Mr. Zuckerberg goes to Washington

[dc2london]

The Facebook co-founder will testify today in a joint hearing between the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to examine Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the use and abuse of data. The hearing begins at 2:15 p.m. EST and I'll be following along and live blogging (with a break to pick up J from school )

Here's committee membership:

Senate Judiciary (SJC):

Majority (Republican) members--
Grassley, Chuck(IA), Chairman

Hatch, Orrin G.(UT)

Graham, Lindsey(SC)

Cornyn, John(TX)

Lee, Mike(UT)

Cruz, Ted(TX)

Sasse, Ben(NE)

Flake, Jeff(AZ)

Crapo, Mike(ID)

Tillis, Thom(NC)

Kennedy, John(LA)

Minority (Democratic) members--

Feinstein, Dianne (CA), Ranking Member

Leahy, Patrick J. (VT)

Durbin, Richard J. (IL)

Whitehouse, Sheldon (RI)

Klobuchar, Amy (MN)

Coons, Christopher A. (DE)

Blumenthal, Richard (CT)

Hirono, Mazie K. (HI)

Booker, Cory A. (NJ)

Harris, Kamala D. (CA)

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation:
Majority members--

hune, John(SD), Chairman

Wicker, Roger F.(MS)

Blunt, Roy(MO)

Cruz, Ted(TX)

Fischer, Deb(NE)

Moran, Jerry(KS)

Sullivan, Dan(AK)

Heller, Dean(NV)

Inhofe, James M.(OK)

Lee, Mike(UT)

Johnson, Ron(WI)

Capito, Shelley Moore(WV)

Gardner, Cory(CO)

Young, Todd(IN)

Minority Members--


Nelson, Bill (FL), Ranking Member

Cantwell, Maria (WA)

Klobuchar, Amy (MN)

Blumenthal, Richard (CT)

Schatz, Brian (HI)

Markey, Edward J. (MA)

Udall, Tom (NM)

Peters, Gary C. (MI)

Baldwin, Tammy (WI)

Duckworth, Tammy (IL)

Hassan, Margaret Wood (NH)

Cortez Masto, Catherine (NV)

Tester, Jon (MT)

Obviously, Senator Duckworth will not be present as she just birthed a human. I'm specifically looking forward to questioning from the career prosecutors on the committees (Blumenthal, Whitehouse, Harris, Udall). 

Another interesting thing to watch here is that Republican membership support regulation which is a bit unusual. 

[dc2london]

And here are his written remarks:

docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20180411/108090/HHRG-115-IF00-Wstate-ZuckerbergM-20180411.pdf

[jkjacq]

I thought this was Thursday darn. I’ll try to watch but nobody knows where stuff is yet and our network is wonky still

[dc2london]

Apr 10, 2018 5:57:11 GMT -6 jkjacq said:

I thought this was Thursday darn. I’ll try to watch but nobody knows where stuff is yet and our network is wonky still

He's in with the House tomorrow

[jkjacq]

Joe Kennedy (R-LA) was on CNN a bit ago and said "I'm ok with big, I'm not ok with dumb" wrt to FB. He said he doesnt want to regulate but will if they have to.

[dc2london]

Apr 10, 2018 6:46:02 GMT -6 jkjacq said:

Joe Kennedy (R-LA) was on CNN a bit ago and said "I'm ok with big, I'm not ok with dumb" wrt to FB. He said he doesnt want to regulate but will if they have to.

Kennedy annoys me sometimes bc.... Louisiana, but I really like that he's not just blatantly partisan. He speaks his truth whether Mitch McConnell likes it or not.

[byjove]

LOL

[Deleted]

The SNL spoof on Zuck (during weekend update) was good.

That’s all I got.

This is a big topic in my neck of the woods. I think it’s important, but....not like the most important.

[dc2london]

Zuck finally showed up almost twenty minutes late. He looks weird in a suit.

[Deleted]

Apr 10, 2018 12:32:09 GMT -6 dc2london said:

Zuck finally showed up almost twenty minutes late. He looks weird in a suit.

His suit was covered EXTENSIVELY on our local news. I just....can't.

but I'm watching.

[dc2london]

oh my god, 43 senators get to question him. They really should have started this at 10. It's going to go all night.

[Deleted]

First I'm Sorry.

