Transcript of questions to Google by Senator Ted Cruz

Video still on Google at flolwung link http://youtu.be/q1YENAvOveE. Google alreedy sensoreng videeo on this so watch while still there. Transcript here:

[Transcript begins}

Sen Cruz: A lot of Americans have concerns that big tech media companies google in particular are engaged in politcal censorship and bias. As you know Google enjoys a special immunity from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The predicate for that immunity was that Google and other big tech media companies would be neutral public fora. Does Google consider itself a neutral public forum?

Maggie Stanphill of Google: Thank you Senator. Yes it does.

Cruz: Okay. Are you familiar with a report that was released yesterday from Veritas that included a whistle blower from within Google, that included videos from a senior executive with/at Google, that include documents that are purportedly internal PowerPoint documents from Google?

Stanphill: Yes, I heard about that report in industry news.

Cruz: Have you seen that report?

Stanphill: No I have not.

Cruz: So you didn't review the report to prepare for this hearing?

Stanphill: It's been a busy day and I have a day job which is Digital Wellbeing at Google so I'm trying to make sure I keep the *?? in the ??s. [?? is possibly trains on the tracks]

Cruz: Well I'm sorry this hearing is impinging on your day job.

Stanphill: It's a great opportunity thank you. I really appreciate it.

Cruz: Well one of the things in that report - and I would recommend people interested in political bias at Google watch the entire report and judge for yourself - there's a video from a woman Jen Gennai its a secret video that was recorded. Jen Gennai, as I understand it, is the head of quote Responsible Innovation for Google. Are you familiar with Ms Gennai?

Stanphill: I work in user experience and I believe that AI group is somebody we worked with on the AI principles but it's a big company and I don't work directly with Jen.

Cruz: So, do you know her or no?

Stanphill: I do not know Jen.

Cruz: Okay. As I understand it, she is shown in the video saying, and this is a quote, "Elizabeth Warren is saying that we should break up Google. And, like, I lover her, but she's very misguided. Like that will not make it better. It will make it worse. Because all these smaller companies who don't have the same resources we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation. It's like a small company cannot do that." [pauses] Do you think it's Google's job to quote prevent the next Trump situation?

Stanphill: Thank you Senator. I don't agree with that, no sir.

Cruz: So a different individual a whistle blower identified simply as insider at Google with knowlege of the algorithm is quoted on the same report as saying Google quote is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again. Do you think it's Google's job to make sure quote somebody like Donald Trump come to power again?

Stanphill: No sir. I don't think that is Google's job and we build for everyone including every single religious belief every single demographic every single region and certainly every political affliation.

Cruz: Well, I have to say that certainly does not appear to be the case. Of the Senior Executives at Google, do you know of a single one that voted for Donald Trump?

Stanphill: Thank you Senator. I'm a User Experience Director and I work on Google digital wellbeing and I can tell you we have diverse views but I can't ...

Cruz: A simple question; do you know of anyone who voted for Trump ... of the Senior Executives?

Stanphill: I definitely know of people who voted for Trump.

Cruz: Of the Senior Executives at Google?

Stanphill: I don't talk politics with my work mates.

Cruz: Is that a "no"?

Stanphill: Sorry, is that a "no" to what?

Cruz: Do you know of any Senior Executives, even a single Senior Executive at the company who voted for Donald Trump?

Stanphill: As the digital well being expert, I don't think this is in my purview to comment on political affliations.

Cruz: So you don't know then? That's all right, you don't have to know.

Stanphill: I definitely don't know.

Cruz: I can tell you what the public records show. The public records show that in 2016 Google employees gave to the Hillary Clinton campaign $1.315 million dollars. That's a lot of money. Care to venture how much they gave to the Trump campaign?

Stanphill: I would have no idea sir.

Cruz: Well the nice thing is it's a round number; zero dollars and zero cents. Not a penny according to the public reports. Let's talk about one of the PowerPoints that was leaked. The Veritas Report has Google internally saying "I propose we make machine-learning intentionally human-centered and intervene for fairness." Is this document accurate?

Stanphill: Thank you sir. I don't know about this document so I don't know.

Cruz: Okay so I'm going to ask you to respond to the Committee in writing afterwards as to whether this PowerPoint, and the other documents that are included in the Veritas report, whether those documents are accurate. And I recognize that your lawyers may want to write explanation, you're welcome to write all the explanation that you want but I also want a simple clear answer: Is this an accurate document that was generated by Google. Do you agree with the sentiment expressed in the document?

Stanphill: No sir, I do not.

Cruz: [Let] me read you another also in this report. It indicates that Google according to this whistleblower deliberately makes recommendations if someone is searching for conservative commentators deliberately shifts the recommendations so instead of recommending other conservative commentators it recommends organizations like CNN or MSNBC or left leaning political outlets. Is that occurring?

Stanphill: Thank you sir. I can't comment on search algorithms or recommendations given my purview as the digital wellbeing lead. I can take that back to my team though.

Cruz: So is it part of digital wellbeing for search recommendations to reflect where the user wants to go rather than deliberately shifting where they want to go?

Stanphill: Thank you sir. As a User Experience professional we focus on delivering on user goals so we try to get out of the way and get them on the task at hand.

Cruz: So a final question. One of these documents that was leaked explains what Google is doing and it has a series of steps: training data collected and classified, algorithms are programmed, media are filtered, ranked, aggregated and guaranteed and that ends with people parentheses like us [close parens] are programmed. Does Google view its job is programming people with search results?

Stanphill: Thank you Senator. I can't speak for the whole entire company but I can tell you that we make sure that we put our users first in our design.

Cruz: Well, I think these questions raise very serious ... these documents raise very serious questions about political bias at the company.

[Transcript ends]