we seem to throw up our hands and say, it's the dark web, we can do nothing about it, why shouldn't that be a focus of our work to go at the root of this. >> first of all, let's look at pittsburgh and new zealand. let me take a moment to clarify something that was inaccurately said about the new zealand shooter being a lefty echo terrorist. his manifesto raged against genocide. we must crush immigration and deport those invaders already living on our soil, it's not a matter of our prosperity but the survival of his people and gear

were full of white supremacists. >> in terms of what we can do, we see places, we see websites that radicalize. what so many of these are lone wolves, they're not a hate group. they don't go out to their neighborhood like decades ago, to find the ku klux klan. they signal they recruit, they radicalize, they reach them. so we -- and if they're thrown off bigger platforms, they go on to smaller ones, what i would say or r on the social media. we have to be careful about whether taking stuff off the web where we can find it, we push things underground. we're neither law enforcement, there is a balancing act there that we have to do to the --

>> may i -- >> may i say two more things quickly, mr. chairman? >> quickly. >> there is no definition of methodologies and measures in hate. the impact, is it aimages, is it pod casts, we don't have enough information and they don't share the data to go against this radicalization and to counter it, we need better information and a more rigorous framework. >> the time of the gentleman has expired. mr. mcclintock of california? >> thank you. it strikes me that both sides are losing perspective of why we have a first amendment. our freedom to speak our mind minds -- speech can be ugly, disgusting, hateful, prejudiced

and alarming, but it can never be dangerous to a free society as long as men and women of good will have the freedom of speech to dispute it, challenge it and reject it. suppressing speech, even the most hate filled speech doesn't diminish its influence, strengthens it. it is the very conflict of spiritual and moral ideas which gives the free countries a great part of their strength. you see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers, they are afrafd words and thoughts. words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because forbidden terrify them. even the mightiest are thrown into panic. then he goes on to say, a state of society where men may not speak their minds, where children denounce their children

to the police, where a businessman ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinions, such a state of society cannot long endure if brought into contact with the healthy outside world. free societies don't punish words and thoughts, they punish deeds. the reason for that is because words and thoughts can be countered by words and thoughts, that's why we have a first amendment. what we're seeing across the world today is that it is a very slippery slope between banning hate speech and banning speech we just hate. we've seen many examples even in our own country of legitimate speech being suppressed on college campuses, on social media platforms and even in public discourse. if there's an ideology that we don't like, the weakest thing that we can do is try to forbid it or suppress it. the strongest thing we can do is

to use our own freedom of speech to confront it and defeat it on its merits, if we allow our society to become one where men and women may not speak their minds, we'll have lost the very quality that he said gives free countries a great part of their strength. these ideologies cannot long endure. that in turn requires unrestricted freedom of speech. precisely the freedom protected by our first amendment. we've made limited expressions when speech becomes explicit to insight violence or defame an individual's reputation. the truth is always an absolute defense. what we're hearing now is something fundamentally different, it's to set up government or corporate officials to decide what speech is acceptable and what is not, that is a very dangerous power that can quickly be abuses. today a great deal of public

discourse is conducted on social media. major platforms like google and facebook that are here today. we have granted them legal immunity under the assumption that they're merely providing a public square, and those who use it should be held accountable for their own statements. this is appropriate as long as these platforms are not practicing any form of censorship or favoritism, other than, of course, censoring explicit incitement to violence. they are practicing censorship and political favoritism. once they begin to practice censorship, they cease to be platforms and are publishers who are responsible for their content. my question of the internet platforms represented here today, i don't think you can be both, you can't be a neutral platform and at the same time exercising editorial control over content. the question simply is, which

are you? are you a neutral form or are you an editorial publication responsible for your content? which is it? >> thank you. facebook is a tech company. we're not a content company, we do moderate content. after hearing your discussion, i think those are many of the issues that we wrestle with to give people the ability to have the platform, we want to give people the voice, we feel that by drawing lines around things like calls to violence. even some things that are more egregious, like child porn, for example, by not having that on the platform, we'll give the platform to more people so they can share their voice. it's a constant issue we deal with daily, we try to strike that balance, it's a lard one,

we know that there are many opinions. we want to be across the spectrum ideas. it is a difficult discussion. >> the concern is some. >> the gentleman has expired. miss walden. >> youtube is a place where we want anyone to come and share their ideas about politics, things that are controversial or offensive. our community guidelines are politically neutral, and youtube is a place where users are uploading content. the community guidelines are in place, to ensure we're creating a free and open platform for users to kbrup load their content. >> the time of the gentleman has expired. the gentleman from louisiana, mr. richmond.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. let me start by asking unanimous consent to place into the record, a lot of that i wrote as chair of the congressional black caucus expressing our concern over the rising -- alarming number of hate crimes, the rise in hate crime and all of the other things and asking this congress to hold a hearing. soy want to thank you for doing that, and i want to insert that into the record. that was before. tree of life, before charlottesville. i want to thank you for stepping up to the plate and having this hearing. let me just say, we heard a pretty accurate description of the first amendment. and i will not impugn any intent

to it, but i think there was one glaring omission, you don't get to yell hate in a crowded theater. and just because you're upset with your station in life and sitting in your mama's basement in your boxers, you don't get to spew hate that you know will invii incite violence because you can hide behind anonymity. it was said that we're fear mongering, and the concern over white nationalism may be misplaced or even -- i think it was quoted as soup id. i would just tell you that the families of the manual nine, those were real funerals, those are real kids without real parents. those are real grandparents who were worshipping the lord and

invited the young man in. and let him share with them their worship experience. and according to the perpetrator, he said they were so nice, they were so welcoming, i almost changed my mind. soy want us to put it back in perspective what we're talking about here. it's not just free speech, we are talking about inviting violence. we're talking about finding and influencing weak people to do dastardly deeds, because the pain is very real. i'm equal opportunity and very honest about how i feel. we know words have consequences.

you can ask steve scalise, words have consequences. and we owe the american people better rhetoric. my fear is we can't have 1600 pennsylvania empowering people to feel that way. with that, since we have a white house that is actually probably giving safe harbor and con doming it, let me ask tech companies, you did say you will inform law enforcement when you find bad users. do you talk too each other at all? >> so that all the -- so if you identify somebody, will you then alert google and twitter and facebook and instagram and everybody? do you all coordinate at all? thank you, congress man. i'll start.

