Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Facebook CEO readies apology to lawmakers
Zuckerberg will testify before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees today and before the House panel on Wednesday. On Monday, he met privately with the leaders of the Senate committees.
WASHINGTON — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already apologized to users for not doing enough to protect their privacy. Now he plans to apologize to Congress, saying in prepared testimony that Facebook hasn’t done enough to prevent its tools from being used for harm.
Zuckerberg’s written statement was released Monday ahead of two days of congressional hearings. His company is under fire after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm affiliated with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, gathered personal information from 87 million users to try to influence elections.
In the testimony released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he is expected to deliver Wednesday, Zuckerberg apologizes for fake news, hate speech, a lack of data privacy and foreign interference in the 2016 elections on his platform.
Zuckerberg plans to open his remarks with a familiar recitation of the social media platform’s ability to link
far-flung people together but then pivot into an acknowledgment of Facebook’s increasingly visible dark side.
“It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well,” Zuckerberg plans to tell lawmakers. “That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”
Zuckerberg will testify before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees today and before the House panel on Wednesday. On Monday, he met privately with the leaders of the Senate committees.
After resisting previous calls to testify, Zuckerberg agreed to go to Capitol Hill this month after reports surfaced — and the company confirmed — that Cambridge Analytica had gathered Facebook users’ data. In the remarks, Zuckerberg said his company has a responsibility to make sure what happened with Cambridge Analytica doesn’t happen again.
The company said it would also begin notifying users on Monday whose data was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. The kind of data-sharing that Cambridge Analytica took advantage of in 2014 was widespread among app developers before Facebook began tightening its data-use policies that year. Before the changes, outside app developers could gain access to a wide range of user data — including their full names, home towns, work histories, religious affiliations and Facebook “likes” — without the explicit permission of most users.
As of 7:30 p.m., however, there were no signs that any users have yet received that notification or a more general one Facebook said it would direct to everyone on its service. Associated Press reporters around the world were surveying users, none of whom reported seeing anything from Facebook. There appear to be no social media reports of notifications, and Facebook had no immediate comment on the matter.
RUSSIAN PROBE
Zuckerberg is also expected to be asked about Russia’s use of U.S. social media during the 2016 elections — a subject of several congressional investigations and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference.
In the statement, Zuckerberg addresses Russian election interference and acknowledges, as he has in the past, that the company was too slow to respond and that it’s “working hard to get better.” The company has said that as many as 146 million people may have received information from a Russian agency that’s accused of orchestrating much of the cyber meddling in the election.
“We will continue working with the government to understand the full extent of Russian interference, and we will do our part not only to ensure the integrity of free and fair elections around the world, but also to give everyone a voice and to be a force for good in democracy everywhere,” Zuckerberg continues.
In the testimony, Zuckerberg acknowledges that the questioning will likely be critical.
“We face a number of important issues around privacy, safety, and democracy, and you will rightfully have some hard questions for me to answer,” Zuckerberg says.
The testimony’s release, ahead of the first of two hearings this week, came as a suit-clad Zuckerberg and some of his top lobbyists and aides made the rounds on Capitol Hill, huddling with lawmakers who planned to grill him today and Wednesday. The meetings included a session with Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, as a cluster of reporters waited outside.
Exiting that meeting, Zuckerberg ignored questions from reporters. Nelson afterward said he pressed the Facebook chief executive on everything from its privacy practices to the efforts by Russian agents to spread disinformation on social media during the 2016 election.
“If we don’t rein in the misuse of social media, none of us are going to have any privacy anymore,” Nelson said.
Nelson said Zuckerberg was “forthright and honest to the degree he could” be in the private, one-on-one meeting. Nelson said he believes Zuckerberg is taking the congressional hearings seriously “because he knows there is going to be a hard look at regulation.”
Democrats like Nelson have argued that federal laws might be necessary to ensure user privacy. Republicans so far have shown little appetite for such regulation.
“I think he understands that regulation could be right around the corner,” Nelson said.
As the company has mobilized to quell rising political opposition, including the possibility of major legislation affecting how technology companies handle user data, Facebook also is battling government investigations in the United States and Europe. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating alleged violations of a 2011 consent decree over privacy policy at Facebook that could lead to record fines against the company.
Zuckerberg was also scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., ahead of today’s hearing.
Separately, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post Monday that the company is establishing an independent election research commission that will look into the effects of social media on elections and democracy. He said the commission will work with foundations across the U.S. to set up a committee of academic experts who will come up with research topics and select independent researchers to study them.
Among the pledges made by Zuckerberg is a promise to better protect Facebook from exploitation in time to safeguard the 2018 congressional election.