ZUCKERBERG
 - Thank you. Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Pallone and members
   of the committee, we face a number of important issues around
   privacy, security and democracy. And you will rightfully have
   some hard questions for me to answer. Before I talk about the
   steps we're taking to address them, I want to talk for a minute
   about how we got there. Facebook is an idealistic and optimistic
   company. For most of our existence, we focused on all the good
   that connecting people can bring. And, as Facebook has grown,
   people everywhere have gotten a powerful new tool for staying
   connected to the people they care about most, for making their
   voices heard and for building community and businesses. Just
   recently, we've seen the “Me Too” movement and the March for Our
   Lives organized, at least part, on Facebook. After Hurricane
   Harvey, people came together and raised more than $20 million
   for relief. And there are more than 70 million small businesses
   around the world that use our tools to grow and create jobs.
 - But it's clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these
   tools from being used for harm, as well. And that goes for fake
   news, foreign interference in elections and hate speech, as well
   as developers and data privacy. We didn't take a broad enough
   view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was
   my mistake, and I am sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and,
   at the end of the day, I am responsible for what happens here.
   So, now, we have to go through every part of our relationship
   with people to make sure that we're taking a broad enough view
   of our responsibility. It's not enough to just connect people.
   We have to make sure those connections are positive. It's not
   enough to just give people a voice. We need to make sure that
   voice isn't used to harm other people or spread misinformation.
   And it's not enough to just give people control of their
   information. We need to make sure that the developers that they
   share it with protect their information too. Across the board,
   we have a responsibility to not just give people tools, but to
   make sure that those tools are used for good. It's going to take
   some time to work through all the changes we need to make. But I
   am committed to getting this right, and that includes the basic
   responsibility of protecting people's information, which we
   failed to do with Cambridge Analytica. So here are a few key
   things that we're doing to address this situation and make sure
   that this doesn't happen again. First, we're getting to the
   bottom of exactly what Cambridge Analytica did, and telling
   everyone who may have been affected. What we know now is that
   Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained some information about
   millions of Facebook members by buying it from an app developer
   that people had shared it with. This information was generally
   information that people share publicly on their profile pages,
   like their name and profile picture and the list of pages that
   they follow. When we first contacted Cambridge Analytica, they
   told us that they had deleted the data. And then, about a month
   ago, we heard a new report that suggested that this was not
   true. So now we're working with governments in the U.S., the
   U.K. and around the world to do a full audit of what they've
   done and to make sure that they get rid of any data that they
   still have. Second, to make sure that no other app developers
   are out there misusing data, we're now investigating every
   single app that had access to a large amount of people's
   information on Facebook in the past. And, if we find someone
   that improperly used data, we're going to ban them from our
   platform and tell everyone affected. Third, to prevent this from
   ever happening again, we're making sure developers can't access
   as much information, going forward. The good news here is that
   we made some big changes to our platform in 2014 that would
   prevent this specific instance with Cambridge Analytica from
   happening again today. But there's more to do, and you can find
   more of the details of the other steps we're taking in the
   written statement I provided. My top priority has always been
   our social mission of connecting people, building community and
   bringing the world closer together. Advertisers and developers
   will never take priority over that for as long as I am running
   Facebook. I started Facebook when I was in college. We've come a
   long way since then. We now serve more than 2 billion people
   around the world, and, every day, people use our services to
   stay connected with the people that matter to them most. I
   believe deeply in what we're doing, and I know that, when we
   address these challenges, we'll look back and view helping
   people connect and giving more people a voice as a positive
   force in the world. I realize the issues we're talking about
   today aren't just issues for Facebook and our community; they're
   challenges for all of us as Americans. Thank you for having me
   here today, and I am ready to take your questions.
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I consider us to be a technology
   company, because the primary thing that we do is have engineers
   who write code and build products and services for other people.
   There are certainly other things that we do, too. We — we do pay
   to help produce content. We build enterprise software, although
   I don't consider us an enterprise software company. We build
   planes to help connect people, and I don't consider ourselves to
   be an aerospace company. But, overall, when people ask us if
   we're a media company, what — what I hear is, “Do we have a
   responsibility for the content that people share on Facebook?”
   And I believe the answer to that question is yes.
 - Mr. Chairman, I do not consider ourselves to be a financial
   institution, although you're right that we do provide tools for
   people to send money.
 - Well, Mr. Chairman, I think we've evolved quite a bit as a
   company. When I started it, I certainly didn't think that we
   would be the ones building this broad of a community around the
   world. I thought someone would do it. I didn't think it was
   going to be us. So we've definitely grown.
 - Mr. Chairman, you're right that we don't sell any data. And I
   would say that we do try to explain what we do as — as time goes
   on. It's a — it's a broad system. You know, every day, about 100
   billion times a day, people come to one of our products, whether
   it's Facebook or Messenger or Instagram or WhatsApp, to put in a
   piece of content, whether it's a — a photo that they want to
   share or a message they want to send someone. And, every time,
   there's a control right there about who you want to share it
   with. Do you want to share it publicly, to broadcast it out to
   everyone? Do you want to share it with your friends, a specific
   group of people? Do you want to message it to just one — one
   person or a couple of people? That's the most important thing
   that we do. And I think that, in the product, that's quite
   clear. I do think that we can do a better job of explaining how
   advertising works. There is a common misperception, as you say,
   that is just reported — often keeps on being reported, that, for
   some reason, we sell data.
 - I can't be clearer on this topic: We don't sell data. That's
   not how advertising works, and I do think we could probably be
   doing a clearer job explaining that, given the misperceptions
   that are out there.
 - Congressman, yes. We limit a lot of the data that we collect
   and use.
 - Congressman, yes. In — in response to these issues, we've
   changed a lot of the way that our platform works, so, that way,
   developers can't get access to as much information.
 - Congressman, we try to collect and — and give people the
   ability ...
 - Congressman, this is a complex issue that I think is — deserves
   more than a one-word answer.
 - Yes.
 - Congressman, what we allowed — what we allow with our developer
   platform is for people to choose to sign into other apps and
   bring their data with them. That's something a lot of people
   want to be able to do. The reason why we built the developer
   platform in the first place was because we thought it would be
   great if more experiences that people had could be more social,
   so if you could have a calendar that showed your friends'
   birthdays; if you could have an address book that had pictures
   of your friends in it; if you could have a map that showed your
   friends' addresses on it. In order to do that, you need to be
   able to sign into an app, bring some of your data and some of
   your friends' data. And that's what we built. Now, since then,
   we have recognized that that can be used for abuse, too. So
   we've limited it, so now people can only bring their data when
   they go to an app. But that's something that a lot of people do
   on a day-to-day basis — is sign into apps and websites with
   their — with Facebook. And that's something that we're ...
 - Congressman, in that specific case, our team made an
   enforcement error. And we have already gotten in touch with them
   to reverse it.
 - Congressman, I do agree that we should work to give people the
   fullest free expression that is possible. That's what — when I
   talk about giving people a voice, that's what I care about.
 - Congressman, that's correct.
 - Congressman, we have a number of measures in place to protect
   minors specifically. We make it so that adults can't contact
   minors who they — they aren't already friends with. We make it
   so that certain content that may be inappropriate for minors, we
   don't show. The reality that we see is that teens often do want
   to share their opinions publicly, and that's a service that ...
 - Yes, we do.
 - Congressman, every time that someone chooses to share something
   on Facebook — you go to the app; right there, it says, “Who do
   you want to share with?” When you sign up for a Facebook
   account, it starts off sharing with just your friends. If you
   want to share publicly, you have to specifically go and change
   that setting to be sharing publicly. Every time ...
 - Congressman, this is an important question because I think
   people often ask what the difference is between surveillance and
   what we do. And I think that the difference is extremely clear,
   which is that, on Facebook, you have control over your
   information. The content that you share, you put there. You can
   take it down at any time. The information that we collect, you
   can choose to have us not collect. You can delete any of it,
   and, of course, you can leave Facebook if you want. I know of no
   surveillance organization that gives people the option to delete
   the data that they have, or even know what — what they're
   collecting.
 - Congressman, as I've said, every time that a person chooses to
   share something on Facebook, they're proactively going to the
   service and choosing that they want to share a photo, write a
   message to someone. And, every time, there is a control right
   there — not buried in settings somewhere, but right there, when
   they're — when they're posting ...
 - ... about who they want to share it with.
 - Congressman, since we learned about that, we've removed the
   option for advertisers to exclude ethnic groups from targeting.
 - Congressman, thank you, and let me say a couple of things on
   this. First, to your point about competition, the average
   American uses about eight different apps to communicate and stay
   connected to people. So there's a lot of competition that we
   feel every day. And — and that — that's — that's an important
   force that — that we — that we definitely feel when running the
   company. Second, on your point about regulation, the Internet is
   growing in importance around the world in people's lives, and I
   think that it is inevitable that there will need to be some
   regulation. So my position is not that there should be no
   regulation. But I also think that you have to be careful about
   what regulation you put in place for a lot of the reasons that
   you're saying. I think, a lot of times, regulation, by
   definition, puts in place rules that a company that is larger,
   that has resources like ours, can easily comply with, but that
   might be more difficult for a smaller start-up to — to comply
   with.
 - So I think that all things that need to be thought through very
   carefully when — when thinking through what — what rules we want
   to put in place.
 - Congressman, I'm not sure either. I'm not familiar with that
   specific case. It's quite possible that we made a mistake, and
   we'll follow up afterward to — on that.
 - Overall — yeah, we have — by the end of this year, we'll have
   about 20,000 people at the company who work on security and
   content-review-related issues. But there's a lot of content
   flowing through the systems and a lot of reports, and,
   unfortunately, we don't always get these things right when
   people report it to us.
 - Congresswoman, yes.
 - Yes. We are starting to notify people this week. We started
   Monday, I believe.
 - Congresswoman, yes. That's how our platform works. You have to
   opt in to sign in to any app before you use it.
 - Congresswoman, no, although we are currently going through the
   process of investigating every ...
 - ... that had access to a large amount of data.
 - It means that we're going to look into every app that had a
   large amount of access to data in the past, before we lock down
   the platform. I ...
 - ... because there are tens of thousands of apps, we will find
   some ...
 - ... and, when we find them ...
 - Yes.
 - Congresswoman, we are — have made and are continuing to make
   changes to reduce the amount of ...
 - Congresswoman, I'm not sure what that means.
 - Congresswoman, it might be useful to clarify what actually
   happened here. A developer does research ...
 - Congresswoman, yes. When we learned in 2015 that a Cambridge
   University researcher associated with the academic institution
   that built an app that people chose to share their data with ...
 - Yes. I'm answering your question.
 - When — when we learned about that, we ...
 - Yes.
 - We shut down the app.
 - We got in touch with them, and we asked them to — to — we
   commanded that they delete any of the data that they had, and
   their chief data officer told us that they had.
 - Congressman, this is — this is an important question to
   clarify. So, in 2007, we launched the platform in order to make
   it so that people could sign in to other apps, bring some of
   their information and some of their friends' information, to
   have social experiences. This created a lot of innovative
   experiences — new games, companies like Zynga. There were
   companies that you're — that you're familiar with, like Netflix
   and Spotify — had integrations with this that allowed social
   experiences in their apps. But, unfortunately, there were also a
   number of apps that used this for abuse, to collect people's
   data ...
 - Yeah, there was abuse. And that's why, in 2014, we took the
   step of fundamentally changing how the platform works. So, now,
   when you sign into an app, you can bring your information, and,
   if a friend has also signed into the app, then we'll — then the
   app can know that you're friends, so you can have a social
   experience in that app. But, when you sign into an app, it now
   no longer brings information from other people.
 - Yes, Congressman. Good question. So we're going to start by
   doing an investigation, internally, of every single app that had
   access to a large amount of information, before we lock down the
   platform. If we detect any suspicious activity at all, we are
   working with third-party auditors — I imagine there will have to
   be a number of them, because there are a lot of apps — and they
   will conduct the audit for us.
 - Yes.
 - Yes, Congressman. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to
   clarify that. So one — one of the questions is — is, what
   information do we track, and why, about people who are not
   signed into Facebook. We track certain information for security
   reasons and for ads reasons. For security, it's to make sure
   that people who are not signed into Facebook can't scrape
   people's public information. You can — even when you're not
   signed in, you can look up the information that people have
   chosen to make public on their page, because they wanted to
   share it with everyone. So there's no reason why you should have
   to be logged in. But, nonetheless, we don't want someone to be
   able to go through and download every single public piece of
   information. Even if someone chose to make it public, that
   doesn't mean that it's good to allow someone to aggregate it.
   So, even if someone isn't logged in, we track certain
   information, like how many pages they're accessing, as a
   security measure. The second thing that we do is we provide an
   ad network that third-party websites and apps can run in order
   to help them make money. And those ads — you know, similar to
   what Google does and what the rest of the industry does — it's
   not limited to people who are just on Facebook. So, for the
   purposes of that, we may also collect information to make it so
   that those ads are more relevant and work better on those
   websites. There's a control that — for that second class of
   information around ad targeting — anyone can turn off, has
   complete control over it. For obvious reasons, we do not allow
   people to turn off the — the measurement that we do around
   security.
 - Congressman, it's something that we're looking into. We already
   took action by banning him from the platform, and we're going to
   be doing a full audit to make sure that he gets rid of all the
   data that — that he — that he has, as well. To your point about
   Cambridge University, what we've found now is that there's a
   whole program associated with Cambridge University where a
   number of researchers, not just Aleksandr Kogan — although, to
   our current knowledge, he's the only one who's sold the data to
   Cambridge Analytica — there were a number of other researchers
   who were building similar apps. So we do need to understand
   whether there was something bad going on at Cambridge University
   overall that will require a stronger action from us.
 - Congressman, we're not aware of any specific groups like that,
   that have — that have engaged in this. We are, as I've said,
   conducting a full investigation of any apps that had access to a
   large amount of data. And, if we find anything suspicious, we'll
   tell everyone affected. We do not allow hate groups on Facebook,
   overall. So, if — if there's a group that — their primary
   purpose or — or a large part of what they do is spreading hate,
   we will ban them from the platform, overall.
 - Sorry. Can you repeat that?
 - Congressman, yes. That's certainly an important thing that —
   that we need to do.
 - Congressman, yes. This is an extremely important area. After we
   were slow to identify the Russian information operations in
   2016, this has become a top priority for our company — to
   prevent that from ever happening again, especially this year, in
   2018, which is such an important election year with the U.S.
   midterms, but also major elections in India, Brazil, Mexico,
   Hungary, Pakistan and a number of other places. So we're doing a
   number of things that — that I'm — that I'm happy to talk about,
   or follow up with afterward, around deploying new A.I. tools
   that can proactively catch fake accounts that Russia or others
   might create to spread misinformation. And one thing that I'll —
   that I'll end on here, just because I — I know we're — we're
   running low on time, is, since the 2016 election, there have
   been a number of significant elections, including the French
   presidential election, the German election and, last year, the
   U.S. Senate Alabama special election.
 - And the A.I. tools that we deployed in those elections were
   able to proactively take down tens of thousands of fake accounts
   that may have been trying to do the activity that you're — that
   you're talking about. So our tools are getting better. For as
   long as Russia has people who are employed, who are trying to
   perpetrate this kind of interference, it will be hard for — for
   us to guarantee that we're going to fully stop everything. But
   it's an arms race, and I think that we're making ground and are
   — are doing better and better and are confident about how we're
   going to be able to do ...
 - Congressman, yes. I think that it's really important for the
   service that people understand what they are doing and signing
   up for and how the service works. We have laid out all of what
   we do in the terms of service, because that's what is legally
   required of us.
 - Congressman, yes. We have a developer terms of service, which
   is separate from the normal terms of service for — for
   individuals using the service.
 - Congressman, I'm not sure what you mean by that.
 - Congressman, I think you're raising an important point, which
   is that I think, if someone wanted to know, they could. But I
   think that a lot of people probably just accept terms of service
   without taking the time to read through it. I view our
   responsibility not as just legally complying with laying it out
   and getting that consent, but actually trying to make sure that
   people understand what's happening throughout the product.
   That's why, every single time that you share something on
   Facebook or one of our services, right there is a control in
   line, where you control who — who you want to share with,
   because I don't just think that this is about a terms of
   service. It's contextual. You — you want to present people with
   the information about what — what they might be doing and give
   them the relevant controls in line, at the time that they're
   making those decisions, not just have it be in the background
   sometime, or up front — make a one-time decision.
 - That is — I'm not sure what you mean by extrapolating data.
 - Congressman, as you know, the FTC is investigating this. And we
   are certainly going to be complying with them and working with
   them on that investigation.
 - Yes, Congressman. All the same controls will be available
   around the world.
 - Yes, Congressman. We believe that everyone around the world
   deserves good privacy controls. We've had a lot of these
   controls in place for years. The GDPR requires us to do a few
   more things, and we're going to extend that to the world.
 - Congressman, we're going to put, at the top of everyone's app
   when they sign in, a tool that walks people through the settings
   and gives people the choices and — and asks them to make
   decisions on how they want their settings set.
 - Congressman, I think we may be updating it a little bit. But,
   as you say, we've had the ability to download your information
   for years now. And people have the ability to see everything
   that — that they have in Facebook, to take that out, delete
   their account and move their data anywhere that they want.
 - Congressman, I believe that all of your information is in that
   — that file.
 - Congressman, I'm not sure how we're going to implement that
   yet. Let me follow up with you on that.
 - Congresswoman, I believe that everyone owns their own content
   online. And that's — the first line of our terms of service, if
   you read it, says that.
 - Congresswoman, giving people control of their information and
   how they want to set their privacy is foundational to the whole
   service. It's not just a — kind of an add-on feature, something
   we have to ...
 - ... comply with.
 - The reality is, if you have a photo — if you just think about
   this in your day-to-day life ...
 - Congresswoman, I'm not directly familiar with the details of
   what you just said. But I certainly think that regulation in
   this area ...
 - Congresswoman, we don't think about what we're doing as
   censoring speech. I think that there are — there are types of
   content like terrorism that I think that we all agree we do not
   want to have on our service. So we build systems that can
   identify those and can remove that content, and we're very proud
   of that work.
 - Sorry, Congresswoman, I'm not familiar with ...
 - Of over that?
 - The market cap of the company was greater than that, yes.
 - Yes.
 - Yes.
 - Yes, that's correct.
 - Congresswoman, I'm not familiar with the details of that.
 - Yes.
 - Congresswoman, I — I get briefed on — on these things ...
 - I'm not familiar with the details of it.
 - Congresswoman, I'm not familiar with ...
 - I — I ...
 - ... I discuss them with — with our team, but I don't remember
   the exact details of them.
 - The FTC investigation?
 - Yes.
 - Congresswoman, I don't remember if we had a financial penalty.
 - I — I remember the consent decree. The consent decree is
   extremely important to how we operate the company.
 - Congressman, yes.
 - Congressman, I believe that those are — are — that we collect
   different data for those. But I can follow up on the details of
   — of that.
 - Congressman, let me follow up with you on that. That situation
   developed while I was here, preparing to testify, so I'm not ...
 - ... details on it.
 - Congressman, this is a really important question. There is
   absolutely no directive in any of the changes that we make to
   have a bias in anything that we do. To the contrary, our goal is
   to be a platform for all ideas ...
 - Congressman, we didn't allow the Obama campaign to do anything
   that any developer on the platform wouldn't have otherwise been
   able to do.
 - Yes, I ...
 - Congressman, we pride ourselves on — on doing good technical
   work, yes.
 - Among other things.
 - Congressman, in 2015, when we heard that the developer on our
   platform, Aleksandr Kogan ...
 - That — that Aleksandr Kogan had ...
 - ... sold data to Cambridge Analytica?
 - Yes.
 - Congressman, sometimes we do. I generally think that ...
 - Congressman, I disagree with that assessment. I do think that,
   going forward, we need to take a more proactive view of — of
   policing what the developers do. But, looking back, we've had an
   app review process. We investigate ...
 - ... tens of thousands of apps a year.
 - Congressman, we have a consent decree, yes.
 - Congressman, I'm not — I'm not familiar with all of the things
   that the FTC said, although I'm very familiar with the FTC ...
 - ... order, itself.
 - Congressman, respectfully, I disagree with that
   characterization. We've had a review process for apps for years.
   We've reviewed tens of thousands of apps a year and taken action
   against a number of them. Our process was not enough to catch a
   developer who sold data ...
 - ... that they had in their ...
 - ... outside of our system.
 - Congressman, we have not seen that activity.
 - I — not that I am aware of.
 - There are tens of thousands of apps that had access to a large
   amount of people's information before we locked down the
   platform in 2014. So we're going to do an investigation that
   first involves looking at their patterns of API access and what
   those companies were doing. And then, if we find anything
   suspicious, then we're going to bring in third-party auditors to
   go through their technical and physical systems to understand
   what they did. And, if they — we find that they misused any
   data, then we'll ban them from our platform, make sure they
   delete the data and tell everyone affected.
 - Yes, Congressman. It's going to take many months to do this
   full process.
 - And it's going to — it's going to be an expensive process with
   a lot of auditors. But we think that this is the right thing to
   do at this point. You know, before, we'd thought that, when
   developers told us that they weren't going to sell data, that
   that was — that that was a good representation. But one of the
   big lessons that we've learned here is that, clearly, we cannot
   just take developers' word for it. We need to go and enforce
   that.
 - Yes, Congressman, I'm — I'm aware of the audits that we do. We
   do audits every other year. They're ongoing. The audits have not
   found material issues with our privacy programs in place at the
   company. I think the broader question here is — we have had this
   FTC consent decree, but we take a broader view of what our
   responsibility for people's privacy is. And our — our view is
   that this — what a developer did — that they represented to us
   that they were going to use the data in a certain way, and then,
   in their own systems, went out and sold it — we do not believe
   is a violation of the consent decree. But it's clearly a breach
   of people's trust. And the standard that we hold ourselves to is
   not just following the laws that are in place. But we also — we
   just want to take a broader view of this in protecting people's
   information.
 - Sorry, can you repeat that?
 - Congressman, I believe we do provide the audits to the FTC.
 - Congressman, not personally, although I'm briefed on all of the
   audits by our team.
 - Congresswoman, we expect it to take many months.
 - I hope not.
 - Congresswoman, we can follow up with you to make sure you get
   all that information.
 - I don't believe it was a large number. But, as we complete the
   audits we will know more.
 - A handful.
 - Yes, Congresswoman. In 2015, when we first learned about it, we
   immediately demanded that the app developer and the firms that
   he sold it to delete the data. And they all represented to us
   that they had. It wasn't until about a month ago that new
   reports surfaced that suggested that they hadn't, which is what
   has kicked off us needing to now go do this full audit and
   investigation and investigate all these other apps that have
   come up.
 - Congresswoman, we need to complete the investigation and audit
   before I can confirm that.
 - What they represented to us is that they have. But we need to
   now get into their systems and confirm that before I want to
   stand up here confidently and say what they've done.
 - Congresswoman, the GDPR has a bunch of different, important
   pieces. One is around offering controls over specific — over
   every use of people's data.
 - That, we're doing. The second is around pushing for affirmative
   consent and putting a control in front of people that walks
   people through their — their choices.
 - We're going to do that too. The second — although that might be
   different, depending on the laws in specific countries and
   different places — but we're going to put a tool at the top of
   everyone's app that walks them through their settings and helps
   them understand what is going on.
 - Congresswoman, yes, I feel like we have a very important
   responsibility to outline what the content policies are and the
   community standards are. This is one of the areas that, frankly,
   I'm worried we're not doing a good enough job at right now,
   especially because, as an American-based company where about 90
   percent of the people in our community are outside of the U.S.,
   where there are different social norms and different cultures,
   it's not clear to me that our current situation of how we define
   community standards is going to be effective for articulating
   that around the world. So we're looking at different ways to
   evolve that, and I think that this is one of the more important
   things that we will do.
 - Yes, Congresswoman. I'm not sure specifically what that person
   was referring to, but I can walk you through what the algorithm
   change was, if that's useful.
 - Congresswoman, the principle that we're a platform for all
   ideas is something that I care very deeply about. I'm worried
   about bias, and we take a number of steps to make sure that none
   of the changes that we make are targeted at — in any kind of
   biased way. And I'd be happy to follow up with you and go into
   more detail on that, because I agree that this is a serious
   issue.
 - Congresswoman, it sounds like we made a mistake there, and I
   apologize for that. And, unfortunately, with the amount of
   content in our systems and the current systems that we have in
   place to review, we make a relatively small percent of mistakes
   in content review. But that can be — that's — that's too many.
   And this is an area where we need to improve. What I — what I
   will say is that I wouldn't extrapolate from a few examples, to
   assuming that the overall system is biased. I — I get how people
   can — can look at that and draw that conclusion, but I don't
   think that that reflects the — the way that we're trying to
   build the system or what we've seen.
 - I agree.
 - Congressman, I think that that's a good idea and we should
   follow up on it. From the conversations that I have with my
   fellow leaders in the tech industry, I — I know that this
   something that we all understand that the whole industry is
   behind on. And Facebook is certainly a big part of that issue.
   And we care about this not just from the justice angle, but
   because we know that having diverse, different viewpoints is
   what will help us serve our community better, which is
   ultimately what we're here to do. And I think we know that the
   industry is behind on this and want to ...
 - Congressman, this is an issue that we're — we're focused on. We
   have a broader leadership than just five people. I mean ...
 - I understand that.
 - Congressman, we will certainly work with you. This is an
   important issue.
 - Congressman, we — we try to include a lot of important
   information in the diversity updates. I will go discuss that
   with my team after I get back from this hearing.
 - Congressman, that's correct. And a different developer could
   have built that app.
 - Congressman, the big difference between these cases is that, in
   — in the Kogan case, people signed into that app expecting to
   share the data with Kogan, and then he turned around and, in
   violation of our policies and in violation of people's
   expectations, sold it to a third-party firm — to Cambridge
   Analytica, in this case.
 - I — I think that we — we were very clear about how the platform
   worked at the time — that anyone could sign into an app and
   they'd be able to bring their information, if they wanted, and
   some information from their friends. People had control over
   that. So, if you wanted, you could — you could turn off the
   ability to sign into apps, or turn off the ability for your
   friends to be able to bring your information. The platform
   worked the way that we had designed it at the time. I think we
   now know that we should have a more restrictive platform where
   people cannot also bring information from their friends, and can
   only bring their own information. But that's the way that system
   worked at the time.
 - Congressman, what I think people are — are rightfully very
   upset about is that an app developer that people had shared data
   with sold it to someone else and, frankly, we didn't do enough
   to prevent that or understand it soon enough.
 - And now we have to go through and — and put in place systems
   that prevent that from happening again and — making sure that we
   have sufficient controls in place in our ecosystem so, that way,
   developers can't abuse people's data.
 - Congresswoman, I — I believe that people own all of their own
   content. Where this gets complicated is — let's say I take a
   photo and I share it with you. Now, is that my photo, or is it
   your photo? I — I would take the position that it's our photo,
   which is why we make it so that you can bring — it's — that I
   can bring that — that photo to another app, if I want, but you
   can't.
 - Sorry. Can you clarify that?
 - Congresswoman, all the data that you put in, all the content
   that you share on Facebook is yours. You control how it's used.
   You can remove it at any time. You can get rid of your account
   and get rid of all of it at once. You can ...
 - Congresswoman, I — I disagree with that, because one core tenet
   of our advertising system is that we don't sell data to
   advertisers. Advertisers don't get access to your data. There's
   a — there's a core misunderstanding about how that system works,
   which is that — let's say if you're — if you're a shop, and
   you're selling muffins, right, it's — you might want to target
   people in a specific town who might be interested in baking, or
   — or some demographic. But we don't send that information to
   you. We just show the message to the right people. And that's a
   really important, I think, common misunderstanding ...
 - ... about how this system works.
 - Yes, Congresswoman, we run ads. That's the — the business model
   is running ads. And we use the data that people put into the
   system in order to make the ads more relevant, which also makes
   them more valuable. But it's — what we hear from people is that,
   if they're going to see ads, they want them to be good and
   relevant ...
 - No, you have complete control over that.
 - Congressman, yes. This is extremely important. And I think the
   — the point that you raise is particularly important — that
   we've heard in — today a number of examples of — where we may
   have made content review mistakes on conservative content. But I
   can assure you that there are a lot of folks who think that we
   make content moderation or content review mistakes of liberal
   content, as well.
 - We will review it and get back to you.
 - Yes, Congressman, I do. We were trying to balance two equities:
   on the one hand, making it so that people had data portability,
   the ability to bring their data to another app in order to have
   new experiences in other places, which I think is a value that
   we all care about. On the other hand, we also need to balance
   making sure that everyone's information is protected. And I
   think that we — we didn't get that balance right up front.
 - We do not believe it did. But, regardless, we take a broader
   view of what our responsibility is to protect people's privacy.
   And, if a developer who people gave their information to — in
   this case, Aleksandr Kogan — then goes and, in violation of — of
   his agreement with us, sells the data to Cambridge Analytica,
   that's a big issue. And I think people have a right to be very
   upset. I'm upset that that happened. And we need to make sure
   that we put in place the systems to prevent that from happening
   again.
 - Congresswoman, I believe that we ...
 - Congresswoman, I — I'm not sure — I don't think that that's
   what we're tracking.
 - Congresswoman ...
 - That's right, that we — that we understand, in order to show
   which of your friends liked a page ...
 - Congressman — Congresswoman ...
 - I — I — I actually — if they share it with us. But
   Congresswoman, overall, I — I'm ...
 - Congresswoman, I don't think any of those buttons share
   transaction data. But broadly, I — I disagree with the
   characterization.
 - Congresswoman, yes, we collect some data for security purposes,
   and ...
 - Congresswoman, everyone has control over how that works.
 - Congresswoman, I disagree with that characterization.
 - Congresswoman, the primary way that Facebook works is that
   people choose to share data, and they share content because
   they're trying to communicate.
 - Congresswoman, we just announced two weeks ago that we were
   going to stop interacting with data brokers, and even though
   that's an industry norm, to make it so that the advertising can
   be more relevant ...
 - No, Congressman. You're — you're right. I mean, this is ad-
   based business models have been a common way that people have
   been able to offer free services for a long time. And our social
   mission of trying to help connect everyone in the world relies
   on having a service that can be affordable for everyone; that
   everyone can use. And that's why the ads business model is in
   service of the social mission that we have, and you know, I
   think sometimes that gets lost, but I think that's a really
   important point.
 - Well, Congressman, it would make the ads less relevant. So what
   we ...
 - And — yeah. It would — it would reduce — it would have a number
   of effects. For people using the services, it would make the ads
   less relevant to them. For businesses, like the small businesses
   that use advertising, it would make advertising more expensive,
   because now they would have to reach — they would have to pay
   more to reach more people, and efficiently, because targeting
   helps small businesses be able to afford and — and reach — and
   reach people as effectively as big companies have typically had
   the ability to do for a long time. It would affect our revenue
   some amount too, but I think one — there are a couple of points
   here that are lost. One is that we already give people a control
   to not use that data and ads, if they want. Most people don't do
   that. I think part of the reason for that is that people get
   that if they are going to see ads, that they want them to be
   relevant. But the other thing is that our — a lot of what our
   business — what makes the ads work, or what makes the business
   good is just that people are very engaged with Facebook. We have
   more than a billion people who spend almost an hour a day across
   all our services.
 - If you delete your account, we immediately make it so that your
   account is — is no longer available, once you're — once you're
   done deleting it. So no one can find you on the service. We
   wouldn't be able to re-create your account from that. We do have
   data centers and systems that are redundant, and we have backups
   in case something bad happens. And, over a number of days, we'll
   — we'll go through and make sure that we flush all the content
   out of the system. But, as soon as you delete your account,
   effectively, that content is — is dismantled and we wouldn't be
   able to put your account back together if we wanted to.
 - Do you want me to ...
 - Congressman, I can quickly respond to the first point, too.
 - Congressman ...
 - ... we ...
 - We offer sales support to every campaign.
 - Congressman, the — the Trump campaign had sales support ...
 - Congressman, I do not, sitting here off the top of my head.
 - Congressman, we apply the same standard to all campaigns.
 - Congressman ...
 - ... what I'm — yes. What I'm saying is that ...
 - ... following the same standards.
 - Mr. Chairman, do you mind, for the record, if I just answer the
   first point for — for ...
 - ... take 10 seconds.
 - When I was referring to the campaigns yesterday, I meant the
   DNC and RNC. So I may have misspoken, and maybe, technically,
   that's called the committees. But that — those were the folks
   who I was referring to.
 - Well, Congressman, I view our responsibility as not just
   building services that people like to use, but making sure that
   those services are also good for people and good for society
   overall. At the time, there were a number of questions about
   whether people seeing content that was either positive or
   negative on social networks was affecting their mood. And we
   felt like we had a responsibility to understand whether that was
   the case, because we don't want to have that effect, right? We
   don't want to have it so that — we want use of social media and
   our products to be good for people's well-being. I mean, we
   continually make changes to — to that effect, including, just
   recently, this year, we did a number of research projects that
   showed that when social media is used for building relationships
   — and so when you're interacting with people, it's associated
   with a lot of positive effects of — of well-being that you'd
   expect. It — it makes you feel more connected, less lonely, it
   correlates with long term measures of happiness and health.
   Whereas if you're using social media or the Internet just to
   passively consume content, then that doesn't have those same
   positive effects or can even be negative. So we've tried to
   shift the product more towards helping people interact with
   friends and family as a result of that. So that's the kind of —
   an example of the kind of work that we — that we do.
 - Yes.
 - Yes. The 27,000 number is full time employees. And the security
   and content review includes contractors, of which there are tens
   of thousands. Or will be. Will be by the time that we hire
   those.
 - Well, Congressman, the — the issue with Cambridge Analytica and
   Alexander Kogan happened before we ramped those programs up
   dramatically. But one thing that I think is important to
   understand overall is just the sheer volume of content on
   Facebook makes it so that we can't — no amount of people that we
   can hire will be enough to review all of the content. We need to
   rely on and build sophisticated A.I. tools that can help us flag
   certain content. And we're getting good in certain areas. One of
   the areas that I mentioned earlier was terrorist content, for
   example, where we now have A.I. systems that can identify and —
   and take down 99 percent of the al-Qaeda and ISIS-related
   content in our system before someone — a human even flags it to
   us. I think we need to do more of that.
 - Yes, Congressman. We have a “download your information” tool.
   We've had it for years. You can go to it in your settings and
   download all of the content that you have on Facebook.
 - Congressman, that would be correct. If — if we don't have
   content in there, then that means that — that you don't have it
   on Facebook. Or you haven't put it there.
 - Congressman, my understanding is that all of your information
   is included in your “download your information.”
 - Congressman, we're working on doing that as quickly as
   possible. I don't have the exact date yet.
 - We're working on it.
 - Well, Congressman, let me first just set aside that my position
   isn't that there should be no regulation.
 - But regardless of what the laws are that are in place, we have
   a very strong incentive to protect people's information. This is
   the core thing that Facebook is, is about 100 billion times a
   day people come to our service to share a photo or share a
   message or ...
 - Congressman, this is an incredibly high priority for us. What I
   was saying before, that the core use of the product every day,
   about 100 billion times, is that people come and try to share
   something with a specific set of people. That works because
   people have confidence that if they send a message, it's going
   to go to the person that they want. If they want to share a
   photo with their friends, it's going to go to the people they
   want. That's incredibly important. We've built a — a robust
   privacy program. We have a chief privacy officer ...
 - Congressman, I believe ...
 - No, of course not.
 - Congressman, I'm not ...
 - ... aware of his quote, but I heard that he — that he said
   something. And let me just speak to this for a second ...
 - Congressman, I think that there are a number of areas of
   content that we need to do a better job policing on our service.
   Today, the primary way that content (inaudible) — regulation
   works here, and review, is that people can share what they want
   openly on the service, and then, if someone sees an issue, they
   can flag it to us, and then we will review it. Over time, we're
   shifting to a mode where ...
 - Congressman, right now, when people report the posts to us, we
   will take them down and have people ...
 - Congressman, I agree that this is a terrible issue, and,
   respectfully, when there are tens of billions or 100 billion
   pieces of content that are shared every day, even 20,000 people
   reviewing it can't look at everything. What we need to do is
   build more A.I. tools that can proactively find that content.
 - Yes.
 - Congressman, yes, of course.
 - Yes, Congressman.
 - Congressman, that seems like a reasonable principle to me.
 - Congressman, that one might be more interesting to debate,
   because ...
 - Yes, Congressman, and they have that ability.
 - Congressman, I certainly think that that's an area where we
   should discuss some sort of oversight.
 - Congressman, I think that's — this is an area where some
   regulation makes sense. You proposed a very specific thing, and
   I think the details matter.
 - Congressman, yes, and I'll make sure that we work with — with
   you to flesh this out.
 - Congressman, in — in general, the way we approach data and law
   enforcement is, if we have knowledge of imminent harm — physical
   harm that might happen to someone, we try to reach out to local
   law enforcement in order to help prevent that. I think that that
   is less built out around the world. It is more built out in the
   U.S. So, for example, on that example, we built out specific
   programs in the U.S.
 - We have 3,000 people that are help — that are focused on making
   sure that, if we detect that someone is at risk of harming
   themselves, we can get them the appropriate ...
 - The — the second category of — of information is when there is
   a valid legal process served to us. In general, if a government
   puts something out that's overly broad, we're going to fight
   back on it. We view our duty as protecting people's information.
   But, if there is valid service, especially in the U.S., we will,
   of course, work with law enforcement. In general, we are not in
   the business of providing a lot of information to the Russian
   government.
 - Sorry, can you repeat that?
 - Well, Congressman, in general, countries do not have
   jurisdiction to have any valid legal reason to request data of
   someone outside of their country.
 - We don't store any data in Russia.
 - Yes.
 - Sorry, Congressman, could you repeat that?
 - Yes.
 - Congressman, let me be more precise in my testimony.
 - I have no specific knowledge of any data that we've ever given
   to Russia. In general, we'll work with valid law enforcement
   requests in different countries, and we can get back to you on
   what that might mean with Russia, specifically. But I have no
   knowledge, sitting here, of any time that we would have given
   them information.
 - Yes, Congressman. This is an important issue, and it's — fake
   accounts, overall, are a big issue, because that's how a lot of
   the — the other issues that we see around fake news and foreign
   election interference are happening, as well. So, long-term, the
   solution here is to build more A.I. tools that find patterns of
   people using the services that no real person would do. And
   we've been able to do that in order to take down tens of
   thousands of accounts, especially related to election
   interference leading up to the French election, the German
   election and, last year, the U.S. Alabama Senate state election
   — Senate election — special election. And that's an area where
   we should be able to extend that work and develop more A.I.
   tools that can do this more broadly.
 - Congressman, I'm not specifically familiar with that. The
   feature that we identified — I think it was a few weeks ago, or
   a couple weeks ago, at this point — was a search feature that
   allowed people to look up some information that people had
   publicly shared on their profiles.
 - So names, profile pictures, public information.
 - Congressman, in general, we collect data of people who have not
   signed up for Facebook for security purposes, to prevent the
   kind of scraping that you were just referring to.
 - Congressman, I'm not — I'm not familiar with that ...
 - I do not know off the top of my head.
 - Congressman, I do not off the top of my head, but I can have
   our team get back to you afterwards.
 - Congressman, anyone can turn off and opt out of any data
   collection for ads, whether they use our services or not. But,
   in order to prevent people from scraping public information,
   which — again, the search feature you brought up only showed
   public information — people's names and profiles and things that
   they had made public. But, nonetheless, we don't want people
   aggregating even public information.
 - ... block that, so we need to know when someone is trying to
   repeatedly access our services ...
 - Congressman, we're working with the right authorities on that,
   and I'm happy to answer specific questions here, as well.
 - Yes, Congressman. We will certainly follow up with you on this.
   Part of the mission of connecting everyone around the world
   means that everyone needs to be able to be on the Internet. And,
   unfortunately, too much of the Internet infrastructure today is
   too expensive for the current business models of carriers to
   support a lot of rural communities with the quality of service
   that they deserve. So we are building a number of specific
   technologies, from planes that can beam down Internet access, to
   repeaters and mesh networks to make it so that — that all these
   communities can be served. And we'd be happy to follow-up with
   you on this to ...
 - Congressman, without weighing in on that specific piece of
   content, let me outline the way that we approach fighting fake
   news in general. There are three categories of fake news that we
   fight. One are basically spammers. They're economic actors, like
   — like the Macedonian trolls that I think we have all heard
   about — basically, folks who do not have an ideological goal.
   They're just trying to write the most sensational thing they
   can, in order to get people to click on it so they can make
   money on ads. It's all economics. So the way to fight that is we
   make it so they can't run our ads, they can't make money. We
   make it so we can detect what they're doing and show it in less
   in news feeds, so they can make less money. When they stop
   making money, they just go and do something else, because
   they're economically inclined. The second category are basically
   state actors, right, so what we've found with Russian
   interference. And those people are setting up fake accounts. So,
   for that, we need to build A.I. systems that can go and identify
   a number of their fake account networks. And, just last week, we
   traced back the Russian activity to — to specific — a fake
   account network that Russia had in Russia to influence Russian
   culture and other Russian-speaking countries around them. And we
   took down a number of their fake accounts and pages, including a
   news organization that was sanctioned by Russian — by the
   Russian government as a Russian state news organization. So
   that's a pretty big action. But removing fake accounts is the
   other way that we can fake — stop the spread of false
   information.
 - Yes, Congressman. That's actually the third category that I was
   going to get to next, after economic spammers and state actors
   with fake accounts. One of the things we're doing is working
   with a number of third parties who — so, if people flag things
   as — as false news or — or incorrect, we run them by third-party
   fact checkers, who are all accredited by the — this Pointer
   Institute of Journalism. There are ...
 - ... firms of all — of all leanings around this, who do this
   work, and that's — that's an important part of the effort.
 - Congressman, my understanding is that, if there's — if we have
   information from you visiting other places, then you have a way
   of getting access to that and deleting it and making sure that
   we don't store it anymore. In the specific question that the —
   the other congressman asked, I think it's possible that we just
   didn't have the information that he was asking about in the
   first place, and that's why it wasn't there.
 - Congressman, I think we're responsible for protecting people's
   information, for sure. But one thing that you said that I — that
   I want to provide some clarity on ...
 - Well, you said earlier — you referenced that you thought that
   we were only taking action after this came to light. Actually,
   we made significant changes to the platform in 2014 that would
   have made this incident with Cambridge Analytica impossible to
   happen again today. I wish we'd made those changes a couple of
   years earlier, because this poll app got people to use it back
   in 2013 and 2014. And, if we had made the changes a couple of
   years earlier, then we would have — then we ...
 - Congressman, if people flag those ads for us, we will take them
   down now.
 - Yes.
 - If people flag them for us, we will look at them as quickly as
   we can ...
 - The ads that are flagged for us, we will review and take down,
   if they violate our policies, which I believe the ones ...
 - ... but — but what I think really needs to happen here is not
   just us reviewing content that gets flagged for us. We need to
   be able to build tools that can proactively go out and identify
   what might be these — these ads for — for opioids, before people
   even have to flag them for us to review.
 - And that's — that's going to be a longer term thing, in order
   to build that solution. So — but, today, if someone flags the
   ads for us, we will take them down.
 - Congressman, that clearly sounds like a big issue and something
   that would violate our policies. I don't have specific knowledge
   of that case, but what I imagine happened, given what you just
   said, is that they reported it to us and one of the people who
   reviews content probably made an enforcement error. And then,
   when you reached out, we probably looked at it again and
   realized that it — that it violated the policies, and took it
   down. We have a number of steps that we need to take to improve
   the accuracy of our enforcement.
 - That's — that's a big issue. And we have to check content
   faster ...
 - ... and we need to — to be able to do better at this. I think
   the same solution to the opioid question that you raised
   earlier, of doing more with automated tools, will lead to both
   faster response times, and more accurate enforcement of the
   policies.
 - Congresswoman, I agree that we need to work on diversity. In
   this specific case, I don't think that that was the issue,
   because we were, frankly, slow to identifying the whole Russian
   misinformation operation, and not just that specific example.
   Going forward, we're going to address this by verifying the
   identity of every single advertiser who's running political or
   issue-oriented ads, to make it so that foreign actors or people
   trying to spoof their identity or say that they're someone that
   they're not cannot run political ads or run large pages of the
   type you're talking about.
 - Congresswoman, we announced a change in how we're going to
   review ads and big pages so that, now, going forward, we're
   going to verify the identity and location of every advertiser
   who's running political or issue ads or — and the identities ...
 - That will be in place for these elections.
 - Yes, Congresswoman.
 - No, Congresswoman, it did not.
 - Of course.
 - Congressman, it's a combination of both. So, at the end of the
   day, we have — we have community standards that are written out,
   and try to be very clear about what's — what is acceptable. And
   we have a large team of people. As I said, by the end of this
   year, we're going to have about 20,000 — more than 20,000 people
   working on security and content review across the company. But,
   in order to flag some content quickly, we also build technical
   systems in order to take things down. So, if we see terrorist
   content, for example, we'll flag that, and we can — we can take
   that down.
 - Congressman, for content reviewers specifically, their
   performance is going to be measured by whether they do their job
   accurately, and ...
 - I — I'm — I'm sure we do. As is part of the normal course of —
   of running a company, you — you're hiring and firing people all
   the time to grow your capacity, and — and to ...
 - Congressman, I'm not specifically aware of that case.
 - We will.
 - Yes.
 - Yes.
 - Congressman, we don't sell people's data. So I think that
   that's an important thing to clarify up front. And then, in
   terms of collecting data, I mean, the whole purpose of the
   service is that you can share the things that you want with the
   people around you, right, or — and your friends. So ...
 - Well, Congressman, it would be possible for our business to
   exist without having a developer platform. It would not be
   possible for our business to — or — or our products or our
   services or anything that we do to exist without having the
   opportunity for people to go to Facebook, put in the content
   that they want to share and who they want to share it with, and
   then go do that. That's the core thing that ...
 - Congressman, for the developer platform changes that we
   announced, they're implemented. We're putting those into place.
   We announced a bunch of specific things. It's on our — our blog,
   and I wrote it in my written testimony, and that stuff is
   happening. We're also going back and investigating every single
   app that had access to a large amount of data before we locked
   down the platform in the past. We will tell people if we find
   anything that misused their data, and we will tell people when
   the investigation is complete.
 - Congressman, part of what I just said is that we're going to do
   an investigation of every single app that had access to a large
   amount of people's data. If you — if you signed into another
   app, then that probably has access to some of your data. And
   part of the investigation that we're going to do is — is to
   determine whether those app developers did anything improper, or
   shared that data further, beyond that. And, if we find anything
   like that, we will tell people that their — that their data was
   misused.
 - No, Congressman. FaceMash was a — a prank website that I
   launched in college, in my dorm room, before I started Facebook.
   There was a movie about this — or it said it was about this. It
   was of unclear truth. And the — the claim that FaceMash was
   somehow connected to the development of Facebook — it isn't. It
   wasn't.
 - It was in 2003.
 - ... took it down, and it actually has nothing to do with
   Facebook.
 - Congressman, that is an accurate description of the prank
   website that I made when I was a sophomore in college.
 - I do.
 - I — I believe — is that Diamond and Silk?
 - Well, Congressman, nothing is unsafe about that. The specifics
   of — of this situation, I — I'm not as up to speed on as — as I
   probably would be ...
 - Congressman, so you're right that, in 2015, when we found out
   that the app developer, Aleksandr Kogan, had sold data to
   Cambridge Analytica, we reached out to them. At that point, we
   demanded that they delete all the data that they had. They told
   us, at that point, that they had done that. And then, a month
   ago, we heard a new report that said that they actually hadn't
   done that.
 - The audit team that we are sending in?
 - The first order of business is to understand exactly what
   happened. And ...
 - Congressman, I do not believe that we have. And ...
 - ... one specific point on this is that our audit in the — of
   Cambridge Analytica — we have paused that in order to cede to
   the U.K. government, which is conducting its own government
   audit, which, of course — an investigation which, of course ...
 - Congressman, yes. What I'm saying is that the U.K. government
   is going to complete its investigation before we go in and do
   our audit. So they will have full access to all the information.
 - Yes, we've — we've — we've paused it, pending theirs.
 - Congressman, yes. We have a document retention policy at the
   company where, for some people, we delete emails after a period
   of time, but we, of course, preserve anything that there's a
   legal hold on.
 - Well, Congressman, I would disagree that we allow it. We
   actually expressly prohibit any developer that people ...
 - Yes, Congressman. Some of it is — is in response to reports
   that we get, and some of it is we do spot checks to make sure
   that the apps are actually doing what they — what they say
   they're doing. And, going forward, we're going to increase the
   number of audits that we do, as well.
 - Congressman ...
 - ... Congressman, you have control over what we do for — for ads
   and the information collection around that. On security, there
   may be specific things about how you use Facebook, even if
   you're not logged in, that we — that we keep track of, to make
   sure that people aren't abusing the systems.
 - ... Congressman, you have control over what we do for — for ads
   and the information collection around that. On security, there
   may be specific things about how you use Facebook, even if
   you're not logged in, that we — that we keep track of, to make
   sure that people aren't abusing the systems.
 - Congressman, we're not collecting any information verbally on
   the microphone, and we don't have contracts with anyone else who
   is. The only time that we might use the microphone is when
   you're recording a video or doing something where you
   intentionally are trying to record audio. But we don't have
   anything that is trying to listen to what's going on in the
   background.
 - Congressman, we do. I don't think we have a policy that says
   that your phone can't be on. And, again, I'm not that — I'm not
   familiar with — Facebook doesn't do this, and I'm not familiar
   with other companies that — that do, either. My understanding is
   that a lot of these cases that you're talking about are a
   coincidence, or someone is — might be talking about something,
   but then they also go to a website or interact with it on
   Facebook, because they were talking about it, and then maybe
   they'll see the ad because of that, which is a much clearer
   statement of the — the intent.
 - Yes.
 - Congressman, the way this works is — let's say you have a
   business that is selling skis, Okay, and you have on your
   profile that you are interested in skiing. But let's say you
   haven't made that public, but you share it with your — with your
   friends, all right? So, broadly, we don't tell the advertiser
   that — “Here's a list of people who like skis.” They just say,
   “Okay, we're trying to sell skis. Can you reach people who like
   skis?” And then we match that up on our side, without sharing
   any of that information with the advertisers.
 - Congressman, no. And I — I also would push back on the idea
   that we're giving them access to the data. We allow them to
   reach people who have said that on Facebook, but we're not
   giving them access to data.
 - Congressman, I'm not sure I understand the question. Can you —
   can you give me an example of what you mean?
 - Yes. So, Congressman, my understanding is that the targeting
   options that are — that are available for advertisers are
   generally things that are based on what people share. Now, once
   an advertiser chooses how they want to target something,
   Facebook also does its own work to help rank and determine which
   ads are going to be interesting to which people.
 - So we may use metadata or other behaviors of what you've shown
   that you're interested in on news feed or other places in order
   to make our systems more relevant to you. But that's a little
   bit different from giving that as an option to an advertiser, if
   that makes sense.
 - Congressman, I — I agree that we should be a platform for all
   ideas, and that we should focus on that.
 - I ...
 - Congressman, yes. In general, I mean, I think that people own
   their ...
 - Congressman, these sound relatively accurate.
 - Congressman, I don't think so. There are — there are a couple
   of big issues here. One is what happened specifically with
   Cambridge Analytica — how were they able to buy data from a
   developer that people chose to share it with? And how do we make
   sure that that can't happen again?
 - People had it on Facebook, and then chose to share theirs and
   some of their friends' information with this developer, yes.
 - Congressman, we just recently announced that we were stopping
   working with data brokers as part of the ad system. It's ...
 - It's — it's an industry standard ad practice, and, recently,
   upon examining all of our systems, we decided that's not a thing
   that we want to be a part of, even if everyone else is doing it.
 - Yes, until we announced that we're shutting it down. Yes.
 - Congressman, I don't believe that. I think that there may have
   been a specific factual inaccuracy that we ...
 - ... that specific point, yes.
 - Congressman, you're right that we apologized after they posted
   the story. They had the — most of the details of what was — of
   what was right there.
 - And I don't think we objected to that.
 - There was a specific thing ...
 - Congressman, I'm — I am definitely committed to taking a
   broader view of our responsibility. That's what my testimony is
   about, making sure that we don't just give people tools, but
   make sure that they're used for good.
 - Congresswoman, thanks for the question. Terrorist content and
   propaganda has no place in our network and we have developed a
   number of tools that have now made it so that 99 percent of the
   ISIS and al-Qaeda content that we take down is identified by the
   systems and taken down before anyone our system even flags it
   for us. So that's an example of removing harmful content that
   we're proud of, and I think is a model for other types of
   harmful content as well.
 - Congressman, it's a good question, and it's a combination of
   technology and people. We have a counterterrorism team at
   Facebook.
 - Two hundred people are just focused on counterterrorism, and
   there are other content reviewers who are reviewing content that
   gets flagged to them as well. So those are folks who are working
   specifically on that. I think we have capacity in 30 languages
   that we're working on. In addition to that we have a number of
   A.I. tools that we're developing, like the ones that I mentioned
   that can proactively go flag the content.
 - Yes so there's ...
 - Yes.
 - So we identify what might be the patterns of communication or
   messaging that they might put out and then design systems that
   can proactively identify that and flag those for our teams. That
   way we can go and take those down.
 - Thank you. We will. And, Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind before
   we go to the next question, there was something I wanted to
   correct in my testimony from earlier, when I went back and
   talked to my team afterwards.
 - I'd said that if — if — this was in response to a question
   about whether web logs that — that we had about a person would
   be able to download your information. I had said that they were.
   And I clarified with my team that in fact, the Web logs are not
   and download your information. We only store them temporarily,
   and we convert the Web logs into a set of ad interests, that you
   might be interested in those ads, and we put that in the
   “download your information” instead, and you have complete
   control over that. So I just wanted to clarify that one for the
   record.
 - Congressman, in retrospect, it was a mistake and we should and
   I wish we had identified — notified and told people about it.
 - The reason why we didn't ...
 - Yes, Congressman, I don't believe that — that we necessarily
   had a legal obligation to do so. I just think it was probably
   ...
 - ... I think that it was the right thing to have done. The
   reason why we didn't do it at the time ...
 - Absolutely.
 - Congressman, regardless of what the laws or regulations are
   that are in place, we take a broader view of our
   responsibilities around privacy, and I think that we should have
   notified people, because it would have been the right thing to
   do, and I've committed ...