in it the case of new zealand, our first priority was to work with the new zealand law enforcement, which we did. we sent our agencies on the ground to be a resource for law enforcement. >> we uploaded the images within our ai, designated as a terrorist attack, and then worked with microsoft, google, snap chat, others, sharing it across the board so they could be on the lookout. >> the global internet forum is a body that the four companies founded and in the context of new zealand it's a way in which we use hashes to insure that there was -- we were minimizing the distribution of that content. there have been close partnerships between the companies work on issues around hate. we find that that really enha e

enhances our ability to learn from one another, in the ways we're tackling these problems that are unique on our individual platforms. >> thank you, and i would encourage you all to figure it out. because don't want us to figure it out for you. thank you. and with that, i yield back. >> thank you to all the witnesses here today. the first time i spoke on the floor of the u.s. house was to condemn white nationalism and white supremacy. i'm very proud of this. i'm proud of the fact that earlier this year, when a member of my own conference made inexcusable remarks, the republican leadership acted very quickly, that member sits on zero committees right now. it's a shame everyone can't be said for my colleagues. -- they couldn't even unite around a simple resolution to condemn anti-semitism without

watering it down. last year 11 jewish worshippers were killed and six others wounded at the tree of life synagogue, which is just outside my district in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. the day after that cowardly act, i stood in solidarity with americans of all religions of all races of all edthnicities a a vigil to honor the victims of that crime. we have to come together as a nation to stand up against hatred and bigotry in all forms, and all forms includes anti-semitism. mr. klein, what do you think congress can do to combat the rise of anti-semitism. >> one of the initial things i agree with you, congressman, there should be consequences to members of congress who make repeated anti-semitic remarks that are false in addition to being sensitive. when there's no consequences it only emboldens other s continue that. and also when it comes to

campuses, where there's been constant verbal violence against jews, there's been no consequences. the universities refuse to publicly name those people who have made these awful rallies and statements, and they've never dismissed them from school, expelled them, but by the way, when these types of episodes occur against blacks or gays or muslims, they are expelled frequently, that's common. so we should really study, why is it that one half of the world's muslims have anti-semitic views. this is adl's own survey, not my survey. is it a coincidence that two of the three freshmen who have made anti-semitic remarks, happen to be of that faith? we should have a study about that, and a muslim leader of

egypt has said that we need a religious revolution. and imam's must step up to the plate and start making it clear how islam interprets the koran which promotes hatred. >> thank you, mr. klein, you were speaking briefly about college campuses. i speak at a lot of college campuses, there's a lot of talk about boycott, divestment and sanctions for the bds movement. is this fueling the anti-semitic movements on college campuses? >> yes. to boycott that sanction, unfortunately, university presence has not allowed anything to happen with that -- specifically, but resolutions are passed regularly on this.

really demonizing the jewish state. we need strong federal laws that make it clear that american governmental bodies will not do business with any organization or company that supports bds. they can say whatever they want, it's not a freedom of speech issue, they can condemn jews, but the u.s. government will not do business with them. that's what has to happen. the ultimate goal is bds destruction. they never condemn outrageous authorities that promote hatred. you never see these bds people condemning the human rights abuse entity. it's all about jews, it's all about anti-semitism. >> thank you for the responses, i yield back the remainder of my

time. >> thank you, mr. chairman. there have been a very high profile of anti-hate -- there are some on this panel that have tried to hijack this hearing and desecrate the lives lost to the hate crimes and violence of white supremacists by attempting to use this as an opportunity to promote a political position or a political party, and i think that is despicable and deeply regrettable. during the last 10 years, 76% of individuals killed by right wing extremists were killed by white supremacists, making as you say, making white supremacy the most deadly type of extremist movement in the united states

over the last 10 years, that is a fact. and we have to do something about it. and that's what this hearing is about. and so i want to begin with -- first the technology platform, i think something that is different today is that the ability of white supremacists who are advocating violence and advocating and preaching hate, have an ability to reach many more people because of the advent of technology, seems to me, i would take it that there's a rise in white supremacy activity in the united states that's pretty clear and correct. you don't dispute that? can you answer? >> you don't -- you agree that white nationalism is enjoying a meaningful resurgence in the united states? based on the reporting from adl and law enforcement? >> yes, i'm aware. there's no question that media companies play a role not intentionally perhaps, play a

role in facilitating the spread of communications on behalf of white supremacists or the white supremacy movement? >> that's something we're absolutely concerned about, that's why we have policies -- >> and you both -- both facebook and google -- believe you have a responsibility to curb or prevent or restrict the spread of these aing tas on your platforms? >> yes. >> correct. >> so let me ask specifically, you referenced the creation of the global internet form to counter terrorism, i think both facebook and google are a part of that, at facebook, you hired in 2016 a number of individuals to proactively examine and remove things from facebook that could -- were considered connected to terrorist groups? >> that's correct. >> that has been a reasonably successful effort so far, has it

not? >> we've been sniffing investments and sniffing progress. >> will facebook admit to advocating this same full time team to proactively removing white supremacist content and promoting counter speech as you did with propaganda. >> that's easy. we're doing it currently. >> you have a global form to combat white supremacy? >> we treat white supremacy and white hate organizations under our terrorist standard -- >> let me ask you about a particular case. facebook announced on march 27th it would ban white national content from its platforms. a few days later, on march 30th, facebook publicly said the video from fake goldie, entitled race against time, people of color and jews are replacing white populations, and specifically urge views to help stop the

white race from vanishing, did not violate facebook's policy. a week later, the video remained on the platform and was only formally removed yesterday. why was it not immediately removed. facebook has said it will remove fake accounts. what proactive steps is facebook taking to preemptively remove them from the platform? >> thank you. when we become aware of someone that espouses hate, we will remove them if we can find the necessary links. that's the case with miss goldie, i believe she was removed from the platform. there will be no praise, support or representation of her on our platform going-forward. >> i would like to ask the witnesses to respond. the committee that reads in part, it is not only the trump administration's rhetoric and refusal to unequivocally condemn white nationalism, but

xenophobic policies have emboldened the most openly racist parts of our society. violence does not take the part of murders, it is also bans. it is the misuse of executive power and the declaration of a national emergency many social movements on the extreme are energized by policies and such words, some move to violence, others mobilize to pull the country through policies and politics even more. it feels like that's the elephant in the room that's been absent. the role of the bully pull pet. i'd ask at least -- the first three witnesses, and i want to express to dr. busaad, thank you for being here. and we express our deep

sympathies sew you many. >> thank you, congressman, i completely agree with you, there are two things that we need from our leaders. one we need what they say, and when they dehumanize and demonize refugees or muslims or anybody else from a marginalized community, that's a problem and the other is policies, what they do. i am not saying they are white supremacists, i am saying this is emboldened. you are absolutely right. >> as i said earlier, i come here in peace. and i don't -- i think i only see two members of the gop here. is that correct? right at this moment? >> make a statement, please? >> pardon. i know, this is important. i think the point you raised is

very important, i was delighted to hear that the congress has come out against white supremacy and white nationalism. one thing that troubles me and friends of mine is that you don't seem to say anything when president trump says these provocative things that we think embolden white supremacists and white nationalists. i understand the political dynamics, but we would love to see republicans stand up and say, mr. trump, what you're saying is not helpful, it harms people of color, it harms muslims, and so i would just call upon you not in an adversarial way, but in a genuine way, if you find things that he's saying that are negative -- >> time of the -- >> we would like that as well. >> time of the gentleman has expired. the gentleman from florida, mr. stube.

