On April 11, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook, appeared before the US Congress to testify on the Cambridge-Analytica privacy breach fiasco. Here are the key highlights from his 4-hour long testimony, facing questions from 54 US Congressmen and Congresswomen.
Day 2 Facebook CEO Testimony - Key Highlights
- Facebook will operate with its AI tools and workforce to reduce sharing of hate messages on its platform
- Facebook won’t exist if users don’t share content on its platform, admits Zuckerberg
- Our platform doesn’t tolerate any sort of terrorism content, says Facebook CEO
- Facebook asked to strengthen case for right to privacy for the user
- Facebook CEO questioned about his role and active understanding of its co-created platform
- Facebook asked to ease up process for non-Facebook users to delete their data
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Testimony Comes to an End
After hearing from 54 Congressman and Congresswomen on Wednesday, the Chairman makes his closing remarks on the matter, and signs off the hearing suggesting Facebook could help other technology firms to improve their regulatory measures in the Silicon Valley.
That’s brings to an end a grueling 48-hour session with the US Senate and Congress Committee. Thanks for joining us for the live blog and stay tuned to The Quint for highlights and key updates from Day 2 of Zuckerberg's testimony.
Zuckerberg on Net Neutrality
Finally, we have Congressman Kevin Cramer from North Dakota asking Zuckerberg about his views on Net neutrality. And this is what he had to say. “When I had started Facebook, I had the option of only one internet provider. If I had Facebook as an option for a user, for something that they used, then we won't be here today,” Zuckerberg said.
That remark is unclear about Zuckerberg's stand on Net neutrality.
Congresswoman Questions Zuckerberg's Role as CEO
"You didn't know about privacy cases against your company, as the CEO?" asks Congresswoman Debbie Dingell from Michigan. "You didn't know what a shadow profile was, you didn't know how many apps were compromised," she adds.
Here’s what I know. You have trackers everywhere across the web. It doesn’t matter if you have a Facebook account, because through those tools it’s able to track your data.Congresswoman Debbie Dingell to Mark Zuckerberg
Dingell was referring to the like and share buttons of Facebook that appear on multiple websites.
“I don't know the number of likes and shares on non-Facebook pages," Zuckerberg said.
Dingell then asks Zuckerberg how many chunks of Pixel code there are on non-Facebook pages.
"Finally, do you know if there are other fourth-party developers like Kogan who have access to Facebook data? Because I am convinced there are others," Congresswoman Dingell says.
We will make sure the investigation audit brings out any other culprits involved in illegal data access and if they do, we’ll make sure they delete them.Mark Zuckerberg replying to Congresswoman Dingell
How Facebook Identifies Hate Speech
"How do you differentiate what's hate speech and what's an accurate political speech?" asks Congressman Richard Hudson.
“It's something we have found difficult to keep a track of, but we admit the challenges we face in ensuring the right kind of content gets circulated. And we'll be working on that,” says Zuckerberg.
Here’s a look at how Facebook’s stock has performed since the start of the hearing on Day 2 in Washington.