 - Congressman, I think it's an idea that deserves a lot of
   consideration. I think — I — I'm not the type of person who
   thinks that there should be no regulation, especially because
   the Internet is getting to be so important in people's lives
   around the world. But I think the details on this really matter,
   and whether it's an agency, or a law that is passed, or the FTC
   has certain abilities, I — I that is — is is all something that
   we should be ...
 - Congressman, we look forward to following up, too.
 - Congressman, I believe that people should have the ability to
   choose to share their data how they want, and they need to
   understand how that's working. But I — I agree with what you're
   saying, that people want to have the ability to move their data
   to another app, and we want to give them the tools to — to do
   that.
 - Yes, Congressman. On — on most devices, the way the operating
   systems is architected would prevent something that you do in
   another app like Google from being visible to — to the Facebook
   app.
 - Congressman, yes, we — we collect information to make sure that
   the ad experience on Facebook can be relevant and valuable to
   small businesses ...
 - ... and — and others who want to reach people.
 - Congressman, yes, there is. There is a setting, so if you don't
   want any data to be collected around advertising, you can — you
   can turn that off, and then we won't do it. In general, we offer
   a lot of settings over every type of information that you might
   want to share on Facebook, in every way that you might interact
   with the system, from here's the content that you put on your
   page, to here is who can see your interests, to here's how you
   might show up in — in search results if people look for you, to
   here's how the — how you might be able to sign into developer
   apps, and login with Facebook, and — and advertising. And we —
   we try to make the controls as easy to understand as possible.
   You know, it's a — it's a broad service. People use it for a lot
   of things, so there are a number of controls, but we try to make
   it as easy as possible, and — and to put those controls in front
   of people so that they can configure the experience in a way
   that they want.
 - Thank you.
 - Congressman, I think that that makes sense to discuss, and I
   agree with the broader point that I think you're making, which
   is that the Internet and technology overall is just becoming a
   much more important part of all of our lives. The — the
   companies in the technology industry are — are growing ...
 - Congressman, it's certainly something that we can consider,
   although one thing that I would push back on is I think it is
   often characterized as maybe these mistakes happen because
   there's some conflict between what people and business
   interests. I actually don't think that's the case. I think a lot
   of these hard decisions come down to different interests between
   different people. So for example, on the one hand people want
   the ability to sign into apps and bring some of their
   information and bring some of their friend's information in
   order to have a social experience. And on the other hand,
   everyone wants their information locked down and completely
   private. And the question is — it's not a business question as
   much as which of those equities do you weigh more?
 - Congressman, well there are — there are a lot of things that
   the — that the Europeans do, and — and I think that — I think
   that GDPR in general is — is going to be a very positive step
   for the Internet, and it codifies a lot of the things in there
   are things that we've done for a long time. Some of them are
   things that — that I think would be — would be good steps for us
   to take. So for example, the controls that — that this requires,
   are generally controls, privacy controls that we've offered
   around the world for years. Putting the tools in front of people
   repeatedly, not just having them in settings, but putting them
   in front of people and getting — and making sure that people
   understand what the controls are and that they get affirmative
   consent, I think it's a good thing to do that we've done
   periodically in the past, but I think it makes sense to do more,
   and I think that's something the GDPR will — will require us to
   do and — and will be positive.
 - I would — I need to think about that more.
 - I did.
 - Congressman, I'm not — I'm not specifically aware of — of that
   threat, but in general, there are a number of national security
   and election integrity-type issues that we focus on, and we try
   to take a very broad view of that. And the more input that we
   can get from the intelligence community as well, encouraging us
   to — to look into specific things, the more effectively we can
   do that work.
 - Congressman, this is an important question. So there are a
   couple of standards. The strongest one is things that will cause
   physical harm, or threats of physical harm, but then there is a
   broader standard of — of hate speech and speech that might make
   people feel just broadly uncomfortable or unsafe in the
   community.
 - Congressman, that's a very important question, and I think is —
   is one that we struggle with continuously, and the question of,
   what is hate speech versus what is legitimate political speech
   is, I — I think, something that we get criticized both from the
   left and the right on what the definitions are that we have.
   It's — it is — it's nuanced, and what we try to — we try to lay
   this out in our community standards, which are public documents,
   that we can make sure that you and your — your office get to
   look through the definitions on this, but this is an area where
   I think society's sensibilities are also shifting quickly, and
   it's also very different and ...
 - I agree.
 - Congressman, thank you. So, before 2014 when we announced the
   change, a — someone could sign into an app and share some of
   their data, but also could share some basic information about
   their friends. And in 2014 the major change was we said, now
   you're not going to be able to share any information about your
   friends. So if you and your friend both happen to be playing a
   game together or on an app that — listening to music together,
   then that app could have some information from both of you
   because you both had signed in and authorized that app. But
   other than that, people wouldn't be able to share information
   from their friends. So that the basic issue here were 300,000
   people used this poll and came — and the app and then ultimately
   sold it to Cambridge Analytica and Cambridge Analytica had
   access to as many as 87 million people's information wouldn't be
   possible today. Today if 300,000 people used an app, the app
   might have information about 300,000 people.
 - Thank you.
 - Congressman, I — I don't sitting here today remember a lot of
   the specifics of — of early on, but we saw generally a bunch of
   app developers who were asking for permissions to access
   people's data in ways that weren't connected to the functioning
   of an app. So they'd just say, Okay, if you want to log in to my
   app, you — you would have to share all this content, even though
   the app doesn't actually use that in any reasonable way. So we
   looked at that and said, hey, this isn't — this isn't right. Or
   we should review these apps and make sure that if an app
   developer's going to ask someone to access their data that they
   actually have a reason why they want to access to it. And over
   time, that we — we made a series of changes that culminated in
   the major change in 2014 that I referenced before where
   ultimately we made it so now a person could sign in but not
   bring their friends information with them anymore.
 - Congressman, it would be difficult to ever guarantee that any
   single — that — that — that there are — that there are no bad
   actors. Every problem around security is — is sort of an arms
   race, where you have people who are trying to abuse systems, and
   our responsibility is to make that as hard as possible and to
   take the — the necessary precautions for a company of our scale.
   And I think that the responsibility that we have is growing with
   our scale and we need to make sure that we ...
 - Congressman, yes politically. Although I — I — I think what you
   — when I hear that what I hear is kind of normal political
   speech. We certainly are not going to allow ads for terrorist
   content for example so ...
 - ... banning those views.
 - Sorry, could you repeat that?
 - Congresswoman, so when you're using the service, if you share a
   photo, for example, and you say “I only want my friends to see
   it,” then in news feed and Facebook, only your friends are going
   to see it. If you then go to a website and then you want to sign
   into that website, that website can ask you and say “Hey, here
   are the things that — that I want to get access to in order for
   you to use the website.” If you sign in after seeing that screen
   where the website is asking for certain information, then you
   are also authorizing that website to have access to that
   information. If you've turned off the platform completely, which
   is what the control is that you have on the left, then you
   wouldn't be able to sign in to another website. You'd have to go
   reactivate this before that would even work.
 - Congresswoman, I think that these, that the settings when
   you're signing into an app are quite clear in terms of, every
   time you go to sign into an app, you have to go through a whole
   screen that says “Here's the app, here's your friends who use
   it, here are the pieces of information that it would like to
   have access to.” You make a decision whether you sign in, yes or
   no. And until you say “I want to sign in,” nothing gets shared.
   Similarly, in terms of sharing content, every single time that
   you go to upload a photo, you have to make a decision — it's
   right there at the top, it says “are you sharing this with your
   friends or publicly or with some group,” and every single time
   that's — that's quite clear. So in those cases, yes, I think
   that this is quite clear.
 - Congresswoman, we typically do two things. We have a settings
   page that has all of your settings in one place in case you want
   to go and play around or configure your settings. But the more
   important thing is putting the settings in line when you're
   trying to make a decision. So if you're going to share a photo
   now, we think that your setting about who you want to share that
   photo with should be in line right there. If you're going to
   sign into an app, we think that the — it should be very clear
   right in line when you're signing into the app what permissions
   that app is asking for. So we do both. It's both in one place in
   settings if you want to go to it, and it's in line in the
   relevant place.
 - Can you repeat that?
 - What was the other piece?
 - Well, Congresswoman, I think that privacy is not something that
   you can ever — it's — our understanding of the issues between
   people and how they interact online only grows over time. So I
   think we'll figure out what the social norms are and the rules
   that we want to put in place. Then five years from now, we'll
   come back and we'll have learned more things and either that'll
   just be that social norms have evolved and the company's
   practices have evolved or we'll put rules in place. But I think
   that our understanding of this is going to evolve over quite a
   long time. So I would expect that even if a state like
   California's forward-leaning, that's not necessarily going to
   mean that we fully understand everything or have solved all the
   issues.
 - Congresswoman, I don't know the answer to that off the top my
   head, but we'll get back to you.
 - I believe we've served the like button on pages more than that,
   but I don't know the number of pages that have the like button
   on actively.
 - I don't know the answer to that exactly off the top my head
   either, but that's something that we can follow up with you on.
 - Congresswoman, you're asking some specific stats that I don't
   know off the top of my head, but we can follow up with you and
   get back to you on all of these.
 - Congresswoman, I will talk to my team and we will follow up.
 - Congresswoman, as I've said a number of times, we're now going
   to investigate every single app that access to a large amount of
   people's information in the past before we lock down the
   platform. I do imagine that we will find some apps that — that
   were either doing something suspicious or misused people's data,
   if we find them, then we will ban them from the platform, take
   action to make sure they delete the data and make sure that
   everyone involved is informed.
 - As soon as we find them.
 - Yes, Congressman. So there are a few parts of GDPR that I think
   are important and — and good. One is making sure that people
   have control over how each piece of information that they share
   used. So people should have the ability to know what a company
   knows about them, to control and have a setting about who can
   see it and to be able to delete it whenever they want. The
   second set of things is making sure that people actually
   understand what the tools are that are available. So not just
   having it in some settings page somewhere, but put the tools in
   front of people so that they can make a decision. And that both
   builds trust and makes inside people's experiences are
   configured in the way that they want. That's something that
   we've done a number of times over the years at Facebook. But
   with GDPR, we will now be doing more and around the whole world.
   The third piece is there are some very sensitive technologies
   that I think are important to enable innovation around like face
   recognition, but that you want to make sure that you get special
   consent for. Right, it's if we — if we make it too hard for
   American companies to innovate in areas like facial recognition,
   then we will lose to Chinese companies and other companies
   around the world where — that are able innovate in that.
 - Congressman, I think that that's a — that's a good question.
   And I think that this is something that probably — that — that
   we should — that people should have control over, how it is used
   and that we're going to be rolling out and asking people whether
   they want us to use it for them around the world as part of this
   — this push that's upcoming. But I think in general for — for
   sensitive technologies like that, I do think you want a special
   consent.
 - And I think that's a — that would be a valuable thing to
   consider.
 - Congressman ...
 - Congressman, I'm not familiar with how the term is legally
   used.
 - Well, Congressman, let me put it this way, there is content
   that we fund, specifically in video today.
 - And when we're commissioning a video to be created, then I
   certainly think we have full responsibility ...
 - ... of owning — of owning that content.
 - But the vast majority of the content on Facebook is not
   something that we commissioned. For that, I think our
   responsibility is to make sure that the content on Facebook is
   not harmful, that people are seeing things that are relevant to
   them and that encourage interaction and building relationships
   with the people around them. And that, I think, is — is the
   primary responsibility that we have.
 - Thank you.
 - I did not know that specifically.
 - Yes.
 - Yes, especially among certain demographics.
 - Congressman, I will make sure that someone is there.
   (Inaudible).
 - Congressman, I was not specifically aware of that, but I think
   we — we know that — that there are issues with content like
   this, that we need more proactive monitoring for.
 - Congressman, I have not heard that.
 - Congressman, I believe that has been an issue for a long time.
 - Congressman yes, we take this very seriously. That's a big part
   of the reason overall these content issues why, by the end of
   this year, we're going to have more than 20,000 people working
   on security and content review. And we need to build more tools,
   too.
 - Well Congressman, I think that we can all agree that certain
   content like terrorist propaganda should have no place on our
   network. And the First Amendment, my understanding of it, is
   that that kind of speech is allowed in the world. I just don't
   think that it is the kind of thing that we want to allow to
   spread on the Internet. So once you get into that, you're
   already — you're deciding that you — you take this value that
   you care about safety. And that we don't want people to be able
   to spread information that can cause harm. And I think that that
   — it — our general responsibility is to — is to allow the
   broadest spectrum of free expression as we can ...
 - Well Congressman, I think that we — we make a number of
   mistakes in content review today that I don't think only focus
   on one political persuasion. And I think it's unfortunate that
   when those happen, people think that we're focused on them. And
   it happens in different political groups, and it's — we have ...
 - Thank you.
 - Congressman, I agree that this is very important, and I — I
   miscommunicated if I left the impression that we weren't
   proactively going to work on tools to take down this content,
   and we're only going to rely on people to flag it for us. Right
   now, I think underway, we have efforts to focus not only on ads,
   which has been most of the — the majority of the questions, but
   a lot of people share this stuff in groups, too, and the — the
   free part of the products that aren't paid, and we need to get
   that content down, too. I understand how big of an issue this
   is. Unfortunately, the enforcement isn't — isn't perfect. We do
   need to make it more proactive, and I'm committed to doing that.
 - Congressman, let me answer that in a second, and before —
   before I get to that, on your last point, the content reviewers
   who we have are not primarily located in — in — in Silicon
   Valley. So I think that — that's — that was an important point,
   and ...
 - ... I do worry about the general bias of people in Silicon
   Valley. But the — the majority of the folks doing content review
   are — are around the world in different places. To your question
   about net neutrality, I think that there's a big difference
   between Internet service providers and platforms on top of them.
   And the big reason is that, well, I just think about my own
   experience. When I was starting Facebook, I had one choice of an
   Internet service provider. And if I had to potentially pay extra
   in order to make it so that people could have Facebook as an
   option for something that they used, then I'm not sure that we'd
   be here today. Platforms, there are just many more. So it may be
   true that a lot of people choose to use Facebook. The average
   American, I think, uses about eight different communication and
   social network apps to stay connected to people. And just as
   clearly correct or true that there are more choices on
   platforms. So even though they can reach large-scale, I think
   the pressure of just having one or two in a place does require
   us to think a little bit ...
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TENN.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, I tell you, I think
   your cozy community, as Dr. Mark Jameson recently said, is
   beginning to look a whole lot like “The Truman Show,” where
   people's identities and relationships are made available to
   people that they don't know. And then that data is crunched and
   it is used and they are fully unaware of this. So I've got to
   ask you, I think what we're getting to here is, who owns the
   virtual you? Who owns your presence online? And I'd like for you
   to comment. Who do you think owns an individual's presence
   online? Who owns their virtual you? Is it you or is it them?
SCHAKOWSKY
 - Years?
 - Okay. I want to ask you — yesterday — following up on your
   response to Senator Baldwin's question, you said yesterday that
   Kogan also sold data to other firms. You named Eunoia
   Technologies. How many are there total? And what are their
   names? Can we get that? And how many are total — are there
   total?
 - Yeah, but order of magnitude?
 - What's a large number?
 - Has Facebook tried to get those firms to delete user data and
   its derivatives?
 - And were derivatives deleted?
 - You are looking at the ...
 - So Mr. Green asked about the General Data Protection Regulation
   on May 25th that's going to go into effect by the E.U. And your
   response was — let me ask: Is your response that exactly the
   protections that are guaranteed, not the — what did he say?
   Yeah, not just the controls, but all the rights that are
   guaranteed under the General Data Protection Regulations will be
   applied to Americans, as well?
 - Right, that's one. Yes.
 - Exactly.
 - It sounds like it will not be exact. And let me say, as we look
   at the distribution of information ...
 - ... that who's going to protect us from Facebook is also a
   question. Thank you. I yield back.
 - Okay, I'm going to — I consider Billy Long a good friend. Let
   me just say that I don't think it was a breach of decorum, and I
   just take issue with his saying that a very modest bill that
   I've introduced is an overreach. That's all.
LUJAN
 - Well ...
 - If I may, Mr. Zuckerberg, I will recognize that Facebook did
   turn this feature off. My question, and the reason I'm asking
   about 2013 and 2015, is Facebook knew about this in 2013 and
   2015, but you didn't turn the feature off until Wednesday of
   last week — the same feature that Mr. Kinzinger just talked
   about, where this is essentially a tool for these malicious
   actors to go and steal someone's identity and put the finishing
   touches on it. So, again, you know, one of your mentors, Roger
   McNamee, recently said your business is based on trust, and you
   are losing trust. This is a trust question. Why did it take so
   long, especially when we're talking about some of the other
   pieces that we need to get to the bottom of? Your failure to act
   on this issue has made billions of people potentially vulnerable
   to identity theft and other types of harmful, malicious actors.
   So, on to another subject, Facebook has detailed profiles on
   people who have never signed up for Facebook. Yes or no?
 - So these are called shadow profiles? Is that what they've been
   referred to by some?
 - I'll refer — I'll refer to them as shadow profiles for today's
   hearing. On average, how many data points does Facebook have on
   each Facebook user?
 - So the average for non-Facebook platforms is 1,500. It's been
   reported that Facebook has as many as 29,000 data points for an
   average Facebook user. You know how many points of data that
   Facebook has on the average non-Facebook-user?
 - I appreciate that. It's been admitted by Facebook that you do
   collect data points on non-average users. So my question is, can
   someone who does not have a Facebook account opt out of
   Facebook's involuntary data collection?
 - But — so ...
 - If I may, Mr. Zuckerberg, I'm about out of time. It may
   surprise you that we have not talked about this a lot today. You
   said everyone controls their data, but you're collecting data on
   people that are not even Facebook users, that have never signed
   a consent, a privacy agreement — and you're collecting their
   data. And it may surprise you that, on Facebook's page, when you
   go to “I don't have a Facebook account and would like to request
   all my personal data stored by Facebook,” it takes you to a form
   that says, “Go to your Facebook page, and then, on your account
   settings, you can download your data.” So you're directing
   people who don't have access — don't even have a Facebook page
   to have to sign up for a page to reach their data. We've got to
   fix that. The last question that I have is have you disclosed to
   this committee or to anyone all the information Facebook has
   uncovered about Russian interference on your platform?
 - Thank you Mr. Chair.
OLSON
 - One last question. I believe I've heard you employ 27,000
   people thereabouts. Is that correct?