>> i would like to see the other side of the aisle condemn the remarks. >> if there's anything that's been said. >> he said he was dishonest when he said the president refused to condemn white nationalism. to c white nationalist. you gave the exact quote. he does not want to give the examples to condemn white supremacy and white nationalism and the president helping the black community every single day with his policies and he brought up family separation and this seems to be a problem with those at the border and if you look at black babies separated from the

womb of black mothers and we talk about that and lastly he brought up the rhetoric of the president in the same beth of despicable and i'm tired of hearing of the left saying despicable, deplorable and name calling should not be something that is done especially in these chambers. >> thank you, mrs. owens. mr. kline, is there anything that you would like to respond to that has been said? i will give you the remainder of my time. >> i am really confused when the good doctor says that islam does not teach hatred of jews, there is no problems with that issue, when in fact, there's a dozen or more imams in states around the country, who have publicly made sermons calling, to murder jews. this is a hadith that is related to the koran that is considered

very holy, the leaders of the muslim world, from al-azar university have made vial staples against jewish people and we really need to have muslims step up and do what the is said, and there has to be a reformation and a rethinking of the aspects of the koran that promote hatred against jews. that's why you have constant murder of jews in israel. despite the fact that israel has offered a state to the palestinian authority four times in the last 20 years. so this is to me one of the most serious issues as to why half of the world's muslims are anti-semitic were are 75% of the muslims anti-semitic and why are one-third of the muslims in america anti-semitic, which is two to five times the rate of anti-semitism of any other group

this has to be explored. but people are afraid to because they're called islamo phobe. and it has nothing to do with that. it has to do with the truth, the data that has been put forth, and pew has put forth similar data, and why is this an issue, we have to talk about this muslim anti-semitism, because this is endangering jews really in america and throughout the world. god forbid this will be translated into physical violence, each greater than we're seeing today. >> thank you. mr. kline. i will take the balance of my time to the gentleman from texas. >> thank you, my friend. it is interesting that the first person and possibly the only american ever ordered killed by a u.s. president with a drone strike was an war al-awlaki, and the only reason he was u.s. citizen is his parents came over on a visa, and he was born and they took him back to yemen and

taught him to hate america. but he was working with the bush administration, and the obama administration, and apparently, as an imam, he was encouraging terrorism that they didn't realize at the time. but apparently, that justified killing an american citizen without a trial, just through the drone strike. and i really appreciate the atmosphere here, and ms. patterson, you sound like somebody i would love to be listening to every day, all day. and i would just encourage you, you know, in the name of eliminating hate, it helps if you don't misquote or mischaracterize statements of the president. he never said asylum seekers are animals. he was talking about ms-13. and if you see the pictures of what they have done, i don't condone calling humans animals,

but i have sent people to prison, have even sentenced people to death, and agreed with james bird's killers being sentenced to death. thank you. my time is expired. >> thank you, mr. chair. in congressional hearings, the minority party gets to select its own witnesses. and of all the people the republicans could have selected, they picked candchace owens. i don't know ms. owens. i won't characterize her. i will let her own word does a talking. i will play the first 30 seconds of a statement she made about adolph hitler. >> i agree, i don't have any problems at all with the word nationalism. i think it gets, the definition gets poisoned, by elitists that actually want globalism. globalism is what i don't want. so when you think about, when we see nationalism. the first think being think about in america is hitler, a

national socialist but if hitler wanted to make germany great and make things run well, fine but the problem is he had dreams outside of germany. he wanted to globalize. he wanted everybody to be german. >> so my first question is, to ms. hershenov, ms. owen said if mr. hitler wanted to make germany great and have things run well, fine, but the problem he is had dreams outside of germany. so when people try to legitimize adolph hitler, does that feed into white nationalist ideology. >> it does. mr. lu. i know ms. owens distanced herself from those comments later, but we expressed great concern over the original comments. >> great. thank you. so there has been a lot of talk today, i would like to focus on actual policy responses, that our government can do to try to

mitigate this threat of white nationalism. i know that in my district, in los angeles, just last month, two swastikas were painted in pacific park along with a trail of blood. i met with jewish constituents in my district who mentioned that at their synagogues, they have all had to increase security. as you know, there is a nonprofit security grant program at the department of homeland security, do you believe it would be worthwhile to increase funding to that program? >> the adl has, for establishment reasons, first amendment reasons, been very cautious and wary of government funding to religious institutions. that being said, we well understand the fear and the safety, so i think that is something that has to be done very carefully, in terms of entanglement. i know in the place where i, in westchester county where i live the state and local governments

provide a great deal of protection to the synagogue to which i belong. so i do understand, and i would like to work more with congress, but i want to cautious about where we entangle. this is a very difficult thing to do because when we're scared like this, of course we want money. >> what is a great point you make and i want to know that this program would apply to mosques as well as synagogues so it is not specific to the religion, but it is true, the first amendment does affect all of these issue, including for example private sector companies who say whatever it is that they want. i would also like to talk about a second program, and this was one that under, i asked ms. clark about, and it has to do with the trump administration wanting to cut a very specific office called the community relations service office, in the civil rights division of the department of justice. can you first explain to the american people what that office does, and why it would be a bad

idea to cut funding. >> the community relations service office is a very critical part of the justice department. they are considered the peacemakers. they are the ones who step in to communities that are embroiled in the aftermath of a hate incident. they are the ones who you would want to deploy out to louisiana, to the parishes, work the churches are burning right now. they are the ones that you would want on the ground, right after the charlottesville hate rally. we are deeply concerned by proposals to cut funding to this office, to shift this office to another part of the agency. it's important that this agency's work be completely nonpolitical. but the very subject matter of this hearing today, underscores the urgency of maintaining this office that has been with us for decades. >> and in fact, one of the reasons this office has worked well is because people who go there and get interviewed, it is not a prosecutorial office, and does that make it easier for

people to provide information. >> they can go in and connect with communities that are suffering in the aftermath of a hate incident. they connect with victims of crimes and hate crimes and connect them with services, and most importantly, they are the ones who help to ensure that an incident doesn't escalate and lead to more tension. so we need this agency now more than ever. >> thank you. and i yield back. >> the gentleman from north dakota, mr. armstrong? >> thank you, mr. chairman and i would yield my time to mr. urbanthaller from pennsylvania. >> thank you. ms. owen, ms. owens, i'm sorry, we just started recording, would you like time to respond to that? >> yes, i think it is pretty apparent that mr. lou believes black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip in its entirety. he purposefully presented an extracted clip.

>> the witness will suspend for a moment. >> it is not proper to refer disparagingly to a member of the committee. the witness will not do that again. the witness may continue. >> sure. even though i was called despicable. >> the witness may not refer to a member of the committee as stupid. >> i didn't refer to him as stupid. that's not what i said. that's not what i said at all. you didn't listen to what i said. may i continue? >> please. >> as i said, he is assuming that black people will not go pursue the full two-hour clip. and he purposefully extracted, he cut off and you didn't hear the question that was asked of me. he is trying to present as if i was launching a defense of hitler in germany when in fact, the question that was asked of me was pertaining to whether or not i believed that hitler was, whether or not i believed in nationalism. and that nationalism was bad and what i responded to is i do not believe that we should be characterizing hitler as a nationalist. he was a homicidal psycho path yic maniac that killed his own

people. a nationalist would not kill their own people. that is exactly what i was referring to in the clip and he purposefully wanted it to be cut off similar to what they do to donald trump to create a different narrative. that was unbelievely dishonest and he did not allow me to respond to it and is worrisome and tells you where people are in terms of trying to drum up narratives. and i work for prague university which is run by an orthodox jew and i sat on a plane for 18 hours, and i am deeply offended by by, by that clip without revealing the question that was asked of me. >> thank you, ms. owens. >> the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from maryland, mr. raskin. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to start by thanking you for calling this hearing today. and i want to thank my

colleagues, and the witnesses for engaging seriously with a serious problem. i'm proud also that i'm a member of the house of representatives that adopted the most comprehensive and forceful denunsation of anti-semitism in the history of u.s. congress, on march 7, 2019. one of our colleagues, has repeated the talking point that somehow this was a watered down resolution because we included other forms of racism and bigotry and hate violence, and i just want to take a second to dissent from that view. the white supremacist nationalist that we are discussing today, hate, minorities of almost every particular color, religion, race, character, ethnicity, so how could it conceivably be an effective or comprehensive response to the problem that faces us today, to pick out one

form of bias and prejudice, and to target simply that one? and speak can as a jewish person, i feel very strongly that the effort to defend jews against anti-semitism is integrally linked to the effort to defend african-americans, and hispanics, and members of the lgbt community, muslims, and others against white nationalists and white supremacists and racial violence. so far from watering the resolution down, we strengthened that resolution. we made it a powerful statement of the values of this institution. now, ms. hershenov, i want to come to you. in 2018 there were thousands of hate crimes across the country, and 50 people in america were murdered by domestic extremists which marks a 30% increase over the prior year, 49 of the people

murdered, or 98% died at the hands of while nationalists and white supremacists and antigovernment extremists as you have described them. in 2017, the fbi documented more than 7,000 hate crimes which was a sharp increase over just a few years before. and these are crimes that are motivated by racism and anti-semitism, and anti-muslim bias and anti-lgbt bias. now, the anti-defamation league is involved, every single day, in the struggle against hate crimes, and hate violence. the dmai administration as i understand it, haz made an 84% cut from a program called combatting violent extremism. the budget went from $21 million, under the prior administration, to $3 million, in this administration, slashing the staff from 16 full-time

employees, to eight or fewer. will you tell us about the combatting violence extremism program and what this cut might mean. >> thank you. what we need and what the adl wants is preventing violent extremism. now i want to acknowledge that there have been criticisms from some of my colleagues in vulnerable communities that that sometimes, in the past, that program profiled muslims. and i want to say something. i want to take this moment to clarify from our experts who track violence from those who pervert the muslim faith. there's absolutely anti-semitism among them, as there are, is among all extremists. however, suggesting that this reflects the whole of the muslim community is inaccurate and strikes fear and perpetuates conspiracies against all muslims, which we've seen the results in real life. >> you certainly would not want to ascribe extremist racist or

terrorist views to particular religions. at that point, we're just headed toward religious warfare. >> absolutely. so there needs to be much more, you're right mr. raskin, much more in preventing violent extremism in tracking and in interrupting that violence. but what i would say the adl actually believes that civil society groups like those that ms. patterson and others, are and in academic, and academic institutions are better situated right now, to look at the deradicalization, where is hate, how do we do it, where is the prevalence, and how do we -- >> let me stop you there. because i want to get one question in to ms. patterson. i appreciate that. so one of the groups that lost money was called life after hate. they had a 400,000 dollars grant that just got axed. we had a big rally against the white supremacists who came to washington, on the one-year anniversary of the charlottesville murder, heather hyer, and we had people from

this group, life after hate, they took young people who had gotten into extremist groups because it gave them a sense of belonging, it gave them a sense of membership. some people are actually racist anti-semitic idealogues and others are confused unemployed young people with nowhere to go and this work is working to get them out of it, light after hate, and i wonder what you know about life after hate and other groups that are actually trying to get young people out of this dead end of white extremist activity. >> the gentleman's time has expired the witness may answer the question. >> i have read very compelling stories about people who used to be skinheads and white supremacists who figured out this was wrong and they went a different way and once again i would say all members of this committee but particularly the republicans, to say to the administrative branch of government, to the executive, please fund these programs. it is nice that you talk about your aversion to white supremacy, but we need some muscle behind it. these programs that you're talking about.

>> thank the gentleman. the gentle lady from florida ms. demmings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and thank you to all of our witnesses here today. it is good, certainly keeps me on my toes and keeps me very focused to hear all perspectives. i'm glad today to see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and hear their great concern today about extremists and racist behavior. because these behaviors have existed in this country since 1619. and so ms. patterson, thank you for taking us back to the beginning. where slaves, maybe we need to be reminded, the world is watching, tortured, beaten, raped, hung, children separated from their parents, we've seen that before. if that's not enough for you, i join my colleague, mr. goaler,

in remembering a young man who was tied to the back of a truck, and was dragged until his body was unrecognizable as a human being. i join you, mr. goemert in remembering james bird. if that's not enough for you, let's remember a young student who was pistol whipped, tortured, beaten and tied to a fence. and left to die, in which he did. today, we remember a young man by the name of matthew shepherd. hateful rhetoric does have consequences, and doctor, we do extend our deepest condolences to you, regarding what happened to your family. one of my colleagues today said that nothing that white nationalists claim resonates with any of us here today. well, if that be true, then you all would denounce hate at all

times. and not just wait until things are said that you don't like about a particular group, or wait until a time when it is politically advantageous. i do believe that in this country, we're better than that. and let me remind my colleagues, because we're the ones with the authority and the power to make the decisions. it took my republican colleagues over a decade to take any action against one of their own who had a reputation of making disparaging remarks. but what are we going to do about it? because you know, there is hope. we do have an opportunity to move forward. and i'd like to direct my question to mr. pot, and ms. walden, with regard to your platforms, being used, to spread

hate and possibly violence. hateful rhetoric comes first, it seems, and then the action comes to follow it. groups including the leadership conference on civil rights, civil human rights and color of change, have called for civil rights audits of text companies after repeated failures to effectively and timely remove violent content, particularly relating to hate crimes. we've heard about new zealand. so i don't need to talk about that. would your companies be willing to submit to an external audit from academics and other external stakeholders and i'd like to know why or why not, and mr. pots, we'll start with you. >> thank you, congresswoman. currently, we have employed laura murphy one of the leading civil rights leaders, civil liberties leaders in america to the u.s. civil rights audit. she actually published her first set of findings in january of

this year and she will continue to examine our processes, our policies, and the room for unintentional bias that may creep into our system. and i would assume that she will also make those public. obviously, we give ms. murphy a lot of space to do her audit. she will conduct that in a deliberate way. >> so you have already agreed to make those results public? >> and some of those results are currently public right now. >> thank you very much for that. because it is about getting better, isn't it? it really is. >> absolutely. >> thank you. ms. walden. >> thank you. we didn't receive a similar request to do an audit. however, we work very closely with organizations like the leadership conference, like lawyers committee, like adl, muslim public affairs council, et cetera. we're part of adl's cyber hate problem solving lab and we work very closely with organizations to ensure that their work informs the way that we think about these issues. >> would you be willing to submit to an audit? >> we undergo audits under the european code of conduct on hate speech already, so that is

certainly something we've made public and i think are willing to do so. >> so something you're willing to take a look at. >> absolutely. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i yield back. thank you. >> thank you, gentle lady. ms. scanlon of pennsylvania. >> thank you very much. you know, today's hearing comes at a time when incidents of hate and violence are increasing at an alarming rate. and as i'm sitting here listening to the testimony today, i'm thinking about the impact just in my own district. in october, i attended services at our local temple after the squirrel hill incident, and you know, had to pass the police cars, parked outside to protect the temple. just a couple of weeks ago, i went to a local mosque in upper darby, to meet with our muslim neighbors there, after the shooting in new zealand. and had to pass, you know, the police cars there. on sunday, i was in charleston,

with family, for a family event, and took the opportunity to attend services at mother emanuel, as i had two years previously, and i did have some consolation while i was there in knowing that, just a few weeks ago, this committee held hearings on gun violence, and the house passed the charleston loophole bill, which would have denied a gun to the white supremacist who murdered people at mother emanuel. so we have made a little bit of progress. but we are far, far from being through. and just the fact that we hear that, you know, white nationalists are fundraising off this hearing today, by live streaming it, is really, really troubling. ms. clark, can you speak to what more the justice department could be doing in this space? >> thank you for that question. we've talked a lot about hate crimes, and the need for the justice department to bring more

