Thequestions youshouldask Zuckerberg
FACEBOOK CHIEF LIKELY TO FACE TOUGH GRILLING BY LAWMAKERS
A list of suggestions for what Congress should ask Facebook chief and best way to get serious responses to serious issues at stake |
When lawmakers get their first chance to grill Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday and Wednesday, expect a good amount of grandstanding. Elected representatives love scoring political points in these sorts of hearings, especially because it can lead to videos that go viral on Facebook and Twitter. But they aren’t always so well informed about how social media data collection works or how it is vulnerable to abuse. The columnists of Bloomberg View and Bloomberg Gadfly are here to help. We’ve assembled a list of suggestions for what members of Congress should ask Zuckerberg and the best way to extract serious responses to the serious issues at stake.
Data and privacy
Stephen L. Carter: Facebook collects reams of data on its users. Would you say that the data belongs to Facebook or to the user from whom it is collected?
Shira Ovide: Do you think average Facebook users, including your parents, understand that Facebook gathers information from websites and apps that have nothing to do with Facebook, including all the websites with Facebook “Like” buttons and apps like Uber? Would you agree to limit data collection to people’s activity on Facebook and other Facebook-owned digital properties?
Joe Nocera: Do you have any objection to having people opt-in in order for you to share their data? If so, why?
Michael R. Strain: Many people are concerned that Facebook is dominant to the point that it is much too difficult for rival companies to compete. A solution to this might be to reassign the ownership of Facebook users’ social graphs away from Facebook and to the user. Do you think giving ownership of social graphs to users is a good idea? If not, why not?
Scott Duke Kominers: Will Facebook contact every individual whose data was accessed inappropriately and explain what information was collected, and “- to the best of your knowledge “- how that information was shared and used? Will Facebook take steps to compensate individuals for the breach?
Alex Webb: Apple uses a process it calls “differential privacy” to anonymise user data that it aggregates. What precludes Face- book from doing the same?
Barry Ritholtz: How much would Facebook have to charge for a monthly subscription with zero off-platform tracking, no ads, and periodic permanent deletion of all internal Facebook data on users?
Alex Webb: What will Facebook do to reduce its dependence on user data as a revenue source?
Russian interference
Shira Ovide: Do you regret saying soon after the US presidential election that it was a “pretty crazy idea” that information on Facebook could have influenced the US presidential election?
Cathy O’Neil: What are you doing about Russian meddling?
Eli Lake: One of your vice presidents, Rob Goldman, got into a bit of trouble in February after he tweeted that most of Russia’s Facebook ads were purchased after the 2016 election. He had to backtrack in part because he didn’t account for Russia’s use of trolls and fake accounts. But his tweets raised an important question: Could you put Russia’s total online campaign in perspective? How does it compare to social media influence operations of other countries and political parties in terms of both reach and money spent?
Impact on society
Leonid Bershidsky: Which do you think constitutes the biggest breach of trust: allowing developers to take people’s data without their consent, spreading “news” you know is fake, accepting ad-
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