 - I've also been told that about 20,000 of those people,
   including contractors, do work on data security. Is that
   correct?
 - Okay, so roughly at least half your employees are dedicated to
   security practices. How can Cambridge Analytica happen with so
   much of your workforce dedicated to these — these causes. How'd
   that happen?
PALLONE
 - And their justification that those protections were not needed
   because the Federal Trade Commission has everything under
   control — well, this latest disaster shows just how wrong the
   Republicans are. The FTC used every tool Republicans have been
   willing to give it, and those tools weren't enough. And that's
   why Facebook acted like so many other companies, and reacted
   only when it got bad press. We all know this cycle by now. Our
   data is stolen. The company looks the other way. Eventually,
   reporters find out, publish a negative story, and the company
   apologizes. And Congress then holds a hearing, and then nothing
   happens. By not doing its job, this Republican-controlled
   Congress has become complicit in this nonstop cycle of privacy
   by press release. And this cycle must stop, because the current
   system is broken. So I was happy to hear that Mr. Zuckerberg
   conceded that his industry needs to be regulated, and I agree.
   We need comprehensive privacy and data security legislation. We
   need baseline protections that stretch from Internet service
   providers, to data brokers, to app developers and to anyone else
   who makes a living off our data. We need to figure out how to
   make sure these companies act responsibly, even before the press
   finds out. But, while securing our privacy is necessary, it's
   not sufficient. We need to take steps immediately to secure our
   democracy. We can't let what happened in 2016 happen again. And,
   to do that, we need to learn how Facebook was caught so flat-
   footed in 2016. How was it so blind to what the Russians and
   others were doing on its systems? Red flags were everywhere. Why
   didn't anyone see them? Or were they ignored? So today's hearing
   is a good start. But we also need to hold additional hearings
   where we hold accountable executives from other tech companies,
   Internet service providers, data brokers and anyone else that
   collects our information. Now, Congresswoman Schakowsky from
   Illinois and I introduced a bill last year that would require
   companies to implement baseline data security standards. And I
   plan to work with my colleagues to draft additional legislation.
   But I have to, say Mr. Chairman, it's time for this committee
   and this Congress to pass comprehensive legislation to prevent
   incidents like this in the future. My great fear is that we have
   this hearing today, there's a lot of press attention — and, Mr.
   Zuckerberg, you know, appreciate your being here once again —
   but, if all we do is have a hearing and then nothing happens,
   then that's not accomplishing anything. And — and I — you know,
   I know I sound very critical of the Republicans and their
   leadership on this — on these privacy issues. But I've just seen
   it — I've just seen it over and over again — that we have the
   hearings, and nothing happens. So excuse me for being so
   pessimistic, Mr. Chairman, but that's where I am. I yield back.
 - Thank you. I — Mr. Zuckerberg, you talk about how positive and
   optimistic you are, and I'm — I guess I'm sorry, because I'm
   not. I don't have much faith in corporate America, and I
   certainly don't have much faith in their GOP allies here in
   Congress. I really look at everything in — that this committee
   does, or most of what this committee does, in terms of the right
   to know. In other words, they — I always fear that people, you
   know, that go on Facebook — they don't necessarily know what's
   happening or what's going on with their data. And so, to the
   extent that we could pass legislation, which I think we need —
   and you said that we probably should have some legislation — I
   want that legislation to give people the right to know, to
   empower them, to — to, you know, provide more transparency, I
   guess, is the best way to put. So I'm looking at everything
   through that sort of lens. So just let me ask you three quick
   questions. And I'm going to ask you to answer yes or no, because
   of the time. Yes or no: Is Facebook limiting the amount or type
   of data Facebook itself collects or uses?
 - But, see, I — I don't see that in the announcements you've
   made. Like, you've made all these announcements the last few
   days about the changes you're going to make. And I don't really
   see how that — how those announcements or changes limit the
   amount or type of data that Facebook collects or uses in an
   effective way. But let me go to the second one. Again, this is
   my concern — that users currently may not know or take
   affirmative action to protect their own privacy. Yes or no: Is
   Facebook changing any user default settings to be more privacy-
   protective?
 - But see, again, I don't see that in — in the changes you — that
   you propose. I don't really see any way that these user default
   settings — you're changing these user default settings in a way
   that is going to be more privacy protection. But let me —
   protective. But let me go to the third one. Yes or no: Will you
   commit to changing all user default settings to minimize, to the
   greatest extent possible, the collection and user — and use of
   users' data? Can you make that commitment?
 - But I'd like you to answer yes or no, if you could. Will you
   make the commitment to change all the user — to changing all the
   user default settings to minimize, to the greatest extent
   possible, the collection and use of users' data? That's — I
   don't think that's hard for you to say yes to, unless I'm
   missing something.
 - Well, again, that's disappointing to me, because I think you
   should make that commitment. And maybe what we could do is
   follow up with you on this, if possible — if that's okay. We can
   do that follow-up?
 - All right. Now, you said yesterday that each of us owns the
   content that we put on Facebook and that Facebook gives some
   control to consumers over their content. But we know about the
   problems with Cambridge Analytica.
 - I know you changed your rules in 2014 and again this week, but
   you still allow third parties to have access to personal data.
   How can consumers have control over their data when Facebook
   doesn't have control over the data itself? That's my concern.
   Last question.
 - I still don't ...
 - Yeah, I know. I still think that there's not enough — people
   aren't empowered enough to really make those decisions in a
   positive way.
JOHNSON
 - I got a lot of those folks in my district. You know, you're a —
   you're a real American success story. There's no question that
   you and Facebook have revolutionized the way Americans — in
   fact, the world — communicate and interconnect with one another.
   I think the reason that — one of the reasons that you were able
   to do that is because nowhere other than here in America, where
   a young man in college can pursue his dreams and ambitions on
   his own terms without a big federal government overregulating
   them and telling them what they can and cannot do, could you
   have achieved something like this. But, in the absence of — of
   federal regulations that would reel that in, the only way it
   works for the betterment of society and people is with a high
   degree of responsibility and trust. And you've acknowledged that
   there have been some breakdowns in responsibility. And I think,
   sometimes — and I'm a technology guy. I have two degrees in
   computer science. I'm a software engineer. I'm a patent holder.
   So I know the challenges that you face in terms of managing the
   technology. But, oftentimes, technology folks spend so much time
   thinking about what they can do, and little time thinking about
   what they should do. And so I want to talk about some of those
   “should do” kind of things. You heard earlier about faith-based
   material that had been — that had been taken down, ads that had
   been taken down. You admitted that it was a mistake. That was in
   my district, by the way — Franciscan University, a faith-based
   university, was the one that did that.
 - How is your content filtered and determined to be appropriate,
   or not appropriate, and policy-compliant? Is it an algorithm
   that does it? Or is there a team of a gazillion people that sit
   there and look at each and every ad, that make that
   determination?
 - What do — what you do when you — when you find someone or
   something that's made a mistake? I mean, I've heard you say
   several times today that you know a mistake has been made. What
   — what kind of accountability is there when mistakes are made?
   Because, every time a mistake like that is made, it's a little
   bit of a chip away from the trust and the responsibility
   factors. How do you hold people accountable in Facebook, when
   they make those kind of mistakes of taking stuff down that
   shouldn't be taken down, or leaving stuff up that should not be
   left up?
 - Do you ever fire anybody when they do stuff like that?
 - What happened to the — what happened to the person that took
   down the Franciscan University ad and didn't put it back up
   until the media started getting involved?
 - Could you take that question for me? My time is expired. Can
   you take that question for me and — and get me that answer back,
   please?
 - Okay, thank you very much. I yield back.
GUTHRIE
 - But — but you're different in that instead of getting just a
   broad — When I'm watching the — the Hilltoppers on basketball,
   the person advertising me doesn't know anything about me. I'm
   just watching the ad, so there's no data, no agreement, or no
   risk, I guess, there. But with you, there — there is consumer-
   driven data. But if we were to greatly reduce or stop — or just
   greatly reduce, through legislation, the use of consumer-driven
   data for targeting ads, what do you think that would do to the
   Internet, just — and when I say Internet, I mean everything, not
   just Facebook.
 - So if you had less revenue, what would that do to ...
 - I have 30 seconds, so I appreciate the answer to that. But if —
   so — so I didn't opt out, and so forth, and all of a sudden, I
   say, “You know, this just doesn't work for me, so I want to
   delete — " You told Congressman Rush that you could delete. What
   happens to the data? I — I've already — it's fair. It's been
   used. It's — Cambridge Analytics may have it. So what happens
   when I say, “Facebook, take my data off your platform”?
 - Thank you. My time's expired. I appreciate it.
REP. GREGG HARPER (R-MISS.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg for being
   here. And we don't lose sight of the fact that you're a great
   American success story. It is a part of everyone's life and
   business — sometimes, maybe too often. But I thank you for
   taking the time to be here. And our concern is to make sure that
   it's — it's fair. We worry because we're — we're looking at
   possible government regulation here. Certainly, this self-
   governing, which has had some issues and how you factor that —
   and — and we — you know, we're trying to keep up with the
   algorithm changes on — on how you determine the prioritization
   of the news feeds. And you look at, well, it's got to be — it
   needs to be trustworthy and reliable and relevant — well, who's
   going to determine that? That also has an impact. And, even
   though you say you don't want the bias, it does — it is
   dependent upon who's setting what those standards are in that.
   And so I want to ask you a couple questions, if I may. And this
   is a quote from Paul Grewal, Facebook's V.P. and general counsel
   — said, “Like all app developers, Mr. Aleksandr Kogan requested
   and gained access to information from people after they chose to
   download his app.” Now, under Facebook policy, in 2013, if
   Cambridge Analytica had developed the This is Your Digital Life
   app, they would have had access to the same data they purchased
   from Mr. Kogan. Would that be correct?
MCNERNEY
 - Well, my staff just this morning downloaded their information
   and their browsing history is not in there. So are you saying
   that Facebook does not have browsing history?
 - So I'm — I'm — I'm not quite on board with this. Is there any
   other information that Facebook has obtained about me, whether
   Facebook collected it or obtained it from a third party that
   would not be included in the download?
 - Okay, I'm going to follow up with this afterwards. Mr.
   Zuckerberg, you indicated that the European users with have GDPR
   protection on May 25th, and the American users will have those
   similar protections. When will the American users have those
   protections?
 - So it will not be on May 25th?
 - Thank you. Your company and many companies with an online
   presence have a staggering about of personal information. The
   customer is not really in the driver's seat about how their
   information is used or monetized. The data collectors are in the
   driver seat. Today, Facebook is governed by weak federal privacy
   protections. I've introduced legislation that would help address
   this issue. The My Data Act would give the FTC rulemaking
   authority to provide consumers with strong data privacy and
   security protections. Without this kind of legislation, how can
   we be sure that Facebook won't continue to be careless with
   users' information?
 - Correct.
 - Well, I mean I hear — I hear — I hear you saying this, but the
   history isn't there. So I — I think we need to make sure that
   there's regulations in place to give you the proper motivation
   to — to stay in line with data protection. One of the problems
   here in my mind is that Facebook's history, the privacy — user
   privacy and security have not been given as high priority as
   corporate growth. And you've admitted as much. Is Facebook
   considering changing it's management structure to ensure that
   privacy and security have sufficient priority to prevent these
   problems in the future?
 - That's a — that's a little bit off — off track from what I'm
   trying to get at. The privacy protections clearly failed in a
   couple of cases that are high profile right now. And part of the
   blame that — that seems to be out there is that the management
   structure for privacy and security don't have the right level of
   — of profile in — in Facebook to get your attention to make sure
   that they get the proper resources.
PETERS
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for being
   with us today, and I — you know, it's been a long day. I want to
   — I — I think we can all agree that technology has outpaced the
   law, with respect to the protection of private information. I
   wonder if you think it would be reasonable for Congress to
   define the legal duty of privacy that's owed by private
   companies to their customers, with respect to their personal
   information.
 - Right, that's what I mean by it's outpaced, and I — I wonder, I
   want to take — I would also want to take you at your work, I
   believe you're sincere that you personally place a high value on
   consumer privacy and that — that personal commitment is
   significant at Facebook today coming from you, given your
   position, but I also observe, and you'd agree, that the
   performance on privacy has been inconsistent. I wonder, you
   know, myself whether that's because it's not a bottom line
   issue. It — it — it appears that the shareholders are interested
   in — in maximizing profits, privacy neither — certainly doesn't
   drive profits I don't think, but also may interfere with profits
   if you have to sacrifice your ad revenues because of privacy
   concerns. Would it not be appropriate for — for us once we
   define this — this duty to assess financial penalties in a way
   that would sufficiently send a signal to the shareholders and to
   your employees — who you must be frustrated with too — that the
   privacy you're so concerned about is a bottom line issue at
   Facebook?
 - I think part of it is that, but — but part of it also what
   happened with Cambridge Analytica, some of this data got away
   from us, and I'd suggest to you that if — if there were
   financial consequences to that that made a difference to the
   business, not people dropping their Facebook accounts, they
   would get more attention. And it's not so much a — a business
   model choice — I congratulate you on your business model — but
   it's that these issues aren't getting the — the bottom line
   attention that — that I think would have given — made them a
   priority with respect of Facebook. Let me just follow up in my
   final time on a — on an exchange you had with Senator Graham
   yesterday about regulation and — and I — I think Senator said,
   do you as a company welcome regulation, and you said, if it's
   the right regulation, then yes. Question, do you think that the
   Europeans have it right? And you said, I think they get some
   things right. I wanted you to elaborate on what the Europeans
   got right, and what do you think they got wrong?
 - Anything you think they got wrong?
 - Well I would appreciate it if you could respond in writing. I
   really — again, really appreciate you being here. Thank you Mr.
   Chairman.
REP. BEN RAY LUJÁN (D-N.M.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to pick up where Mr.
   Kinzinger dropped off, here. Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook recently
   announced that — a search feature allowing malicious actors to
   scrape data on virtually all of Facebook's 2 billion users. Yes
   or no: In 2013, Brandon Copley, the CEO of Giftnix, demonstrated
   that this feature could easily be used to gather information at
   scale. Well, the answer to that question is yes. Yes or no: This
   issue of scraping data was again raised in 2015 by a cyber
   security researcher, correct?
KINZINGER
 - What about, like — what about Russian intel agencies?
 - Do you know — is this data only from accounts located in or
   operated from these individual countries? Or does it include
   Facebook's global data?
 - Yeah. Is the data only from the accounts located in or operated
   from those countries, in terms of Russia or anything? Or does it
   include Facebook's global data?
 - But where is it stored? Where is the data — do they have access
   to data only stored in ...
 - Okay, so it's the global data.
 - So let me just ask — you mentioned a few times that we're in an
   arms race with Russia, but is it one-sided if Facebook, as an
   American-based company, has given the opposition everything it
   needs in terms of, you know, where it's storing its data?
 - So you mentioned a few times that we're in an arms race with
   Russia.
 - If you're giving Russian intelligence service agencies,
   potentially, even on a valid request, access to global data
   that's not in Russia, is that kind of a disadvantage to us and
   an advantage to them?
 - Sure. Yeah, please.
 - That would be great. Now, I've got another unique one I want to
   bring up. So I was just today — and I'm not saying this as a
   “Woe is me,” but I think this happens to a lot of people — there
   have been — my pictures have been stolen and used in fake
   accounts all around, and, in many cases, people have been
   extorted for money. We report it when we can, but we're in a
   tail chase. In fact, today, I just Googled — or I just put on
   your website, “Andrew Kinzinger,” and he looks a lot like me,
   but it says he's from London and lives in L.A. and went to Locke
   High School, which isn't anything like me at all. These accounts
   pop up a lot, and, again, it's using my pictures, but extorting
   people for money. And we hear about it from people that call and
   say, “Hey, I was duped,” or whatever. Can I — I know you can't
   control everything. I mean, it's — you have a huge platform, and
   — but can you talk about, maybe, some movements into the future
   to try to prevent that, in terms of maybe recognizing somebody's
   picture and if it's fake?
 - Okay. Thank you.
DOYLE
 - ... reported by The Guardian?
MCKINLEY
 - That's — that's a yes — yes or no. Do you think you should be
   able to do —
 - And — there — there are 35,000 online pharmacies operating, and
   according to the FDA, they think there may be 96 percent of them
   are operating illegally. And on November of last year, CNBC had
   an article say that you were surprised by the breadth of this
   opioids crisis. And as you can see from these photographs,
   opioids are still available on your site, that they're — without
   a prescription on your site. So contradicts just what you just
   said, just a minute ago. And — and when on last week, FDA
   Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has testified before our office,
   said that the Internet firms simply aren't taking practical
   steps to find and remove these illegal opioids listings. And he
   specifically mentioned Facebook. Are you aware of that, his
   quote?
 - Answer yes or no ...
 - If I could — no, we don't — so, in your opening statement — and
   I appreciated your remark — you said, “It's not enough to give
   people a voice. We have to make sure that people aren't using
   it” — Facebook — “to hurt people.” Now, America's in the midst
   of one of the worst epidemics that it's ever experienced, with
   this — with this drug epidemic. And it's all across this
   country; it's not just in West Virginia. But your platform is
   still being used to circumvent the law and allow people to buy
   highly addictive drugs without a prescription. With all due
   respect, Facebook is actually enabling an illegal activity, and
   in so doing, you are hurting people. Would you agree with that
   statement?
 - You can — you can find out, Mr. Zuckerberg. You know which
   pharmacies are operating legally and illegally. But you're still
   continuing to take that — allow that to be posted on — on
   Facebook and allow people to get this — this scourge that's
   ravaging this country — is being enabled because of Facebook. So
   my question to you, as we close, on this — you've said before
   you were going to take down those ads, but you didn't do it.
   We've got statement after statement about things — you're going
   to take those down within days, and they haven't gone down.
   That, what I just put up, was just from yesterday. It's still
   up. So my question to you is, when are you going to stop — take
   down these posts that are done — on — with illegal digital
   pharmacies? When are you going to take them down?
 - Why do they have to — if you got all these 20,000 people — you
   know that they're up there. Where is your require — where is
   your accountability to allow this to be occurring — this —
   ravaging this country?
 - If — you have been — said before you were going to take them
   down, and you haven't. And they're still up.
BILIRAKIS
 - Now?
 - By the end of the day?
 - Well, you have knowledge now, obviously. You have knowledge —
   you have knowledge of those ads. Will you begin to take them out
   — down today?