resources to bear, investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators, but i want to make sure that before we close out this hearing we also talk about the impact of hate on children. we know that there has been a 25% increase in hate incidents in the k to 12 context, and again, this is a place where the justice department has resources at its disposal, to make sure that our schools are safe environments. safe learning environments, for all kids regardless of race. we're also seeing hate play out in the workplace. and here, too, the justice department can play a role in stamping out the hate that african-americans, muslims, and other minorities are experiencing in the workplace. we need a justice department that is willing to roll up its sleeves and bring every resource to bear on combatting this crisis. we know through our own work at the lawyers committee for civil rights under law that law enforcement agencies on the ground are often ill-equipped and underresource, and not

prepared to confront hate. so making sure that the justice department is stepping in to provide support to bring perpetrators to justice, thinking about hate and how it is playing out in schools and at workplaces is also critical. and then finally, data collection is so key. we know that there are a lot of hate crimes that go underreported, but more importantly, a lot of law enforcement agencies fail to report data to the federal level as they are required to. finding ways to incentivize better data collection, and better data reporting is also crucial, in the war against hate. >> okay. thank you for that. >> ms. hershenov, we've seen a little bit of this even today, where minority groups are being pitted against one another. and i don't want to let the white supremacists, you know, do, i don't want to do their work for them by putting people against each other. so the adl has been pretty vocal that there's no evidence that

hate crimes in the u.s. against jewish people are being committed by muslims and vice-versa, that hate crimes against muslims in the u.s. are being perpetrated by jewish people. can you speak to what your research shows and how white supremacists are using the strategy of pitting jews and muslims against each other, to drum up divisive rhetoric and a false narrative about who is committing domestic terrorism here in the u.s. >> yes, thank you, representative scanlon, i think you've brought up again the need to look at the data. and to be very transparent about it, so everyone else can look at it. and make sure, because it is true that what we are not seeing muslims in the united states, attacking jews or vice-versa. and when we, you know, in a democratic pluralist society like the united states should be, it is meant to be, if we

don't join in coalition, and have each other's backs, no minority is safe. and the only winners are those who sew division and try to divide us. whether that is for white supremacist agendas, or whether that's either democrats or republicans, using it for political gain. whatever that is, who wins? i don't want to be the jewish people or any people to be a prop for that. and i thank both, you know, mr. raskin, and the gop senators, who have made these comments, and invade against, and made statements against hate. don't use us as problems. you know, that is what is happening, it is a divide and conquer, and who really wins then, the haters win. >> thank you. >> the time of the gentlelady has expired. ms. garcia of texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i do want to thank you for having this hearing on this very important topic. i know that for me, and my

district, it is overwhelmingly latino, we are seeing more incidents occur that we believe to be hate crimes. i have today, mr. chairman, the written testimony, of the late david richardson, the houston area resident, who testified in front of this committee, on april 17, 2007, about his experience as a hate crime survivor. mr. richardson was viciously attacked by two individuals targeted for being mexican-american. his attackers wanted an admitted racist skinhead attempted to carve a swastika on his chest. richardson was brutally beat to a pulp burned with cigarettes and left for dead. richardson woke up in the hospital weeks later, his life changed forever. the former high school running back and homecoming prince spent three months in the hospital, and endured more than 30

surgeries. incredibly, his assailants had no specific liability under federal law for the hate crimes committed. mr. richardson gave his testimony to this very committee, while advocating for the local law enforcement hate crimes prevention act of 2007, which expanded the ability to prosecute hate crimes. president obama signed a version of that bill into law in 2009, but sadly, richardson would not live to see the fruits of his courage, and speak out against hate as a survivor. at 18 years old he committed suicide, a mere three weeks after testifying today. today's dialogue is important, as we examine the ways in which rhetoric and policies of the national stage have emboldened hate. and i want to start my questions with you, ms. hershenov, as one of my colleagues said, we're not trying to compete here, but the

truth is there is a rise in crime against, hate crimes against immigrants particularly, and i think you've quoted the rhetoric of the museum shooter who said that we needed to stop the invaders, how alarming is the increase? is it acute? in other words if you compared trends, if you look at your data, is it just critically increasing in terms of crimes against immigrants or latinos? >> yes, there is a slight increase, i think if you look at the fbi data, which is from 2017, you see that there's, all of this has risen, jews up 37%, religion, 27%, egts nis ethnicity, attacks against

immigrants and refugees up, so yes. >> it is. and obviously i want to direct my questions now to the representatives from facebook and google. you have not made me feel any better. i mean i just don't feel any sense of reassurance in your presentations, in your demeanor, in terms of what we're doing to respond to a lot of the messaging that is on social media, not just facebook and google, but also through twitter, through amazon, through youtube, through all of that, and you're both globally, and what have you done to ensure that all your folks out there globally know the dog whistles, that know the key words, the phrasing, you know, the things that people respond to, to ensure that we can stop some of this, and be more proactive in blocking some of this language? >> congresswoman, thank you for the question. that is exactly one of the

things that we are constantly thinking about. it's true that those who seek to exploit our platforms are uniquely motivated and their tactics are ever-evolving. that's why we have internally, we have an intel desk that looks to see and track trends of what we're seeing on our platform. but also, we engage with external experts so that we can understand what others are seeing. as language changer, it is important for us to be able to understand things like you said, like dog whistles, so that we know when slurs are happening, as part of comments or in videos that are our viewers are reviewing. >> mr. pots? >> excuse me, thank you, congresswoman. we do have 30,000 people now focused on safe security, and within those people we have specific subject matter of experts that focus on this area so we having a democratics, we have other people who come from civil society, human rights backgrounds to really dive deep into this area. we do use a lot of our

automation and artificial intelligence to help surface, to help provide that data analysis. and then the other key part is the partnerships. so we're working on, not only just across industries but with civil society, working with academia, to get ahead of those trends so we see those signals anden this would he try to write policies that can actually target that and remove it from the platform. >> i hope you do more. thank you. >> the time has empired. the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you all so much, for being here, i appreciate it very much. and i appreciate that we're having this important hearing. i did want to say, just before i get to my questions, that the ranking member talked about the need to call out hate and stop playing to 15 minutes of fame, i think is the way it was phrased and i do have to wonder then why the minority called some witnesses who have in fact

actually traded in just this. and i think it is not that we want to -- >> would the gentle lady yield for half a second. >> not right at this moment. >> i appreciate it. >> i will at the end. >> my mistake. >> and my concern about the characterization of some of what's happened is that we have a mass murder, who really did trade in hate. 50 counts of murder. 39 attempted murder counts. who did call out one of the witnesses on this panel, as being his inspiration, whether or not she is, i'm not contending, i'm not contesting that, but i think that for people across the country who are watching this hearing, the idea that some how we would give any legitimacy to speech that in any way might be considered as triggering that kind of action, that's different than saying somebody is responsible, which i would never say. but i do think that it is deeply hurtful for people across this country, who might be watching this, to see some of those