This could be a drinking game and probably is somewhere on the internet.

[dc2london]

Zuckerberg: We're investigating every single app that had access to data in the past..."We're making sure that developers can't access as much information anymore."

[dc2london]

that might be the first time I've ever heard, "Doing sketchy things" during a congressional hearing, lol

[dc2london]

Senator Grassley: Why doesn't FB's data policy disclose to users all of the ways their data could be used.

Zuckerberg: I think it's important to tell people how their data will be used. That's why you can change your share settings! The tech industry struggles with lengthy privacy policies bc people won't read them. We tried to simplify ours so that our users could read it and could understand it.

[Deleted]

Why don't you tell people what happens with their data?

Zuck: people are dumb and lazy, they wouldn't even read it if we did. (paraphrasing, of course)

[dc2london]

he has obviously been heavily coached but he is so uncomfortable

[dc2london]

Senator Nelson: Are you considering an ad-free version of Facebook that has a fee associated with it?

Zuckerberg: if you don't want third party apps to have access to your stuff, turn off the access. People don't like ads that aren't relevant. People LOVE seeing ads for stuff they want but don't need! If we were to eliminate ads, we would need an entirely different business model.

Nelson: Sooooooooo you want me to pay you to not sell my personal info?

Zuckerberg: Listen we're just showing you ads to connect you with other people! much friends! Very interpersonal!

[Deleted]

Apr 10, 2018 13:05:37 GMT -6 dc2london said:

he has obviously been heavily coached but he is so uncomfortable

It's just who he is. Richard Hendricks (Silicon Valley) in the flesh. 

[dc2london]

"The first line in our terms of services states that you control and own the information you put on Facebook."

Well that at least puts them a step or two above The Bump.

[Deleted]

I think this is kind of stupid. Like, you don't have to have FB Senator.

I think there is more important line of questioning...which he is heading to now.

[dc2london]

Nelson: Why didn't you tell people that cambridge Analytica stole their stuff?

MZ: We found out in 2015. We told CA to delete the info. They said they did but they are lying liars who lie. We shouldn't have trusted them.

Nelson: Don't you think you have an ethical obligation to notify 87 million FB users that their data had been misused?

MZ: we made a mistake. We won't do it again.

[dc2london]

Senator Thune: Why should we believe you? You apologize a lot.

MZ: we're a hot mess. But we're going to broadly shift our mission and responsibilities as a company. We thought that Facebook empowered people to do good things. Who could have anticipated evil people being evil?

[dc2london]

Thune: How do you protect your platform against hate speech?

MZ: We have a team who review flagged content. We use AI to police content, too. But hate speech is linguistically nuanced. It's difficult for AI to detect hate speech--although we've been successful in finding and removing terrorist propaganda. I'm optimistic that over a 5 to 10 year period we'll improve our AI to detect hate speech, but we're relying more right now on community members flagging content than I would like.

[Deleted]

started in my dorm room is actually the drinking catch phrase

[dc2london]

Senator Feinstein: How are you preventing facebook from being used maliciously to interfere in elections?

MZ: We expected hacking. We did not expect trolls. "I have more confidence that we're going to get this right, because since the 2016 presidential election, we've had a better record of preventing interference."

Feinstein: mmmhm. Explain what's different (that's kind of sill bc one could argue that voters and governments are able to look out for interference whereas, before, they had no idea to anticipate it)

MZ: Roy Moore lost? Shruggy guy?

[dc2london]

Apr 10, 2018 13:16:39 GMT -6 @juliagulia said:

started in my dorm room is actually the drinking catch phrase

yep. He's running with this doe-eyed "I had no idea it would ever turn into what it has" thing. Ask Dr. Frankenstein how that worked out for him.

[dc2london]

Feinstein: Why wasn't Cambridge Analytica banned back in 2015?

MZ: We didn't think they were still interacting on FB anymore. They weren't an advertiser, nor were they running pages.

[dc2london]

Orrin Hatch thinks that people are stupid if they are surprised that FB has been selling their information

[byjove]

Apr 10, 2018 13:12:33 GMT -6 dc2london said:

Senator Thune: Why should we believe you? You apologize a lot.

MZ: we're a hot mess. But we're going to broadly shift our mission and responsibilities as a company. We thought that Facebook empowered people to do good things. Who could have anticipated evil people being evil?