 - They clearly do. I — if they're illegal, they clearly violate
   your laws.
 - I agree.
 - Work on those tools as soon as possible, please. Okay. Next
   question. A constituent of mine in District 12 of Florida, the
   Tampa Bay area, came to me recently with what was clear — a
   clear violation of your privacy policy. In this case, a third-
   party organization publicly posted personal information about my
   constituent on his Facebook page. This included his home
   address, voting record, degrading photos and other information.
   In my opinion, this is cyber bullying. For weeks, my constituent
   tried reaching out to Facebook on multiple occasions through its
   report feature, but the offending content remained. It was only
   when my office got involved that the posts were removed almost
   immediately for violating Facebook policy.
 - How does Facebook's self-reporting policy work to prevent
   misuse? And why did it take an act of Congress — a member of
   Congress to get, again, a clear privacy violation removed from
   Facebook? If you can answer that question, I'd appreciate it,
   please.
 - Absolutely.
 - It has to be consistent.
 - Can you give us a timeline as to when will this be done? I
   mean, this is very critical for — I mean, listen, my family uses
   Facebook, my friends, my constituents. We all use Facebook. I
   use Facebook. It's wonderful ...
 - ... for us seniors to connect with our relatives.
 - Yeah, I'm sorry. Can I submit for the record my additional
   questions?
 - Thank you. Thank you so much ...
CLARKE
 - So, were they — whether they were Russian or not, when you have
   propaganda, how are you addressing that? Because this was
   extremely harmful during the last election cycle and it — and
   can continue to be so in the — in the upcoming elections and
   throughout the year, right? I'm concerned that there are not
   eyes that are culturally competent looking at these things and
   being able to see how this would impact on civil society. If
   everyone within the organization is monolithic, then you can
   miss these things very easily. And we've talked about diversity
   forever, with your organization. What can you say today, when
   you look at how all of this operates, that you can do
   immediately to make sure that we have the types of viewing or
   reviewing that could enable us to catch this in its tracks?
 - Good. We — we'd like you to get back to us with a timeline on
   that. This is ...
 - Okay. Fabulous. When Mr. Kogan sold the Facebook-based data
   that he acquired through the quiz app to Cambridge Analytica,
   did he violate Facebook's policies at the time?
 - When the Obama campaign collected millions of Facebook users'
   data through their own app during the 2012 election, did it
   violate Facebook's policies at the time?
 - I hope you understand that this distinction provides little
   comfort to those of us concerned about our privacy online.
   Regardless of political party, Americans desperately need to be
   protected. Democrats on this committee ...
 - ... have been calling for strong privacy and data security
   legislation for years. We really can't wait. Mr. Chairman, I
   yield back. Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg.
MATSUI
 - But, once it gets to the data broker, though — so there are
   certain algorithms and certain assumptions made. What happens
   after that?
 - Well, what I mean is — is that, if you supplement this data —
   you know, you say you're owning it, but you supplement this —
   when other data brokers, you know, use their own algorithms to
   supplement this and make their own assumptions, then what
   happens there? Because that is — to me, somebody else is taking
   that over. How can you say that we own that data?
 - So — but you can't claw it back once it gets out there, right?
   I mean, that's really — we might own our own data, but, once
   it's used in advertising, we lose control over it. Is that not
   right?
 - Yeah. I understand that.
 - But Facebook sells ads based at least on part of data users
   provide to Facebook. That's right. And the more data that
   Facebook collects — allows you to better target ads to users or
   classes of users. So, even if Facebook doesn't earn money from
   selling data, doesn't Facebook earn money from advertising based
   on that data?
 - But we're not controlling that data.
BUCSHON
 - Okay, because, I mean — like I said, I mean, you've talked to
   people that this has happened to. My son who lives in Chicago
   was — him and his colleagues were talking about a certain type
   of suit, because they're business guys, and, the next day, he
   had a bunch of ads for different suits on — on that, when he
   went onto the Internet. So it's pretty obvious to me that
   someone is — is listening to the audio on — on our phones, and
   that — I see that as a pretty big issue. And the reason is — is
   because — and you may not be, but I see this as a pretty big
   issue for — because, for example, if you're in your doctor's
   office, if you're in your corporate boardroom, your office or
   even personal areas of your home, that's potentially an issue.
   And I'm glad to hear that Facebook isn't listening, but — but
   I'm skeptical that someone isn't. And I — I see this as an
   industry-wide issue that you could potentially help address. And
   the final thing I'll just ask is that, when you have, say, an
   executive session or whatever, your corporate board, and you
   have decisions to be made, do you allow the people in the room
   to have their phones on them?
 - Okay. Because, if — if that's the case, then — I mean, I know,
   for convenience, companies have developed things like Alexa, and
   I don't want to — and other companies are developing things like
   that. But it just seems to me that the whole — part of the whole
   point of those product is not just for your own convenience,
   but, when you're verbally talking about things and then you're
   not on the Internet, they're able to collect information on the
   type of activities that — that you're engaging in. So I'd — I'd
   implore the industry to — to look into that and make sure that,
   in addition to physical — exploring the Internet and collecting
   data, that data being ...
 - ... taken verbally not be allowed. Thank you.
REP. SUSAN BROOKS (R-IND.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for
   being here today. It's so critically important that we hear from
   you and your company because we do believe that is critically
   important for you to be a leader in these solutions. One thing
   is that has been talked about just very little, but I think is
   very important and I want to make sure there is appropriate
   attention on how the platform of Facebook but even other
   platforms — and you've mentioned it a little bit — how you help
   us in this country keep our country safe from terrorists. And so
   it's a — I talked with lots of people who actually continue to
   remain very concerned about recruitment of their younger family
   members, and now we're seeing around the globe and enhanced
   recruitment of women as well to join terrorist organizations.
   And so I'm very, very concerned. I'm a former U.S. attorney. And
   so when 9/11 happened, you didn't exist. Facebook did not exist,
   but since the evolution, after 9/11, we know that al-Shabab, al-
   Qaeda, ISIS, has used social media like we could not even
   imagine. So can you please talk about — and then you talked
   about the fact that if there is content that is objectionable or
   is a danger that people report it to you, but what if they
   don't? What if everybody assumes that someone is reporting
   something to you. So I need you to help assure us as well as the
   American people, what is Facebook's role, leadership role, in
   helping us fight terrorism and help us stop the recruitment,
   because it is still a grave danger around the world?
LOEBSACK
 - ... I think trust that has been the issue today. There's no
   question about it. I think that's what — what I'm hearing from
   my constituents. That's what we're hearing from our colleagues.
   That's really the question: How can we be guaranteed that, for
   example, when you agree to some things today, that you're going
   to follow through, and that we're going to be able to hold you
   accountable. And — and without, perhaps, constructing too many
   rules and regulations — we'd like to keep that to a minimum if
   we possibly can. But I do understand that you have agreed that
   we're going to have to have some rules and regulations so that
   we can protect people's privacy, so that we can protect that use
   of the consumer data. So, going forward from there, I've just
   got a — a few questions I'll probably have an opportunity to get
   to. The first one goes to the business model issue, because
   you're publicly traded. Is that correct?
 - And you're the CEO.
 - Right. And so I've got Lauren from Solon who asks, “Is it
   possible for Facebook to exist without collecting and selling
   our data?” Is it possible to exist?
 - Is it — is it possible for you to be in business without
   sharing the data? Because that's what you have done, whether it
   was selling or not — sharing the data, providing it to Cambridge
   Analytica and other folks along the way. Is it possible for your
   business to exist without doing that?
 - Okay, thank you. I — I appreciate that. And then Brenda from
   Muscatine — she has a question, obviously, related to trust, as
   well, and that is, how will changes promised this time be proven
   to be completed? She'd like to know. How's that going to happen?
   If there are changes — you said there have been some changes —
   how can she and those folks in our districts, and throughout
   America — not just members of Congress, but how can folks in our
   districts hold you accountable? How do they know that those
   changes are, in fact, going to happen? That's what that
   question's about.
 - Thank you. And, finally, Chad from Scott County wants to know,
   “Who has my data, other than Cambridge Analytica?”
 - ... thank you, Mr. Chair.
CARDENAS
 - Okay. It — just so you know, just brought to my attention — my
   staff texted me a little while ago that the CEO of Cambridge
   Analytica apparently stepped down, some time today. I don't know
   if anybody of your team there whispered that to you, but my
   staff just reported that. That's interesting. The fact that the
   CEO of Cambridge Analytica stepped down — does that in and of
   itself solve the issue and the controversy around what they did?
 - But some of that information did originate with Facebook,
   correct?
 - Something was brought to my attention most recently that
   apparently safe book — Facebook does, in fact, actually buy
   information to add or augment the information that you have on
   some of your users, to build, around them, their profile.
 - But you did do that to build your company, in the past?
 - But you did engage in that, as well — not just everybody else,
   but Facebook yourselves — you did engage in that?
 - Okay. It's my understanding that, when The Guardian decided to
   report on the Cambridge Analytica consumer data issue, Facebook
   threatened to sue them if they want forward with their — their
   story. It appears — did it happen something like that? Facebook
   kind of warned them, like, “Hey, maybe you don't want to do
   that”?
 - So, in other words, you checking The Guardian and saying,
   “You're not going to want to go out with that story because it's
   not 100 percent factual” — that's ...
 - Okay. Now — but, however, they did go through with their story,
   regardless of the warnings or the threats of Facebook saying
   that “You don't — not going to want to do that.” When they did —
   did do that — and only then did Facebook actually apologize for
   that incident, for that 89 million users' information,
   unfortunately, ending up in their hands. Isn't that the case?
 - Okay.
 - Thank you.
 - Okay. But I only have a few more seconds. My — my main point is
   this: I think it's time that you, Facebook — if you want to
   truly be a leader in all the sense of the word and recognize
   that you can, in fact, do right by American users of Facebook
   and when it comes information, unfortunately, getting in the
   wrong hands — you can be a leader. Are you committed to actually
   being a leader in that sense?
 - Can you give a two second answer?
 - Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. JOHN SHIMKUS (R-ILL.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, Mr.
   Zuckerberg. Two things: First of all, I want to thank Facebook.
   You streamlined our Congressional Baseball Game last year. We've
   got the managers here, and I was told that, because of that, we
   raised an additional $100,000 for D.C. literacy and feeding kids
   and stuff. So that's a — the other thing is, I — I usually put
   my stuff up on the TV. I don't want to do it very much, because
   my dad — and he'd be mad if he went international, like you are
   — and he's been on Facebook for a long time. He's 88. It's been
   good for connecting with kids and grandkids. I just got my
   mother involved on an iPad and — because she can't handle a
   keyboard. And so — and I did this last week. So the — in this
   world — activity — I still think there is a positive benefit for
   my parents to be engaged on this platform. So — but there's
   issues, as being raised today. And so I'm going to go into a
   couple of those. Facebook made — developed access to user and
   friend data back in — your main update was in 2014. So the
   question is, what triggered that update?
CASTOR
 - Yes or no?
 - No, you're collecting — you have already acknowledged that you
   are doing that for security purposes, and commercial purposes.
   So you are — you're collecting data outside of Facebook. When
   someone goes to a website, and it has the Facebook like or
   share, that data is being collected by Facebook, correct?
 - Yes or no.
 - Yeah, so for people who don't even have Facebook — I don't
   think that the average American really understands that today,
   something that fundamental, and that you're tracking everyone's
   online activities. Their searches, you can track what people
   buy, correct?
 - You're collecting that data, what people purchase online, yes
   or no?
 - Because it has a share button, so it's — it's — it's gathering.
   Facebook has the application. In fact, you've patented
   applications to do just that, isn't that correct? To collect
   that data?
 - But they — they track you. You want — you're collecting medical
   data, correct, on — on people that — that are on the Internet,
   whether they're Facebook users or not, right?
 - And you're collecting — you watch where we go. Senator Durbin
   had a — had a funny question yesterday about where you're
   staying, and you didn't want to share that, but you — Facebook
   also gathers that data about where we travel, isn't that
   correct?
 - I'm going to get to that, but yes, you are — would you just
   acknowledge if yes, Facebook is — that's the business you're in,
   gathering data and aggregating that data, right?
 - You're not — are you saying you do not gather data on — on
   where people travel, based upon their Internet, and the — the
   ways they sign in, and things like that?
 - Primary, but the — the other way that Facebook gathers data is
   you buy data from data brokers, outside of the platform,
   correct?
 - But I think in the end, I think what — see, it's — it's
   practically impossible these days to remain untracked in
   America. For all the benefits Facebook has brought, and — and
   the Internet, and that's not part of the bargain. And current
   laws have not evolved, and the Congress has not adopted, laws to
   — to address digital surveillance, and Congress should act. And
   I do not believe that the controls, the opaque agreement,
   consent agreements and settings are an adequate substitute for
   fundamental privacy protections for consumers. Now some ...
 - Thank you. I yield back my time.
 - Let that stand. And I'd like to ask unanimous consent that I
   put my constituents' questions in the record.
 - Thank you.
REP. BILL JOHNSON (R-OHIO)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, thanks for joining us
   today. Let me add my list — my name to the list of folks that
   you're going to get back to on the rural broadband Internet
   access question. Please add my name to that list.
ESHOO
 - So these are a series of just yes-no questions. Do you think
   you have a moral responsibility to run a platform that protects
   our democracy? Yes or no.
 - Have users of Facebook who are caught up in the Cambridge
   Analytica debacle been notified?
 - Will Facebook offer to all of its users a blanket opt-in to
   share their privacy data with any third-party users?
 - Well, let — let me just add that it is a minefield in order to
   do that. And you have to make it transparent, clear, in
   pedestrian language, just once, “This is what we will do with
   your data. Do you want this to happen, or not?” So I — I think
   that this is being blurred. I — I think you know what I mean by
   it. Are you aware of other third-party information mishandlings
   that have not been disclosed?
 - So you're not sure?
 - What does that mean?
 - So you're not aware.
 - All right. I — I only have four minutes.
 - Was your data included in the data sold to the malicious third
   parties? Your personal data?
 - It was. Are you willing to change your business model in the
   interest of protecting individual privacy?
 - No, are you willing to change your business model in the
   interest of protecting individual privacy?
 - Well, I'll follow up with you on it. When did Facebook learn
   that Cambridge Analytica's research project was actually for
   targeted psychographic political campaign work?
 - Well, no. I — I don't have time for a long answer, though. When
   did Facebook learn that? And, when you learned it, did you
   contact their CEO immediately? And, if not, why not?
 - We know what happened with them. But I'm asking you.
 - Yes. All right.
 - So, in 2015, you learned about it?
 - And you spoke to their CEO immediately?
 - Did you speak to their CEO immediately?
 - Thank you.
REP. RAUL RUIZ (D-CALIF.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for
   appearing before the committee today. The fact, is Mr.
   Zuckerberg, Facebook failed its customers. You said as much
   yourself. You've apologized and we appreciate that. We as
   Congress have a responsibility to figure out what went wrong
   here and what could be done differently to better protect
   consumers private digital data in the future. So my first
   question for you, Mr. Zuckerberg, is why did Facebook not notify
   the FTC in 2015 when you first discovered this had happened, and
   was it the legal opinion of your current company that you are
   under no obligation to notify the FTC, even with the 2011
   consent order in place?
REP. H. MORGAN GRIFFITH (R-VA.)
 - Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate — appreciate
   you being here. Let me state up front that I share the privacy
   concerns that you've heard from a lot of us, and I appreciate
   your statements and willingness to, you know, help us figure out
   a solution that's good for the American people. So I appreciate
   that. Secondly, I have to say that it's my understanding that,
   yesterday, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, my friend in my
   neighboring state of West Virginia, asked you about Facebook's
   plans with rural broadband, and you agreed to share that
   information with her at some point in time, get her up to date
   and up to speed. I was excited to hear that you were excited
   about that and passionate about it. My district is very similar
   to West Virginia, as it borders it and we have a lot of rural
   areas. Can you also agree, yes or no, to update me on that when
   the information is available?
REP. JOHN SARBANES (D-MD.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr. Zuckerberg. I wanted
   to get something in the record quickly, before I move to some
   questions. You had suggested in your testimony over the last
   couple of days that Facebook notified the Trump and Clinton
   campaigns of Russian attempts to hack in to those campaigns. But
   representatives of both campaigns, in the last 24 hours, have
   said that didn't happen. So we're going to follow up on that and
   find out what the real story is.
BROOKS
 - Can I ask though — and I appreciate, and I heard you say 99
   percent — and yet I didn't go out and, you know, look for this,
   but yet, as recently as March 29th ISIS content was discovered
   on Facebook, which included an execution video, March 29th. On
   April 9th there were five pages located, on April 9th, of
   Hezbollah content, and so forth. And so, what is the mechanism
   that you're using? Is it artificial intelligence? Is it the
   20,000 people? What are you using to — because it's not — I
   appreciate that no system is perfect, but yet this is just
   within a week.
 - How large is it?
 - And so you might have those people looking for the content. How
   are they helping block the recruiting?
 - Is it still — your platform as well as Twitter and then
   WhatsApp is how they then begin to communicate which I
   understand you own. Is that correct?
 - So how are we stopping the recruiting and the communications?
 - Thank you. My time is up. I thank you and please continue to
   work with us and all the governments who are trying to fight
   terrorism around the world.
GRIFFITH
 - I appreciate that. And we've got a lot of drone activity going
   on in our district, whether it's University of Virginia in Wise,
   or Virginia Tech. So we'd be happy to help out there, too. Let
   me — let me switch gears. You talked about trying to ferret out
   misinformation. And the question becomes, who decides what is
   misinformation? So, when the — some of my political opponents
   put on Facebook that, you know, they think Morgan Griffith is a
   bum, I think that's misinformation. What say you? (LAUGHTER)
 - And I appreciate that. My time is running out. I do want to
   point this out, though, as part of that: You know, who is going
   to decide what is misinformation? We've heard about the Catholic
   University and the cross. We've heard about a candidate. We've
   heard about the conservative ladies; a firearms shop, lawful, in
   my district had a similar problem. It has also been corrected.
   And so I wonder if the industry has thought about — not only are
   we looking at it, but has the industry thought about doing
   something like Underwriters Laboratories, which was set up when
   electricity was new to determine whether or not the devices were
   safe? Have you all thought about doing something like that, so
   it's not Facebook alone, but the industry, saying, “Wait a
   minute, this is probably misinformation,” and setting up
   guidelines that everybody can agree are fair?