things expressed or given legitimacy to, and i just want to say that i think that that's an important consideration. and we've gotten a lot of emails about this. and i know there are many things that were entered into the record, and i also ask unanimous consent, madam chair, to enter into the record a statement from the western state center, and a statement that was sent by a number of muslim groups, muslim, arab groups unanimously. >> without objection. >> thank you. let me go to my questions now. my first question is for mr. pots. following the tragic hate crime in new zealand, facebook did ban explicit praise, support, or representation of white nationalism and white separatism on facebook and instagram. and in my opinion, this change was long overdue. it probably should have been done a long time ago. given the evidence that you had following heather heier's death at the 2017 white supremacist rally, so what are you doing now that you have put in that place,

to ensure that the ban is fully enforced? >> thank you, congresswoman, and obviously condolences to ms. heier's families whose tragic events still ring very strong to my mind as a graduate of the school of law, university of virginia. just to be clear, on the policy banning white nationalism, white saep tism, we have been looking at it for a very long and started the process in september to see if we can move forward to find the linkage to organized vlgz, organized hate from those terms and we met with a wide range of groups globally, north america, europe, africa, elsewhere, to focus in and see what those groups would say across the spectrum. >> mr. pots, i'm so sorry, i don't want to cut you off and i have very little time. i wanted to see if you can address the fact that there is still white nationalist pages on your site and i appreciate the process. >> i'm sorry, congresswoman, when we become aware of these

pages, we remove them and through a variety of ways, both reactively when someone reports it to us we will remove the pages if they violate our terms and doing proactive surfacing of those to human reviewers so they can also review at that time and remove so it is a fully holistic approach that we take and we trilt troo i to really leverage our technology in that space and hoping to move faster. >> thank you. and civil rights organizations have asked you specifically for greater transparency on your enforcement practices, and training. can you commit to sharing your enforcement practices and training procedures with the public? >> congresswoman, first again, protecting civil rights is something that is core to us at facebook. something that is very personal to me. something that we really want to lean into. >> if you can't, you know, if you're concerned about privacy issues wit you at least commit to sharing it with congress and with stakeholders as soon as possible? >> as i, as ms. murphy, laura murphy is doing her assessment, i am sure that is part of the assessment. >> is that a yes or no. >> if we are able.

>> would you share your enforcement practices with gless so we can make sure there is enforcement around. >> if we are able to share them, i commit to that. i don't know the process. >> how about you ms. walden, can you give me a clear yes. >> yes, we make all of our enforcement, we have a transparency report about our enforcement guidelines and we already demonstrate sort of what we're doing with machine learning, what is done with community flagging, and what summons hate specifically. >> there you go. does your enforcement policy include a trusted flag or program for vetted civil rights human rights organizations to expedite review of potential hateful activity s? >> congresswoman, we have partnerships with a number of organizations including some civil rights organizations where they have that -- >> just a yes or no. >> i think i misunderstood your other question about the enforcement. we share an enforcement report that is transparent we do that twice a year and i apologize for the misupding. >> would you give me a moment? >> if the chair woman -- >> i just want to make sure i can reclaim my time, if i

find -- >> all i want to simply say it has been brought up, in my time, i know, was specifically and you can go back to my question, mr. spot pots was concerning those live streaming violence such as the act that was in new zealand, that was the context, and every one of the members of this body takes their own five minute youtube moments and those types of fame we understand, and i was never talking about, that and my specific request was a discussion on new zealand and how we could actually take those away from them because that is what they seek. that is all i intended to say, and to claim anything else is less than -- >> thank you. i was notes did a agreeing with you mr. collins, i actually agreed with your statement, i just wondered why the minority invited witnesses that clearly have some very controversial pieces in their background, including one who was seen to be the biggest influence on the white supremacist who slaughtered 49 worshippers in his words, this is not saying that you believe this, but in his words, so mr. chairman, i yield back. thank you.

>> gentle lady yields back. the gentle lady from georgia ms. macbeth. >> thank you, mr. chairman. as a survivor of a hate crime myself, i want to begin by reading a statement from two of the survivors of one of the horrific acts of hatred that took the lives of american, 11 americans last year, quote, on october 27, 2018, an individual fueled by white nationalist hatred entered the tree of life synagogue, murdered 11 innocent people, and seriously wounded two community members, and four of our dedicated pittsburgh police officers. we are survivors of that violent act of extremist haste. we do not want others to have to endure what we and our community have had to endure. we therefore urge you to take the measures necessary to combat this rising tide of hate and violence. make sure that our law enforcement agencies are organized and have the resources to monitor and combat this threat. adopt simple common sense measures to keep dangerous

weapons out of the wrong hands. thank you so much for listening to us. and thank you for all of your efforts on behalf of our country. sincerely, martin gainer, and daniel leger, end quote. mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent that this full statement be entered into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you. dr. abu-salha like mr. gainer and mr. leger you and i have survivors. each of us have lost legged ones because of the a combination of prejudice and a firearm whether that hatred was directed to a black son, or muslim daughters or a jewish congregation. as a right to remember the people who have been taken from us, we are constantly reminded of the bigotry that claims more lives every single day. hatred has already made survivors out of so many of us, and there will be more survivors every day that that hatred and that white supremacy is allowed to persist. dr. abu-salha in your view please tell me what resources

are needed for the rising numbers of survivors of hate crimes both immediately after an incident and in the months and years afterward. >> well, thank you, congresswoman. so i want to point out that many american states don't have hate crime laws. the great state of north carolina where i come from has an ethnic intimidation law in place which i can not really understand or explain, so first of all, we have to have hate crime laws in every state. number two, i think we need revisit the definition of hate crime. because it is really insufficient for us to ask, to prove it is a hate crime, that the criminal had to declare why he is go killing the victim. and and i refer to professor of criminalology at northeastern university, jack mchewitt who defined hate crime as a hate crime because number one their given cause of the crime was revealed to the atrocity of the

crime and number two, he did pick and choose a target for his hate of religion, that is the most vulnerable religion. and since i have an opportunity to speak, i would like to go back to mr. kline's question, and emphasize that i was trained in medical school by u.s. professors, i have jewish friends, my son has best friends, who are jewish, and the jewish community came to our rescue and we have an inter-faith night after the new zealand massacre, but i find it troubling that mr. kline, during this conversation, turned this conversation into almost an islamophobic conversation, and when i talk about my tragedy and my loss as a muslim and he calls me again on that, and also, mixing the concepts of what is a jewish american, versus an israeli citizen, we're not here to discuss current policy. and mr. kline mixed foreign policy with our discussion today way too much. i find myself as a muslim american, hold on to my freedom,

and my privacy of thoughts, and i don't have to give any pledge of allegiance to any foreign power, to prove my case. >> thank you very much. ms. clark, how can the government support communities targeted by intolerance, whether they have faced a particular incidence of violence, threats of violence, or hate of speech? or hate speech, rather? >> well, we know that hate crimes are on the rise. we also know that a tremendous number of hate incidents go under-reported. i think it is important that law enforcement demonstrate a real commitment to standing up and providing support for victims when hate incidents happen. i think it is critical that they work with prosecutors to make sure that perpetrators are held accountable. and most importantly, i think it is important that they speak up and use their voice to condemn these incidents when they happen. because the silence can be truly deafening. >> thank you. i yield back the remainder of my time. >> thank you, gentle lady. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

thank you to the witnesses for being here today. in particular, dr. abu-salha thank you for your testimony and your courage and my condolences to you for your loss. today's hearing comes at a crucial time. when too many people in this country feel unwelcome, unsafe and marginalized. we cannot allow for hate to be normalized in our nation, and we cannot sit idly by. this divisive rhetoric that continues to pervade our national conversation demands a discussion and demands action. the antidefamation league center on extremism has report that 71% of the extremist related fatalities in the u.s. were committed by the far right or white supremacy movements. it has been further perpetrated by the use of online plachls after christ church, the video as we all know was shared countless times through platforms that live streamed the massacre of a people. we need one solution and one will come with the government working hand in hand with the online platforms that continue to be used by individuals to push their hateful agenda.

