Mr. David Cicilline:

In the wake of the scandal of Cambridge Analytica, the committee has undertaken really important work to advance our understanding of data privacy, threats to democracy around the world in the digital age and the role of anti-trust and competition in the digital economy. These problems are not confined within geopolitical borders. They are real and affecting our democracies in fundamental and lasting ways. It is essential that we work together to find solutions to restore the Internet's promise. The committee was established to work out some solutions to these problems, as Chairman Bob Zimmer noted during the last meeting, and I strongly support that goal. To quote one of our panellists, Ms Cadwalladr, democracy is not guaranteed and not inevitable. We have to fight and we have to win as we cannot let the tech companies have this unchecked power. I want to begin with a question to Ms Cadwalladr. I thank her for the incredible work she did in her extensive investigation and reporting on the impact of Facebook on elections and our democratic institutions. Her work reinforces why a free and vibrant press is so critical to our democracy and holding those in power to account. One of the challenges we face in the United States is having people understand the impact of this one-on-one micro targeting of politicals and issue advertisements and how they work. I wonder if Ms Cadwalladr could speak to this for one moment, particularly about micro targeting in the political context.