 - I yield back.
SARBANES
 - No, I'd like — I'd like to move on. You can provide a response
   to that in writing, if you would. Let me ask you, is it true
   that Facebook offered to provide what I guess you referred to as
   “dedicated campaign embeds” to both of the presidential
   campaigns?
 - Just say yes or no, were there embeds ...
 - ... I need to get to that because I don't have time. Were there
   embeds in the two campaigns, or offers of embeds?
 - Yes or no.
 - Were there embeds offered to the Trump campaign and the Clinton
   campaign?
 - Okay. So sales support — I'm going to refer to that as embeds.
   And I gather that Mr. Trump's campaign ultimately accepted that
   offer. Is that correct? Yes or no.
 - Okay. So they had embeds.
 - I'm going to refer to those as embeds. What I'd like you to do,
   if you could — we're not going to have time for you to do this
   now — but, if you could provide to the committee both the
   initial offer terms, and then any subsequent offer terms that
   were presented to each candidate, in terms of what the embed
   services would be, that would be very helpful. Do you know how
   many ads were approved for display on Facebook for each of the
   presidential candidates — by Facebook?
 - Okay. Let me tell you what they were, because I do. President
   Trump's campaign had an estimated 5.9 million ads approved, and
   Secretary Clinton, 66,000 ads. So that's a delta of about 90
   times as much on the Trump campaign, which raises some questions
   about whether the ad approval processes were maybe not processed
   correctly or inappropriately bypassed in the final months and
   weeks of the election by the Trump campaign. And what I'm
   worried about is that the embeds may have helped to facilitate
   that. Can you say with absolute certainty that Facebook or any
   of the Facebook employees working as campaign embeds did not
   grant any special approval rights to the Trump campaign to allow
   them to upload a very large number of Facebook ads in that final
   stretch?
 - Can you say that there were not special approval rights
   granted? Is that what you're saying — there were not special
   approval rights granted by any of the embeds — or support folks,
   as you call them — in that Trump campaign?
 - Yes or no.
 - Okay. All right. If you're saying yes ...
 - ... if you're saying yes, then I'll take you at your word. The
   reason this is important and the reason we need to get to the
   bottom of it is because it could be a serious problem if these
   kinds of services were provided beyond what is offered in the
   normal course, because that could result in violation of
   campaign finance law, because it would be construed as an in-
   kind contribution — corporate contribution from Facebook, beyond
   what — the sort of ad-buy opportunity you would typically
   provide. The reason I'm asking you these questions is because
   I'm worried that that embed program has the potential to become
   a tool for Facebook to solicit — solicit favor from
   policymakers, and that, then, creates the potential for real
   conflict of interest. And I think a lot of Americans are waking
   up to the fact that Facebook is becoming sort of a self-
   regulated superstructure for political discourse. And the
   question is, are we, the people, going to regulate our political
   dialogue? Or are you, Mark Zuckerberg, going to end up
   regulating the political discourse?
 - So we need to be free of that undue influence. I thank you for
   being here ...
 - ... and I yield back my time.
SCALISE
 - That's a public service announcement we just made, so
   appreciate you ... (LAUGHTER) ... joining me in that. And Mr.
   Shimkus's question — it was really a follow-up to a question
   yesterday that — that you weren't able to answer, but it was
   dealing with how Facebook tracks users, especially after they
   log off. And you had said, in relation to Congressman Shimkus's
   question, that there is data mining, but it goes on for security
   purposes. So my question would be, is that data that is mined
   for security purposes also used to sell as part of the business
   model?
 - All right. If you could follow up, I would appreciate that.
   Getting into this — this new realm of content review, I know
   some of the people that work for Facebook — Campbell Brown said,
   for example, “This is changing our relationship with publishers
   and emphasizing something that Facebook has never done before:
   It's having a point of view.” And you mentioned the Diamond and
   Silk example, where there — you — you, I think, described it as
   a mistake. Were the people who made that mistake held
   accountable in any way?
 - Okay.
 - I do want to ask you about a study that was done dealing with
   the algorithm that Facebook uses to describe what is fed to
   people through the news feed. And what they found was, after
   this new algorithm was implemented, that there was a tremendous
   bias against conservative news and content, and a favorable bias
   toward liberal content. And, if you can look at that, that shows
   a 16-point disparity, which is concerning. I would imagine
   you're not going to want to share the algorithm itself with us.
   I'd encourage you if you wanted to do that. But who develops the
   algorithm? I wrote algorithms before, and you can determine
   whether or not you want to write an algorithm to sort data, to
   compartmentalize data; but you can also put a bias in, if that's
   the directive. Was there a directive to put a bias in? And,
   first, are you aware of this bias that many people have looked
   at and analyzed and seen?
 - And I know we're — we're almost out of time. So, if you can go
   back and look and determine if there was a bias — whoever
   developed that software — you have 20,000 people that work on
   some of this data analysis — if you can look and see if there is
   a bias and let us know if there is and what you're doing about
   it, because that is disturbing, when you see that kind of
   disparity. Finally, there has been a lot of talk about Cambridge
   and what they've done and the last campaign. In 2008 and 2012,
   there was also a lot of this done. One of the lead digital heads
   of the Obama campaign said recently, “Facebook was surprised we
   were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn't
   stop us once they realized that was what we were doing. They
   came to office in the days following the election recruiting and
   were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn't
   have allowed someone else to do, because they were on our side.”
   That's a direct quote from one of the heads of the Obama digital
   team. What — what would she mean by they — Facebook — were on
   our side?
 - So she was making an inaccurate statement, in your point of
   view?
 - ... the comments and look forward to those answers. Yield back
   the balance of my time.
CARTER
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg for being
   here. You're almost done. When you get to me, that means you're
   getting close to the end. So congratulations. Thank you for
   being here. We do appreciate it. You know, you wouldn't be here
   if it wasn't for the — the privacy — people's information and
   the privacy, and — and the fact that we had — you had this laps.
   You know all about fake news, you know all about foreign
   intervention. I know you're concerned about that. I want to talk
   about just a — a few different subjects, if you will. And I'd
   like to ask you just some yes or no questions, please excuse my
   redundancy. I know that some members have already asked you
   about some of these subjects, but I would like to ask you. Mr.
   Zuckerberg, did you know that 91 people die every day because
   opioid addiction? Yes or no, did you know that? Ninety one
   people every day.
 - Did you know that there's — it's estimated to be between two
   and a half to 11 and a half million people in this country right
   now who are addicted to opioids?
 - Okay, did you know that the average age of Americans has
   decreased for the first time in decades as a result of — what
   people are saying is a result of the opioid epidemic?
 - Absolutely. I ask you this because some of the other members
   have mentioned that — about the ads for fentanyl and other
   illicit drugs that are on the Internet, and the — where you can
   buy them, and about your responsibility to — to monitor that and
   make sure that's not happening. I had the opportunity this past
   week to speak at the Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit
   in Atlanta that Representative Hal Rogers started some years
   ago. Also we had the FDA Commissioner there, and he mentioned
   the fact that he's going to meeting with CEO's of Internet
   companies to discuss this problem. I hope that you will be
   willing to at least have someone there to meet with him so that
   we can get your help in this, this is extremely important.
 - Okay, let me ask you another question. Mr. Zuckerberg, did you
   know that there are groups of conservations — there are
   conservation groups that have provided evidence to the
   Securities and Exchange Commission that endangered wildlife
   goods, in particular ivory is extensively traded on closed
   groups on Facebook?
 - Okay, let me — all right, well let me ask you, did you know
   that there are some conservation groups that assert that there's
   so much ivory being sold on Facebook that it's literally
   contributing to the extent — to the extinction of the elephant
   species?
 - Okay, and — and did you know that the American — or excuse me,
   the Motion Picture Association of America is having problems
   with piracy of movies and of their products, and that not only
   is this challenging their profits, but their very existence. Did
   you know that that was a problem?
 - It has been. It has been, so you did know that. Well the reason
   I ask you this is that I just want to make sure that I
   understand you have an understanding of a commitment. Look I —
   you said earlier, may have been yesterday that hate speech is
   difficult to discern. And I get that, I understand that and
   you're absolutely right. But these things are not and we need
   your help with this. Now I will tell you there are members of
   this body who would like to see the Internet monitored as a
   utility. I am not one of those, I believe that that would be the
   worst thing we could do. I believe it would stifle innovation, I
   don't think you can legislate morality and I don't want to try
   and do that. But we need a commitment from you that these things
   that can be controlled like this, that you will help us. And
   that you'll work with law enforcement to — to help us with this.
   Look, you love America, I know that, we all know that. We need
   your help here. We don't — I don't want Congress to have to act.
   You — you want to see a mess, you let the federal government get
   into this. You'll see a mess, I assure you.
 - Please, we — we need your help with this. And I just need that
   commitment, can I get that commitment?
 - Thank you very much.
HARPER
 - Okay. Now according to PolitiFact.com, and this is a quote,
   “The Obama campaign and Cambridge Analytica both gained access
   to huge amounts of information about Facebook users and their
   friends, and in neither case did the friends of app users
   consent,” close quote. This data that Cambridge Analytica
   acquired was used to target voters with political messages, much
   as the same type of data was used by the Obama campaign to
   target voters in 2012. Would that be correct?
 - Sure.
 - And — and, whether in violation of the agreement or not, you —
   you agree that users have an expectation that their information
   would be protected and remained private, and not be sold. And so
   that's something — the — the reason that we're here today. You
   know, and I can certainly understand the general public's
   outrage if they're concerned regarding the way Cambridge
   Analytica required their information. But, if people are
   outraged because they use that for political reasons, would that
   be hypocritical? Shouldn't they be equally outraged that the
   Obama campaign used the — the data of Facebook users without
   their consent in 2012?
 - Thank you.
 - Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg. My time is expired — yield back.
REP. JOE BARTON (R-TEX.)
 - Well, thank you. And thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg for being here.
   People need to know that you're here voluntarily. You're not
   here because you've been subpoenaed. So we appreciate that.
   Sitting behind you — have a gentleman who used to be counsel for
   the committee, Mr. Jim Barnett. And, if he's affiliated with
   Facebook, you've got a good one. If he's not, he's just got a
   great seat. I don't know ... (LAUGHTER) ... know what it is. I'm
   going to read you a question that I was asked. I got this
   through Facebook, and I've got dozens like this. So, my first
   question: “Please ask Mr. Zuckerberg, why is Facebook censoring
   conservative bloggers such as Diamond and Silk? Facebook called
   them unsafe to the community. That is ludicrous. They hold
   conservative views. That isn't unsafe.” What's your response to
   ...
REP. G.K. BUTTERFIELD (D-N.C.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for
   your testimony here today. Mr. Zuckerberg, you have stated that
   your goal with Facebook is to build strong communities. And,
   certainly, that sounds good. You've stated here today, on the
   record, that you did not live up to the privacy expectations.
   And I appreciate that. But this committee — and you must know
   this — this committee is counting on you to right a wrong. And I
   hope you get it. In my opinion, Facebook is here to stay, and so
   you have an obligation to protect the data that you collect and
   the data that you use. And Congress has the power to regulate
   your industry, and we have the power to penalize misconduct. But
   I want to go in a different direction today, sir. You and your
   team certainly know how I feel about racial diversity in
   corporate America. And Sheryl Sandberg and I talk about that all
   of the time. Let me ask you this — and — and the Congressional
   Black Caucus has been very focused on — on holding your industry
   accountable — not just Facebook, your industry — accountable for
   increasing African American inclusion at all levels of the
   industry. And I know you've — have a number of diversity
   initiatives. In 2017, you've increased you black representation
   from 2 percent to 3 percent. While this is a small increase,
   it's better than none. And this does not nearly meet the
   definition of building a racially diverse community. CEO
   leadership — and I have found this to be absolutely true — CEO
   leadership on issues of diversity is the only way that the
   technology industry will change. So will you commit, sir, to
   convene — personally convene a meeting of CEOs in — in your
   sectors, many of them — them — all of them, perhaps are your
   friends — and to do this very quickly to develop a strategy to
   increase racial diversity in the technology industry?
MCMORRIS RODGERS
 - Okay. And, even focusing on content for here in America, I'd
   like to shift gears just a little bit and talk about Facebook's
   recent changes to its news feed algorithm. Your head of news
   partnerships recently said that Facebook is, quote, “taking a
   step to define what quality news looks like and give that a
   boost so that, overall, there is a less — there is less
   competition from news.” Can you tell me what she means by “less
   competition from news”? And also, how does Facebook objectively
   determine what is acceptable news and what safeguards exist to
   ensure that, say, religious or conservative content is treated
   fairly?
 - Well, maybe I'll just go on to my other questions, then.
   There's an issue of content discrimination, and it's not a
   problem unique to Facebook. There's a number of high-profile
   examples of edge providers engaging in blocking and censoring
   religious and conservative political content. In November, FCC
   Chairman Pai even said that edge providers routinely block or
   discriminate against content they don't like. This is obviously
   a serious allegation. How would you respond to such an
   allegation? And what is Facebook doing to ensure that its users
   are being treated fairly and objectively by content reviewers?
 - Over Easter, a Catholic university's ad with a picture of a
   historic San Damiano cross was rejected by Facebook. Though
   Facebook addressed the error within days, that it happened at
   all is deeply disturbing. Could you tell me what was so
   shocking, sensational or excessively violent about the ad to
   cause it to be initially censored? Given that your company has
   since said that it did not violate terms of service, how can
   users know that their content is being viewed and judged
   accordingly — to objective standards?
 - Thank you. And I — I just — this — this is — important issue in
   building trust.
 - And that is going to be important as we move forward. Thank
   you, and I yield back.
REP. ELIOT L. ENGEL (D-N.Y.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, you have roots in my
   district, the 16th congressional district of New York. I know
   that you attended Ardsley High School and — and grew up in
   Westchester County. As you know, Westchester has a lot to offer,
   and I hope that you might commit to returning to Westchester
   County, perhaps to do a forum on — on this and some other
   things. I hope you would consider that. We'll — we'll be in
   touch — in touch with you. But I know that Ardsley High School's
   very proud of you. You mentioned yesterday that Facebook was
   deceived by Aleksandr Kogan when he sold user information to
   Cambridge Analytica. Does Facebook, therefore, plan to sue
   Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge University or Cambridge Analytica,
   perhaps, for unauthorized access to computer networks, exceeding
   access to computer networks or breach of contract? And why or
   why — why not?
BUTTERFIELD
 - Well, we've talked with you over the years about this. And,
   while there has been some marginal improvement, we — we must do
   better than we have done. Recently, you appointed an African-
   American — our friend, Ken Chenault — to your board. And, of
   course, Erskine Bowles is already on your board, who is also a
   friend. But — but we've — we've got to concentrate more on board
   membership for African Americans, and also minorities at the
   entry level in — within your company. I was looking at your
   website a few minutes ago, and it looks like you list five
   individuals as leadership in your company, but none of them is
   African American. I was just looking at it — not only you and
   Sheryl, but David (sic), Mike and Chris — that is your
   leadership team. And this does not reflect America. Can you
   improve the numbers on your leadership team to be more diverse?
 - Not on your website.
 - We can do better than that, Mr. Zuckerberg. We certainly can.
   Do you plan to add an African-American to your leadership team
   in the foreseeable future? And will you commit that you will
   continue to work with us, the Congressional Black Caucus, to
   increase diversity within your company that you're so proud of?
 - We also find that companies' failure to retain black employees
   contributes to their low presence at technology companies. And
   there is little transparency in retention numbers. So will you
   commit to providing numbers on your retention — that's the big
   word — retention of your employees, disaggregated by race, in
   your diversity update, starting this year? Can we get that data?
   That — that's — that's the starting point.
 - I'm out of time, sir. I'll take this up with your team in
   another setting.
 - We'll be out there in a few weeks. Thank you. I yield back.
GREEN
 - Okay. And you commit today that Facebook will extend the same
   protections to Americans that European users — users will
   receive under the GDPR?
 - There are many requirements in the GDPR, so I'm just going to
   focus on a few of them. The GDPR requires that the company's
   request for user consent — to be requested in a clear and
   concise way, using language that is understandable, and be
   clearly distinguishable from other pieces of information,
   including terms and conditions. How will that requirement be
   implemented in the United States?
 - One of the GDPR's requirements is data portability. Users must
   be able to — permitted to request a full copy of their
   information and be able to share that information with any
   companies that they want to. I know Facebook allows users in the
   U.S. to download their Facebook data. Does Facebook plan to use
   the currently existing ability of users to download their
   Facebook data as the means to comply with the GDPR's data
   portability requirement?
 - Does that download file include all the information Facebook
   has collected about any given individual? In other words, if I
   download my Facebook information, is there other information
   accessible to you within Facebook that I wouldn't see on that
   document, such as browsing history or other inferences that
   Facebook has drawn from users for advertising purposes?
 - GDPR also gives users the right to object to the processing of
   their personal data for marketing purposes, which, according to
   Facebook's website, includes custom micro-target audiences for
   advertising. Will the same right be object — to object be
   available to Facebook users in the United States? And how will
   that be implemented?
 - Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, is the small —
   Facebook conducted, a couple years ago, an effort in our
   district in Houston for our small businesses. And it was one of
   the most successful outreach I've seen. So I appreciate that
   outreach to helping small businesses use Facebook to market
   their products. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BARTON
 - Well, Facebook does tremendous good. When — when I met you in
   my office, eight years ago — you don't remember that. But I've
   got a picture of you when you had curly hair and Facebook had
   500 million users. Now, it's got over 2 billion. That's a
   success story in — in anybody's book. It's such an integral part
   of, certainly, young Americans' lives that you need to work with
   Congress and the community to ensure that it is a neutral, safe
   and, to the largest extent possible, private platform. Do you
   agree with that?
 - Okay. Let's talk about children. Children can get a Facebook
   account of their own, I believe, starting at age 13. Is that not
   correct?
 - Okay. Is there any reason that we couldn't have just a no-data-
   sharing policy, period, until you're 18? Just — if you're a
   child with your own Facebook account, until you reach the age of
   18, you know, it's — it's — you know, you can't share anything.
   It's — it's their data, their picture — it doesn't — it doesn't
   go anywhere. Nobody gets to scrape it; nobody gets to access it.
   It's absolutely, totally private. Well, it's — for children.
   What's wrong with that?
 - Will we let them opt in to do that?
