Social Media Regulation ‘Inevitable,’ Zuckerberg Says
While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told lawmakers Wednesday his personal information was scraped in the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, he avoided committing to minimizing user data collection yet said regulation of social media companies is “inevitable.” His wide-ranging testimony at the House Commerce Committee was a second consecutive day of congressional testimony (see 1804100054).
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The admission about his own personal data came during tense questioning by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who represents Silicon Valley. Eshoo told Zuckerberg that American democratic institutions are undergoing a stress test, calling the Cambridge Analytica breach “the cynical manipulation of American citizens.”
Ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., asked Zuckerberg to commit to changing default user settings across Facebook to “minimize to the greatest extent possible” the collection of user data. “This is a complex issue that I think deserves more than a one-word answer,” Zuckerberg said, to which Pallone expressed disappointment and asked to follow up later.
Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said in opening remarks Facebook has grown into a global force with very little federal regulation. The worry is that the company has grown but hasn't matured, he said. “It is time to ask whether Facebook may have moved too fast and broken too many things,” he said. “If a company fails to keep its promises about how personal data are being used, that breach of trust must have consequences.”
The internet is growing in importance globally, Zuckerberg said, and it’s “inevitable that there will need to be some regulation, so my position is not that there should be no regulation, but” government needs to be careful not to stifle innovation and competition from smaller startups. Consumer Watchdog urged Congress Wednesday to “protect online privacy” by regulating Facebook.
Zuckerberg echoed statements he made Tuesday during a joint hearing before nearly half the Senate. Users control and own their data on Facebook, Zuckerberg said, citing the first line in the platform’s terms of service. User control of privacy is foundational to the entire service, he added.
The CEO conceded to Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., his company previously collected data on people that aren't platform users, which he said is industry standard. Facebook announced two weeks ago it’s no longer buying information from data brokers, Zuckerberg said, even though it’s an industry norm for ensuring advertising is relevant to consumers. Castor said it’s impossible for people not to be tracked in modern society.
Zuckerberg repeated Facebook’s commitment to extending its compliance changes under the EU’s general data privacy regulation to the entire platform, not just in Europe. “Everyone around the world deserves good privacy controls,” he said. The Facebook application will also feature a walk-through for users, so that they can opt in and out of certain privacy settings, the chief said.
Senate Commerce Republicans are “not jumping to regulate” social media platforms after the Tuesday hearing with Zuckerberg, committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Wednesday. Facebook-related privacy and antitrust issues dominated Senate Commerce's Wednesday confirmation hearing for FTC nominee Rebecca Slaughter (see 1804110054). “We would prefer not to do that,” but “a lot of it will depend on how responsive” Facebook and others in the tech sector are to lawmakers' privacy concerns, Thune said. It will “probably take a little time” to write legislation, he said. “We hope to get other social media platforms, some of the other tech companies in here in the future to shed additional light and add additional context to some of these privacy issues and to hear what steps they're taking.”