with that, mr. pots, my questions are for you, first, thank you for being here, and thank you for your service to our country. i appreciate the first steps that online platforms such as facebook have taken to attempt to curb the use of their platforms as a base for white nationalists including your company's recent decision to explicitly ban all forms of white nationalist content but similar to representative gypol i would like to dig a little deep in terms of how the policy is working in practice, obviously, understanding it has only been in existence for the better part of a week and a half, i suppose. but if you could give us some further details, i guess, first starting out, my understanding is, the pages you are screening, you're using a series of algorithms, on a daily basis to screen pages that would violate your new norms, standards of conduct? >> thank you, congressman. we use a series of both artificial intelligence and human reviewers to do what we would call proactive sweeping

for that type of content. we use signals from our community, user reports, to help us really hone in on to what may be white nationalist or white separatist behavior. if we do find white nationalists or known white separatists or people who are afifrlted with hate organizations, we actually have a process where we conduct what we call a fan-out. and the fan hut 0 is to look at that person's connections and ensure that we are trying to get to the rouot of those networks and remove them from the platform. >> thank you for that answer. on balance, what would be the percentage be of the content that is shared that is sort of triggered in these, triggered by these algorithms, or the ai tools that you use, that would be hosted or created by fake accounts? >> congressman, i don't have that number but i'm happy to follow up. i can try to do some research. but i don't think we have that fidelity in a number right now. >> it would be very helpful to have that data, because i think it would be quite informative in

terms of the steps that perhaps you all would continue to take, or perhaps new steps, that might be necessary, and here is why i'm asking. the adl, ms. hershenov, your organization prepared a study last year, that following the horrific shooting at the pittsburgh synagogue, you analyzed, or adl rather analyzed 7.5 million twitter pledges, so not really facebook, between august 31 and september 17, about two weeks, and found that almost 30% of the accounts repeatedly tweeting hatred, hateful messages. that those appeared to be bots. and i don't know if you have that data with you. but i suppose that you could confirm that that was the case. >> 4.2 million tweets, 40% were bots. >> 40%. so given that, i guess i am curious, mr. pots, if internally in facebook you've had conversations around how to deal with the proliferation of those fake accounts?

and my understanding is last year alone facebook disabled 1.3 billion fake accounts. and so to the extent, that's why the data around the posts, the percentages of the content that's being flagged by your algorithm, that is produced by fake bots, the reason why that data is so important, is because to the extent that it mirrors some of the data we've seen in other mediums, i would think that rather than being reactive, right, that there would be a case to be made to addressing it at the source and that is to say addressing the proliferation of those fake accounts. would you care to comment? >> that is correct, congressman. we do have a very strong coordinated and authentic behavior, a policy, that is meant to go after networks of fake accounts, when they are used to mislead who they are and mislead what they are doing. so if those accounts may include white nationalists and white supremacy content, it may be other things financially motivated and what we do with those networks, forcefullyfully, i believe we are well in the double digits now and we continue to act on that policy today.

>> i see my time has expired. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, gentleman. the gentlelady from pennsylvania, ms. dean. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for holding this important hearing. i'm not interested in sort of the false discussion over whether or not white supremacy exists in america or around the world. it does. we know it does. and we know it costs lives. i would like to lift up dr. abu-salha, your testimony. i'm sorry for your crushing unimaginable loss. >> thank you. >> i bring back these beautiful photographs of these beautiful children. your children. i would argue our children. and i thank you for telling the terrible story of their deaths. but what i'm more impressed with is the story of their lives.

and how you carry that story, and you repeat that story, because i'm confident, i was thinking here throughout this testimony, how do we prevent further acts of terrorism based on bigotry and hatred, and the notions of white supremacy, and the way we do that, is to lift up stories of love. that's what you did. that's what you do as you sit here. and it is more important than i think any policy decision we can make, though i'm certain we have policy decisions to make. so i did want to just say that to you, and i want to open it to you just for a moment for anything further you wanted to say but again, thank you. >> thank you, congresswoman. i appreciate that, and we are proud of them. and if anything maintains us and helps us survive is their legacy and their endowment is in excess of a million now, for fighting bias, and charity. you can visit our web site and

look at that. fighting terrorism has been the top of the agenda of muslim americans. and i think fighting terrorism rests in practicing our constitution. and our freedoms. and our rights. as muslim-americans and other americans. all together. because when you single out any group, whether jewish or christian or black or muslim, you're making them more vulnerable to that radicalization. so i think fighting terrorism is something we all agree about in this country. >> i thank you for that and i will take a look at your programs and that marvelous endowment. and that it is obviously an endowment of love. you could sit here and you could be filled with hatred. and instead, you choose not to be. and you don't make sweeping statements about all democrats this, or all democrats that. so thank you. >> absolutely not. >> i thank you for that. i wanted to talk also, ms. clark, about rhetoric, in my past life, i taught writing, and ret lick and ethics, at a --

rhetoric and ethics at a university in ffrld and i really care about language az and what we see as much as we need to be talking policy but i want to find out from you what you think the testimony today, or the testimony literally that we hear from this administration through its words and its actions, what does that reveal, and how does it impact what we're doing? how does it impact the national climate? because words matter. but how can we make that tangible for folks? >> right. what we've seen with this administration is that words, the rhetoric, the policy actions, matter. and they're influencing how people think about and interact with fellow citizens who may be of a different race or a different religion. at every turn with this administration, we have seen policy actions that make it clear that people of color have the target on their back, the muslim ban, the separation of

brown children from their parents at the border and assault of affirmative action by this justice department. we're seeing the dehumanization of african-american, and muslims, and other communities of color. and where i think we've seen the ugliest impact on our kids, frankly. on children who are learning and internalizing hate, because of so much of what is happening at the federal level. i'm deeply concerned about the rise in hate crimes that we're seeing at schools. we've seen about a 25% uptick in hate incidents at schools. and i think it is going to take a lot of work to not only push back against the crisis that we face, but to undue the damage, and to reprogram children who have been harmed by what they've internalized. >> i am person certain that education is going to be the key and our way out of this. and mr. pots, real quickly, a technical question and thank you all for your testimony today. i want to quickly follow-up with a question that my clees mr.

