Facebook CEO braces to testify
Zuckerberg talks with lawmakers before hearings
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg headed into the storm Monday, meeting in Washington with Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other top Capitol Hill lawmakers as he prepared for what is expected to be two days of intense congressional hearings.
His aim: to try to convince Congress and the public that the social network would protect users’ privacy and safeguard future elections against interference.
In prepared remarks Zuckerberg plans to deliver to Congress Tuesday and Wednesday, the embattled billionaire said the company “didn’t do enough” to prevent the social network from being “used for harm.”
“It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I started Facebook, I run it, and
I’m responsible for what happens here.”
More than an apology may be owed. In the wake of revelations that tens of millions of Facebook users had their personal information leaked to Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm that did work for the Trump campaign, the Federal Trade Commission is probing whether the company violated a 2011 settlement in which Facebook promised to protect the privacy rights of its members. Depending on what investigators find, a record-setting fine could ensue.
“Facebook’s problems are not just with the FTC or with Congress,” said former FTC lawyer Henry Su, now a partner at Constantine Cannon in Washington. “There’s also the loss of the public’s trust. What made Facebook such a big platform is enough people believed in the company to share their private information.”
Zuckerberg met with several lawmakers, including Feinstein, D-California, one day before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees. Representatives for Feinstein and Facebook declined to reveal what was discussed.
On Wednesday, Zuckerberg will appear before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Zuckerberg said in his remarks that tools to connect people have positive effects, but “it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. 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.”
The remarks echoed Zuckerberg’s comments in multiple press interviews over the past week, part of a coordinated effort to respond to the broadening Cambridge Analytica data-privacy scandal.
Facebook said as many as 87 million accounts might have been accessed, and the company was set to start notifying those affected Monday. All 2.2 billion Facebook members will see an alert at the top of their news feeds labeled “Protecting Your Information.” The notification will prompt them to review a list of apps they currently use or have used that can access their data.
Those affected will receive a special message that says either they or their friends used an app called “This is your digital life” developed by a researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, who provided data to Cambridge Analytica. They will also see a link to a help page detailing the information, such as name, location, likes and interests, that might have been accessed.
Separately, Facebook said it would help start an independent academic research project to study the role of social media in elections and democracy.
The research will be funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Omidyar Network and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Facebook said it will not have the right to review or approve the findings of the research before it is published.
“The goal is both to get the ideas of leading academics on how to address these issues as well as to hold us accountable for making sure we protect the integrity of these elections on Facebook,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.
Meanwhile, the scandal appeared to widen over the weekend when Facebook suspended two more data analytics firms following published reports both improperly used data. They were AggregateIQ, a Canadian political consultancy, and New York City data analytics firm Cubeyou.
In a statement, Cubeyou disputed a CNBC report that the company had used tactics similar to those of Cambridge Analytica. Cubeyou said the report “contains numerous errors and conflates several facts.”
Su, the former FTC lawyer, said he didn’t think there was anything Zuckerberg or Facebook could say this week to avoid members of Congress putting political pressure on the commission to fine the social network. At the time of the 2011 settlement, Su was an adviser to the late FTC Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch, who voted against approving the deal with Facebook.
The Senate Commerce Committee has direct oversight of the commission, which has the power to issue a fine of up to $40,000 per violation.
The only question will be “what is a big enough number to send a message,” Su said.
To top off the day, Facebook was named in a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose claiming it profited from “lax to non-existent enforcement practices” of privacy rules.
“Instead of choosing to be vigilant, making appropriate investments in data security and stopping this massive harvesting of users’ information by third parties, Facebook stood by as the private information of millions was funneled into the hands of bad actors,” said plaintiff ’s attorney Steve Berman of the Berkeley law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro.