Pols are nope for royal nups
Neither President Trump nor ex-President Barack Obama will be attending the May 19 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — because the couple has decided to make their nuptials politician-free.
“It has been decided that an official list of political leaders — both UK and international — is not required for Prince Harry and Ms. Markle’s wedding,” a spokesman for the royal family said. “Her Majesty’s government was consulted on this decision, which was taken by the royal household.”
Facebook, Zuckerberg admitted, took Cambridge’s word that it had deleted the data when, in fact, it had not.
“When we heard back from Cambridge Analytica that they had told us that they weren’t using the data and had deleted it, we considered it a closed case,” Zuckerberg replied. “In retrospect, that was clearly a mistake. We shouldn’t have taken their word for it.”
Zuckerberg — hoping to forestall strict congressional regulation of his company — vowed that Facebook is committed to safeguarding privacy.
“It’s not enough to just give people a voice,” he said. “We need to make sure that people aren’t using it to harm other people or spread misinformation, and [it’s] not enough to give people control over their information — we need to make sure that the developers they share it with protect their information, too.”
In one telling moment of the hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Zuckerberg if he’d reveal which hotel he was staying at in Washington. Zuckerberg, caught off guard, paused awkwardly before responding, “Uh . . . no.”
“I think that might be what this is all about: your right to privacy, the limits of your right to privacy and how much you give away in modern America in the name of, quote, connecting people around the world,” Durbin said.
Zuckerberg, who appeared otherwise relaxed as he parried the senators’ questions, also said that his company had been in touch with special counsel Robert Mueller’s office in relation to Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Asked by Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy if he had been contacted, Zuckerberg replied, “Yes,” before clarifying that he personally was not interviewed but that some employees were.
“I want to be careful here, because our work with the special counsel is confidential and I want to make sure in an open session I’m not revealing something that’s confidential,” he said. “I know that we are working with them.”
Zuckerberg also said Facebook is still several years away from having artificial intelligence that can root out hate speech.
“I am optimistic that over a five- to 10year period, we’ll have AI tools that can get into some of the nuances, the linguistic nuances of different types of content,” he said.
Meanwhile, outside the Capitol, the online protest group Avaaz set up 100 lifesized cutouts of Zuckerberg wearing a Tshirts with the words “Fix Facebook.”
The company was now “going through a broad philosophical shift,” said Zuckerberg, wearing a suit and tie instead of his typical T-shirt and jeans.
North Dakota GOP Sen. John Thune slammed Zuckerberg over the data breaches in his opening statement: “The idea that for every person who decided to try an app, information about nearly 300 other people was scraped from your services, to put it mildly, is disturbing.”
Nelson, too, issued a blunt warning at the outset.
“Let me just cut to the chase: If you and other social-media companies do not get your act in order, none of us are going to have any privacy anymore,” he said.
Facebook’s stock had its best day in nearly two years as CEO Mark Zuckerberg weathered a grilling on Capitol Hill.
Shares of the company climbed 4.5 percent Tuesday, to $165.04, as the 33-year-old Facebook founder appeared before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, fielding questions about the company’s data scandal without breaking much new ground.
That raised hopes that Zuckerberg may be able to forestall stricter regulation of the company — and pressured investors who had bet against its shares to cover their bets.
In March, short interest climbed 13 percent, and has climbed an additional 5 percent this month, according to data from financial analytics firm S3 Partners. On Tuesday, short sellers took a combined loss of $209 million, S3 Partners reported.
The bets against Facebook have come since it was revealed last month that Cambridge Analytica wrongly obtained the information of 87 million Facebook users.
The negative bets had continued as Facebook’s shares fell in the days leading up to Tuesday, Ihor Dusaniwsky of S3 Partners told The Post.