cicellini asked, you said you took faith goldy's video down yesterday over a week after it was reported but what specific proactive steps, not just responding, to flagged content you are taking? specific proactive steps. >> the gentle lady's time has expired. the witness may answer the question. >> thank you. the white nationalist and white separatism policy were just announced a week and a half ago so they are just going through enforcement. but within that policy, we are doing both proactive work, with our artificial intelligence to surface content that may be violating, to get it in front of human reviewers and then also using our human reviewers on reactive work when it is user reported. so for groups like ms., this woman whose name has just slipped my mind, we found out via a report and we recovered her against our policies and then we were able to remove her, and consider her to be a white nationalist. >> and i would just comment that it seems to me kind of late to just be coming to that notion that a week and a half ago, you just came up with these ideas

and policies. this is social media and your important platform, and wide widely-used platform, i'm disappointed that that policy is that new. thank you, mr. that policy is that new. thank you. >>ia from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you very much for holding this most important hearing to address tissue of hate crimhe i crimes. back home in orange county, california we're not immune. we've seen a sharp rise in hate crimes and race related incidents in the last few years. those are the crimes that are actually reported. as we know two years ago in charlottesville, virginia a self-professed neo-nazi attacked a crowded of people resulting in a young woman's death and injury of 19 individuals. after that attack i called homeland security committee to hold a hearing to address hate

crimes in the rise of white nationalism. i got nothing. last october a man shouting anti-semitic slurs opened fire inside the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh. it was deadly attack against the jewish community in our history. day after that attack i again called for a hearing on domestic terrorism and white nationalism. i got nothing. so today chairman nadler, i applaud your leadership on holding this most important hearing. two terrorist attacks that i mentioned are not the only hate crimes in the last few years. let's not forget about charleston ame turn, sikh temple in wisconsin and other attacks. and just yesterday the family of richard collins iii shared their painful experience of domestic terrorism in my office. the family told me a story.

they are constituents from steny hoyer's district. their son who had recently been commissioned may 2017 was killed, stabbed in the heart by an individual inspired by white supremacist material. here's a picture of richard collins. young man. ready to report to the army. two weeks after graduating from army rotc, college army rotc, stabbed in the heart while waiting for a bus. in the name of all these victims, trying to prevent them in the future, i have a lot of questions, i would ask you, when our political leaders echo white supremacists, white nationalist ideas, does that inspire

violence in our streets? >> honestly, it does. if you are in power, if you are in charge, you're a role model. you represent our country. i won't name names and i'm not a politician so i don't really follow the details of everything in d.c., but it would be inspiring for our leaders to be uniting and fair and calculated when they talk about sensitive issues and reinforce unity and solidarity of all americans. we are the most diverse country in the world. and if our leaders do not practice that genuinely, we're on a dark path. that's all i can say. >> miss clark, following up on that comment about diversity, my district i consider to be the u new ellis island of the united

states. we have immigrants from all over the world. refugees. a lot of those kids in those schools are very nervous, very stressed out, very scared. what do i tell them. >> that we've done them a grave injustice and that we as adults need to do better. we need to expect more from our national leaders. that no student deserves to go to a school where the n-word is scrawled on the wall or swastikas are found in the bathroom. where kkk flyers are distributed to students. these are all thing we're seeing right now play out inside of our nation's schools. we need law enforcement to do better. we need our leaders to reject policies that dehumanize students of color, communities of color and most importantly we all need to condemn the hate that's playing out across our country right now. >> miss clark, i think what

you're trying to say we have to remember what america is all about. >> right. >> a country of immigrants. a country of folks that have been rejected by their home countries and have come to america and made this country the greatest country in the world. we have to remind our children of the heritage. mr. chairman, i yield. thank you, gentlemen. the gentlelady from florida is recognized. >> thank you. and just to reiterate as we close this hearing today, i think it's important to, for all of us to remember why we're here and we're here to deal with the rise of white nationalism, to deal with the rise of violent hateful crimes and i truly respect you for coming here and honoring your children from that hateful incident back in 2015. can you describe very briefry so

everybody understands in the simplest form what the white nationalism? >> white nationalism is one of the many euphemisms for white supre supremacy. before the civil rights movement it was to keep the dominant of the white race. now it's fear of the genocide of the white race by a flood of nonwhites and other people whom they consider degenerates which they say that flood is orchestrated by jews s as parasitic pappeteers. >> would i be considered a threat? >> as somebody who is an immigrant, a latina, yes, that's the dominant ideology. >> my husband is jewish.

would he be perceived as a threat? >> he would be perceived as omnipo temp nt, parasitic force loyal only to his own race and a threat to the white race. >> and my children who were born in this incredible nation, but whose parents are a mix of latino and jewish, would they be perceived as a threat? >> yes. what they consider msyognist. having parents both of whom from communities that they demean and dehumanize, yes, they would. >> have you heard of the group the proud boys? >> yes. >> okay. i was a victim of an act of hate from the proud boys a few months

ago. i was visiting the office of one of my now colleagues in miami the chairman along with the republican party along with the proud boys organized a hate rally. when he to be placed in lockdown screaming profanities that i can't repeat in public. we had to call the law enforcement officers. we had to wait a few hours. it was definitely a very threatening and fearful experience for me. one of the first times i experienced it firsthand, what we're dealing with in this country. thankfully nothing happened to any of us. thankfully law enforcement came right away. what do you think consequence should be to these type of groups? >> i think that the laws, the kind of tracking and the laws on the book as the doctor said need to be enhanced. there's a number of different

things. miss clark has talked about education. and i know there's federal legislation to enhance hate crime laws. a lot of crimes are state laws and a lot of this starts online with real life consequences, and no state has an anti-doxing law. very few have anti-stalking. we need enhanced hate crime laws. >> i agree fully because i can tell you it was through facebook that they got this rally organized. and i can tell you also that i have done my research and there's still video from the proud boys that are still trending online through various forms, one of them youtube. and so miss clark just to finish off facebook has said they removed white supremacist contend as soon as they are aware from it. from the lawyer's committee experience is that accurate? >> we're very pleased that after

many months facebook abandoned this ill-conceived and flawed policy of giving white supremacist activity the okay or banning white supremacists activity but giving white nationalists and white separatists activity the red light. i'll say for several months we flagged pages like the nationalist agenda page on facebook and it's okay to be white. these are pages that are still up today as this hearing is taking place. we realize the hard work lies ahead as facebook implements this policy but no doubt tech companies must step up if we're ever going combat the hate crime. online hate is so pervasive. >> we have to work together as congress members as heads of companies that are actually

spreading this. i know it's extremely difficult to control but we have to do better than this because we can't allow this hateful rhetoric to spread. thank you very much. >> gentlelady from florida -- from texas, i'm sorry. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i wanted to put three articles in the record. the first one three black churches have burned in ten days in a single louisiana parish. ask unanimous consent. hate crimes increased for the third consecutive year, fbi reports. and then counties that hosted a 2016 trump rally saw a 226% increase in hate crimes. i ask unanimous consent to put those items in the record. >> without objection, the items will be entered into the record. this concludes today's hearing. thank you to our distinguished witnesses for attending. without objection all members

will have five legislative days to submit written questions for witnesses or additional materials for the record. the hearing is adjourned. >> mr. chairman, there are 21 democrats missing, and 15 republicans. >> tomorrow fbi director christopher wray will testify on prurcht 2020 budget request. live coverage of his testimony starts at 9:30 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. c-span's newest book "the presidents" noted historians rank the best and worst chief executives. provide insights into the lives

of 44 presidents. explore the life events that shaped our leaders, challenges they faced, and the legacies they have left behind. order your copy today. c-span's "the presidents" is available as a hard cover or ebook at c-span.org/presidents. we're back with ellen herring of the service women's action to network and we'll tals about the current controversy over thehe military draft and women's role in it. ellen, good morning.ti talk to us a little bit about your organization. >> i'm the ceo of service women's action network.oc we're a none profit that advocate on behalf of active duty and retired women veterans. we conduct research and have a membership organization. >> there's been a lot of talk lately abou' women being drafted and the possili