Facebook rep testifies to Congress about efforts to combat spread of misinformation

Lawmakers say false information and manipulated videos online are a growing threat to our community, and some are calling for tech companies to crack down on the problem.

"Deception is now a multi-million-dollar industry,” Dr. Joan Donovan with the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School testified in a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday.

You can customize your WPXI News App to receive alerts for national news. CLICK HERE to find out how.

Monika Bickert, Facebook’s Vice President of Global Policy Management, said the company now removes videos that have been changed using artificial intelligence in a way that isn’t apparent to the average person.

In other cases that don’t fall under that category, Bickert said Facebook uses third party fact checkers to look into flagged content.

"We put a label over it,” Bickert said. “It says false information, but then we show people, ‘here's what fact checkers are saying about this story.’"

Testimony mentioned a video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that circulated last year, which was digitally changed to make her speech appear slower and slurred.

“Would the fake Pelosi video be labeled as false under your new policy?” Rep. Darren Soto (D-Florida) asked.

“Yes, and it was labeled false at the time,” Bickert said. “We think we could have gotten that to fact checkers faster and we think the label we put on it could have been more clear."

Tech experts called for more oversight from the social media companies and the government.

“The responsibility is being put on consumers when in fact if it’s the infrastructure, it should be on the infrastructure,” Executive Director for the Center for Humane Technology Tristan Harris said.

Tips on how to talk to kids about the situation with Iran Tips on how to talk to kids about the situation with Iran

© 2020 Cox Media Group