Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
House panel jabs at Zuckerberg
Gloves off at CEO’s hearing
WASHINGTON — Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday clashed with a second panel of congressional lawmakers who grilled the Facebook chief executive on a litany of issues, such as user privacy, Russian propaganda and illegal opioid sales.
The five-hour hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee proved more tense than a marathon session in the Senate a day earlier. Democrats and Republicans alike repeatedly cut off Zuckerberg, who appeared less composed than he did at the Tuesday hearing. In all, Zuckerberg attended nearly 10 hours of hearings.
Lawmakers once again threatened regulation if Facebook fails to improve its business practices, an action Zuckerberg acknowledged is “inevitable.”
At one point in the hearing, Zuckerberg acknowledged that his own information was compromised in a users privacy lapse that
is now looming over his company.
Opening the session, the House panel’s chairman, Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., called Facebook an “American success story.” But he added: “While Facebook has certainly grown, I worry it has not matured. I think it is time to ask whether Facebook may have moved too fast and broken too many things.”
Driving lawmakers’ scrutiny is a scandal around Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy tapped by President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign that improperly accessed the names, “likes” and other personal information of millions of Facebook users. For the first time, Zuckerberg said Wednesday that his data were swept up by an app that fed data on 87 million users to Cambridge Analytica.
Zuckerberg agreed to the hearings as pressure mounted over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the company’s own admission last year that it had been compromised by Russians trying to influence the 2016 election.
Earlier this year, special counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies in a plot to interfere in the 2016 presidential election through a social media propaganda effort that included online ad purchases using U.S. aliases and politicking on U.S. soil. A number of the Russian ads were on Facebook.
In the wake of its review of Cambridge Analytica’s activities, Facebook also has acknowledged that malicious actors collected information from the public profiles of practically its entire base, more than 2 billion users. Such collecting heightens the odds that Facebook will be subject to fines from the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating the matter, and it drew rebukes from lawmakers who suggested that Facebook should have spotted the problems sooner.
“Facebook knew about this in 2013 and 2015, but you didn’t turn the feature off until Wednesday of last week,” Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., said at one point during the hearing. “This is essentially a tool for these malicious actors to steal a person’s identity and put the finishing touches on it.”
Zuckerberg started the House hearing by repeating the same apology he gave to the Senate a day earlier. “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here,” he told House lawmakers.
TOUGH QUESTIONS
Throughout the hearing, Zuckerberg’s demeanor vacillated between calm and frustration as lawmakers challenged the 33-year-old billionaire on a host of issues.
Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., demanded that Zuckerberg improve the company’s hiring practices, pointing out that Facebook has no people of color in its highest executive ranks. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, meanwhile, pressed Zuckerberg on claims of bias against conservatives in the way his company handles content uploaded by its users.
Rep. David McKinley, R-W. Va., accused Zuckerberg and Facebook of “hurting people” by failing to combat users who try to sell opioids on the site.
“I think there are a number of areas of content we need to do a better job of policing on our service,” Zuckerberg replied.
In one of the toughest exchanges Wednesday, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. — who represents a slice of Silicon Valley — repeatedly criticized Zuckerberg for failing to explain Facebook’s data collection practices to users in “clear and pedestrian language.”
Her Democratic colleague Lujan raised reports that Facebook collects data on people who aren’t even users — called “shadow profiles” by some. Zuckerberg, however, said he was “not specifically familiar with that.” Nevertheless, Lujan criticized Zuckerberg for a feature that allows Internet users who aren’t signed up to learn more about the data collected by the social giant only if they become users.
“You’re directing people who don’t even have a Facebook page to sign up for a page to reach their data,” Lujan
said.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., later remarked that Facebook looks “a whole lot like the Truman Show,” where users’ information is “made available to people they don’t know, and then that data is crunched and used and they are fully unaware of this.”
Blackburn cited laws that govern health data, financial transactions and other industries, before citing her bill that would require technology companies to obtain user permission before they can collect and sell user data. Facebook has long lobbied against the so-called Browser Act.
Some of the lawmakers talked to Zuckerberg as they would their children or grandchildren, and were occasionally befuddled by the complexities of his company.
Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., commended Facebook, saying “it’s wonderful for us seniors to connect with our relatives.”
Repeatedly, though, lawmakers said the Facebook leader must provide greater clarity as to exactly how Cambridge Analytica obtained data on 87 million users in the first place. They warned a suit-clad Zuckerberg that tough regulation and scrutiny might follow if Facebook fails once again to improve its business practices.
“If all we do is have a hearing and nothing happens, then that’s not accomplishing anything,” said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
He said he plans to work on legislation but is pessimistic that Congress will pass anything.
“I’ve just seen it over and over again — that we have the hearings, and nothing happens,” he said.
A day earlier, Senate lawmakers expressed the same fears.
“Unless there are specific rules and regulations enforced by an outside agency, I have no assurance that these kinds of vague commitments are going to produce action,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Tuesday during the Senate hearing.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, you’ve said you’re sorry. I appreciate the apologies,” said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., during later questioning. “But please stop apologizing and make the change.”