Costello to join in Facebook hearing

Rep interested in idea of regulation of data sharing by social media, tech companies

WASHINGTON, D.C. » He may not be at the top of the pecking order in today’s anticipated congressional inquisition of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello does have some issues he’d like to raise with the social media king.

How much regulation will you live with? What obstacles to innovation do you anticipate from overseas restrictions? What limits

on data collection can you foresee? What data should be private?

Overall, Costello, R-6, of West Goshen, indicated in an interview Tuesday that he does not intend to be confrontational towards the controversial figure at the heart of recent issues involving foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. election and an information sale to Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm affiliated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in which personal information from 87 million users was gathered, sometimes without the person’s knowledge.

Rather, he intends to ask what the legislature can do to insure date private in the new technological world.

“Some of what people in Congress are lamenting is simply reflective of what our culture is today,” he said on his way to the capital. “You can’t regulate someone’s coarse opinion. You can’t regulate what signs you can have on the courthouse steps.”

What Costello, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where Zuckerberg will appear today for a second day of questioning, said he remains most interested in is the idea of regulation of data sharing by not only Facebook, but other tech companies.

Costello is among more than 60 members, both Democrats and Republicans, who are scheduled to meet today to look into the Facebook situation. He can only ask as many questions as time, and other members’ interrogations, permits. He said he had several areas that he wanted to pursue in meeting Zuckerberg.

“How much of this data should be divulged, and how much should remain anonymous,” he said, explaining what questions he might pose to Zuckerberg when his allotted time comes. “At what point should you be able to take it off Facebook? Should you be allowed to erase your data?”

Costello said he had recently read published reports of restrictions and regulations that will soon go into effect on tech sites and social media outlets in the European Union. He said he wanted to query Zuckerberg about how his company intends to comply with those regulations, and how that would work in the United States.

“They are pretty farreaching. The enforcement of those limits is something that American companies are going to have to comply with, so my question is what portions of (the European) laws are you willing to comply with over here? What is easily transferrable, and what portions do you have concerns about?”

Eventually, the congressman said, dealing with digital data privacy is something the Congress is “going to have to deal with.” Instead of a patchwork quilt of state and federal regulations, it would be best to have a simple model to work with across the country. “Hopefully, this is just the start of a lot of hearings on digital privacy,” he said.

Meanwhile, an apologetic Zuckerberg told senators Tuesday it had been “clearly a mistake” to believe the Trump-linked data-mining company Cambridge Analytica had discarded data that it had harvested from social media users in an attempt to sway 2016 elections.

Zuckerberg told members of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees that Facebook considered the data collection “a closed case” because it thought the information had been deleted. Facebook didn’t alert the Federal Trade Commission, Zuckerberg said, and he assured senators the company would handle the situation differently today.

On another issue currently in the news, he was asked whether his company had been contacted by the office of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russian interference in the election.

“Yes,” he said, “I know that we are working with them.” He provided no other details, saying he wanted to be careful not to break any rules of confidentiality. U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the Commerce Committee chairman, told Zuckerberg his company has a 14-year history of apologizing for “ill-advised decisions” related to user privacy. “How is today’s apology different?” Thune asked.

“We have made a lot of mistakes in running the company,” Zuckerberg responded. “I think it’s pretty much impossible, I believe, to start a company in your dorm room and then grow it to be at the scale that we’re at now without making some mistakes.”

Zuckerberg said Facebook is going through “a broader philosophical shift in how we approach our responsibility as a company.” He said the company needs to take a “more proactive role” that includes ensuring the tools it creates are used in “good and healthy” ways.

In the hearings, Zuckerberg is not only trying to restore public trust in his company but also to stave off federal regulations that some lawmakers have floated. In his opening statement, he also apologized for his company’s involvement in facilitating fake news and Russian interference in the elections.

“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake,” he said. “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

Separately, the company also began alerting some of its users that their data was gathered by Cambridge Analytica. A notification that appeared on Facebook for some users Tuesday told them that “one of your friends” used Facebook to log into a now-banned personality quiz app called “This Is Your Digital Life.” The notice says the app misused the information, including public profiles, page likes, birthdays and current cities, by sharing it with Cambridge Analytica.

After resisting previous calls to testify, Zuckerberg agreed to come to Capitol Hill this month after reports surfaced — and the company confirmed — that Cambridge Analytica had gathered Facebook users’ data. Zuckerberg said his company has a responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen again.