 - But don't — you know, unless they specifically allow it, then
   don't allow it. That's my point.
 - I'm — I'm about out of time. I — I actually use Facebook, and,
   you know, I know, if you take the time, you can go to your
   privacy and click on that. You can go to your settings and click
   on that. You can pretty well set up your Facebook account to —
   to be almost totally private. But you have to really work at it.
   And my time's expired. Hopefully we can do some questions in
   writing as a follow-up. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
REP. GENE GREEN (D-TEX.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our committee. I want
   to follow up on what my — my friend from North Texas talked
   about on — on his cartoon. Next month, the General Data
   Protection Regulation — the GDPR — goes into effect in the
   European Union. The GDPR is pretty prescription on —
   prescriptive on how companies treat consumer data. And it makes
   it clear that consumers need to be in control of their own data.
   Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook has committed to abiding to these
   consumer protections in Europe, and you face large penalties if
   they don't. In recent days, you've said that Facebook intends to
   make the same settings available to users everywhere, not only
   in Europe. Did I understand correctly that Facebook would not
   only make the same settings available, but that it will make the
   same protections available to Americans that they will the
   Europeans?
REP. BOBBY L. RUSH (D-ILL.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, welcome. In the 1960s,
   our government, acting through the FBI and local police,
   maliciously tricked individuals and organizations into
   participating in something called COINTELPRO, which was a
   counterintelligence program where they tracked and shared
   information amongst civil rights activists, their political,
   social, city, even religious affiliations. And I personally was
   a victim of COINTELPRO. Your organization, your methodology, in
   my opinion, is similar. You're truncating the basic rights of
   the American promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of
   happiness by the wholesale invasion and manipulation of their
   right to privacy. Mr. Zuckerberg, what is the difference between
   Facebook's methodology and the methodology of the American
   political pariah, J. Edgar Hoover?
REP. FRANK PALLONE JR. (D-N.J.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also want to thank you Mr.
   Zuckerberg for being here today. Facebook has become integral to
   our lives. We don't just share pictures of our families, we use
   it to connect for school, to organize events and to watch
   baseball games. Facebook has enabled everyday people to spur
   national political movements. Most of us in Congress use
   Facebook to reach our constituents in ways that were
   unimaginable 10 years ago, and this is certainly a good thing.
   But it also means that many of us can't give it up easily. Many
   businesses have their only web presence on Facebook, and, for
   professions like journalism, people's jobs depend on posting on
   the site. And this ubiquity comes with a price; for all the good
   it brings, Facebook can be a weapon for those, like Russia and
   Cambridge Analytica, that seek to harm us and hack our
   democracy. Facebook made it too easy for a single person — in
   this instance, Aleksandr Kogan — to get extensive personal
   information about 87 million people. He sold this data —
   Cambridge Analytical [sic] — who used it to try to sway the 2016
   presidential election for the Trump campaign. And Facebook made
   itself a powerful tool for things like voter suppression, in
   part by opening its platform to app developers with little or no
   oversight. But it gets worse. The fact is no one knows how many
   people have access to the Cambridge Analytical [sic] data, and
   no one knows how many other Cambridge Analyticas are still out
   there. Shutting down access to data to third parties isn't
   enough, in my opinion. Facebook and many other companies are
   doing the same thing: They're using people's personal
   information to do highly targeted product and political
   advertising. And Facebook is just the latest in a never-ending
   string of companies that vacuum up our data, but fail to keep it
   safe. And this incident demonstrates yet again that our laws are
   not working. Making matters worse, Republicans here in Congress
   continue to block or even repeal the few privacy protections we
   have. In this era of nonstop data breaches, last year,
   Republicans eliminated existing privacy and data security
   protections at the FCC.
DEGETTE
 - At the end of 2017, Facebook had a total shareholder equity of
   over $74 billion, correct?
 - That's correct. You're the CEO, do you know ...
 - Greater than $74 billion. Last year, Facebook earned a profit
   of $15.9 billion on $40.7 billion in revenue, correct? Yes or
   no.
 - Now, since the revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica,
   Facebook has not noticed a significant increase in users
   deactivating their accounts. Is that correct?
 - Now, since the revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica,
   Facebook has also not noticed a decrease in user interaction on
   Facebook. Correct?
 - Okay. Now, I want to take a minute to talk about some of the
   civil and regulatory penalties that we've been seeing. I'm aware
   of two class-action lawsuits that Facebook has settled relating
   to privacy concerns: Lane v. Facebook was settled in 2010. That
   case resulted in no money being awarded to Facebook users. Is
   that correct?
 - Do you — you're — you're the CEO of the company, correct?
 - Now, there — this — this major lawsuit was settled. Do you know
   — do you know about the lawsuit?
 - Do you know about this lawsuit, Lane v. Facebook? Yes or no?
 - Okay. If you can supplement — I'll just tell you, there was
   this lawsuit, and the users got nothing. In another case, Fraley
   v. Facebook, it resulted in a 2013 settlement fund of $20
   million being established, with $15 individual payment — payouts
   to Facebook users, beginning in 2016. Is that correct?
 - You don't know about that one either.
 - Okay. Well, I'll tell you it happened.
 - Okay. Now, as the result of a 2011 FTC investigation into
   Facebook's privacy policy — do you know about that one?
 - Yes.
 - Okay. You entered into a consent decree with the FTC which
   carried no financial penalty for Facebook. Is that correct?
 - You're the CEO of the company, you entered into a consent
   decree, and you don't remember if you had a financial penalty?
 - Yes. I would think a financial penalty would be, too. Okay,
   well, the reason you probably don't remember is because the FTC
   doesn't have the authority to issue financial penalties for
   first-time violations. The reason I'm asking these questions,
   sir, is because we continue to have these abuses and these — and
   these data breaches, but, at the same time, it doesn't seem like
   future activities are prevented. And so I think one of the
   things that we need to look at in the future, as we work with
   you and others in the industry, is putting really robust
   penalties in place in case of — of improper actions. And that's
   why I ask these questions.
REP. JOSEPH KENNEDY III (D-MASS.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, thank you for being
   here. Thank you for your patience and — over both days of
   testimony. You spoke about the framing of your testimony about
   privacy, security, and democracy. I want to ask you about
   privacy and democracy, because I think, obviously, those are
   linked. You have said over the course of questioning yesterday
   and today that users own all of their data. So I want to make
   sure that we drill down on that a little bit, but I think our
   colleagues have tried. That includes, I believe, that the
   Facebook — that — the information that Facebook requires users
   to make public — so that would be a profile picture, gender, age
   range — all of which is public-facing information. That's right?
COSTELLO
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would echo Congressman Collins
   comments as well. Mr. Zuckerberg, I think that we as Americans
   have a concept of digital privacy rights and privacy that aren't
   necessarily codified. And we're trying to sift through how do we
   actually make privacy rights in a way that are intelligible for
   tech and understandable to the community at large? And so my
   questions are oriented in that fashion. First, if you look at
   GDPR, the E.U. — the law that's about to take effect, what
   pieces of that do you feel would be properly placed in American
   jurisprudence? In other words, right to erasure, right to get
   our data back, right to rectify, could you share with us how you
   see that playing out, not just for you, but for the smaller
   companies. Because I do believe you have a sincere interest in
   seeing small tech companies prosper.
 - Do you feel you should be able to deploy AI for facial
   recognition for a non-FB user?
 - Right.
 - Two — two quick ones. Does — is Facebook, in utilizing that
   platform, ever a publisher in your mind?
 - You would say you're responsible for content, right, you said
   that yesterday. Are you ever a publisher, as the term is legally
   used?
 - Would you ever be legally responsible for the content that is
   put onto your platform?
 - Right.
 - Agreed.
 - Which is what I think Chairman's Walden question was upfront.
   Right.
 - My big concern, I'm going to run out of time, is that a — is
   someone limits their data to not being used for something that
   it might potentially be used for that they have no idea what it
   — how it might actually socially benefit. And I'm out of time,
   but I would like for you to share at later point in time, how
   the data that you get might be limited by user and your
   inability to use that data may actually prevent the kind of
   innovation that would bring about positive social change in this
   country. Because I do believe that was the intention and
   objective to — of your company. And I do believe you perform it
   very, very, very well in a lot of ways. Thank you. I yield back.
REP. KATHY CASTOR (D-FLA.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Zuckerberg. For all of
   the benefits that Facebook has provided in building communities
   and connecting families, I think a devil's bargain has been
   struck. And, in the end, Americans do not like to be
   manipulated. They do not like to be spied on. We don't like it
   when someone is outside of our home, watching. We don't like it
   when someone is following us around the neighborhood or, even
   worse, following our kids or stalking our children. Facebook now
   has evolved to a place where you are tracking everyone. You are
   collecting data on just about everybody. Yes, we understand the
   Facebook users that — that proactively sign in, they're in part
   of the — that platform, but you're following Facebook users even
   after they log off of that platform and application, and you are
   collecting personal information on people who do not even have
   Facebook accounts. Isn't that right?
SHIMKUS
 - So, if I can interrupt, it's just — you identified that there
   was possibly social scraping going on?
 - Yeah. Let me go to your announcement of audits. Who's going to
   conduct the audit? We're talking about — are there other
   Cambridge Analytics [sic] out there?
 - Yeah, I think we would hope that you would bring in a third
   party to help us ...
 - ... clarify and have more confidence. The last question I have
   is, in yesterday's hearing, you talked a — a little about
   Facebook tracking in different scenarios, including logged-off
   users. Can you please clarify as — how that works? And how does
   tracking work across different devices?
REP. LEONARD LANCE (R-N.J.)
 - Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, you are here
   today because you are the face of Facebook, and you have come
   here voluntarily. And our questions are based upon our concern
   about what has occurred and how to move forward. I'm sure you
   have concluded, based upon what we've asked, that we are deeply
   offended by censoring of content inappropriately by Facebook. It
   — examples have been raised: a Roman Catholic university, a
   state senate candidate in Michigan. I would be offended if this
   censoring were occurring on the left, as well as the right, and
   I want you to know that. And do you take from what we have
   indicated so far that, in a bipartisan fashion, Congress is
   offended by inappropriate censoring of content?
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Zuckerberg, I appreciate you
   coming here. I know, as some of my colleagues mentioned, you
   came here voluntarily, and we appreciate the opportunity to have
   this discussion, because, clearly, what your company's been able
   to do has revolutionized the way that people can connect. And
   there's a tremendous benefit to our country. Now it's a
   worldwide platform, and it's — it's helped create a shortage of
   computer programmers. So, as a former computer programmer, I
   think we would both agree that we need to encourage more people
   to go into the computer sciences, because our country is a world
   leader, thanks to your company and so many others. But it
   obviously raises questions about privacy and data and how the
   data is shared and what is a user's expectation of where that
   data goes. So I want to ask a few questions. First, would you
   agree that we need more computer programmers and people to go
   into that field?
SCHRADER
 - But I'm talking about the direction you've given your forensic
   team. Now, if they find stuff, they are not to delete it at this
   point in time? Or are they going to go ahead and delete it?
 - Right.
 - I'm worried about the — the information being deleted without
   law enforcement having an opportunity to actually review that.
   Will you commit to this committee that neither Facebook nor its
   agents have removed any information or evidence from Cambridge
   Analytica's offices?
 - How about Mr. Kogan's office, if I may ask?
 - Yes, where I'm — with all due respect, what I'm getting at is
   I'd like to have the information available for the U.K. or U.S.
   law enforcement officials, and I did not hear you commit to
   that. Will you commit to the committee that Facebook has not
   destroyed any data or records that may be relevant to any
   federal, state or international law enforcement investigation?
 - You suspended your audit, pending the U.K.'s investigation?
 - So it's my understanding that you and other Facebook executives
   have the ability to rescind or delete messages that are on
   people's websites. To be clear, I just want to make sure that,
   if that is indeed the case — that, after you've deleted that
   information — that, somehow, law enforcement — particularly
   relevant to this case — would still have access to those
   messages.
 - Great. Well, I appreciate that. While you've testified very
   clearly that you do not sell information — it's not Facebook's
   model; you do the advertising and obviously have other means of
   revenue — but it's pretty clear others do sell that information.
   Doesn't that make you somewhat complicit in what they're doing,
   your allowing them to sell the information that they glean from
   your website?
 - How do you — how do you enforce that? That's my concern. How do
   you enforce that? Complaint only is what I've heard so far
   tonight.
 - So last question is it's my understanding, based on the
   testimony here today, that, even after I'm off of Facebook —
   that you guys still have the ability to follow my web
   interactions. Is that correct?
 - I've logged out of Facebook. Do you still have the ability to
   follow my interactions on the web?
RUIZ
 - Did you think that ...
 - ... the rules were kind of lax, that you were sort of debating
   whether you needed to or something?
 - Okay.
 - Well — well — well, you answered my question. Would you agree
   that for Facebook to continue to be successful, it needs to
   continue to have the trust of its users?
 - Great. So does this not, perhaps, strike you as a weakness with
   the current system; that you are not required to notify the FTC
   of a potential violation of your own consent decree with them,
   and that you did not have clear guidelines for what you as a
   company needed to do in this situation to maintain the public's
   trust, and act in their best interest?
 - I'm just trying to think of the other CEO who might not have
   such a broad view, and might interpret the different legal
   requirements, maybe, differently. So that's why I'm asking these
   questions. I'm — I'm — I'm also taking a broad view as a
   Congressman here, to try to fix this problem. So from what we've
   learned over the past two days of hearings, it just doesn't seem
   like the FTC has the necessary tools to do what needs to be done
   to protect consumer data and consumer privacy, and we can't
   exclusively rely on companies to self-regulate in the best
   interest of consumers. So Mr. Zuckerberg, would — would it be
   helpful if there was an entity clearly tasked with overseeing
   how consumer data is being collected, shared and used, and which
   could offer guidelines, at least guidelines for companies like
   yours to ensure your business practices are not in violation of
   the law, something like a digital consumer protection agency?
 - Well, one of the things that we're realizing is that there's a
   lot of holes in the system; that — that, you know, we don't have
   the toolbox, you don't have the toolbox to monitor 9 million
   apps, and tens of thousands of — of data collectors, and there's
   no specific mechanism for you to collaborate with those that can
   help you prevent these things from happening. And so I think
   that — that perhaps if we — if we started having these
   discussions about what would have been helpful for you to build
   your toolbox, and for us to build our toolbox, so that we can
   prevent things like Cambridge Analytica, things like identity
   thefts, things like what, you know, what we're seeing — what
   we've heard about today. So thank — you know, I just want to
   thank you for your thoughts and testimony. So it's clear to me
   that this is the beginning of many, many conversations on the
   topic, and I look forward to working with you and the committee
   to — to better protect consumer privacy.
 - Thank you.
DOYLE
 - Thank you. And — and you use these technologies to flag spam,
   identify offensive content and track user activity, right?
 - But not — 2015 when, the Guardian first reported on Cambridge
   Analytica using Facebook user data — was that the first time
   Facebook learned about these allegations?
 - Was that the first time you heard about it, when it was ...
 - When The Guardian made the report, was that the first time you
   heard about it?
 - Thank you. So the — you weren't tuning  — learn about these
   violations through the press?
 - Let me ask you this. You have the capability to audit
   developers' use of Facebook user data and — and do more to
   prevent these abuses. But the problem at Facebook not only
   persisted; it proliferated. In fact, relatives (sic) to other
   types of problems you had on your platform, it — it seems as
   though you turned a blind eye to this. Correct?
 - But, Mr. Zuckerberg ...
 - ... it seems to us that — that — it seems like you were more
   concerned with attracting and retaining developers on your
   platform than you were with ensuring the security of Facebook
   user data. Let me switch gears. Your company is subject to a
   20-year consent decree with the FTC since 2011. Correct?
 - And that decree emerged out of a number of practices that
   Facebook engaged in that the FTC deemed to be unfair and
   deceptive. One such practice was making Facebook users' private
   information public without sufficient notice or consent;
   claiming that Facebook certified the security and integrity of
   certain apps when, in fact, it did not; and enabling developers
   to access excessive information about a user and their friends.
   Is that correct?
 - But these were part of the — the consent decree.
 - So I think — I'm — I'm just concerned that, despite this
   consent decree, Facebook allowed developers access to an unknown
   number of user profiles on Facebook for years — potentially
   hundreds of million, potentially more — and not only allowed,
   but partnered with individuals and app developers such as
   Aleksandr Kogan, who turned around and sold that data on the
   open market and to companies like Cambridge Analytica. Mr.
   Zuckerberg, you've said that you plan to audit tens of thousands
   of developers that may have improperly harvested Facebook user
   data. You also said that you planned to give all Facebook users
   access to some user controls that will be made available in the
   E.U. under the GDPR. But it strikes me that there's a real trust
   gap here. This developer data issue is just one example. But why
   should we trust you to follow through on these promises when you
   have demonstrated repeatedly that you're willing to flout both
   your own internal policies and government oversight when the
   needs suit you?
 - I see my time is almost over.
 - I just want to say, Mr. Chairman ...
 - ... that, to my mind, the only way we're going to close this
   trust gap is through legislation that creates and empowers a
   sufficiently resourced expert oversight agency with rulemaking
   authority to protect the digital privacy and ensure ...
 - ... that companies protect our users' data. With that, I yield
   back.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-ILL.)
 - Thank you, Chairman. And, Mr. Zuckerberg, thank you for being
   here. Given the global reach of Facebook, I'd like to know about
   the company's policies and practices with respect to information
   sharing with foreign governments, if you don't mind. What
   personal data does Facebook make available from Facebook,
   Instagram, WhatsApp to Russian state agencies, including intel
   and security agencies?
REP. LARRY BUCSHON (R-IND.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for being
   here. There are plenty of anecdotal examples, including from
   family members of mine, where people will be verbally discussing
   items, never having actively been on the Internet at the time,
   and then, the next time they get on Facebook or other online
   apps, ads for things that they were verbally discussing with
   each other will show up. And I know you said in the Senate that
   Facebook doesn't listen — specifically listen to what people are
   saying through their — through their phone, whether that's a
   Google phone or whether it's Apple or another one. However, the
   other day, my mother-in-law and I were discussing her brother,
   who had been deceased for about 10 years, and, later on that
   evening, on — on her Facebook site, she had a — she had, set to
   music, kind of a in memoriam picture collage that came up
   Facebook, specifically to her brother. And that happened the
   other night. So, if you don't — you're not listening to us on
   the phone, who is? And do you have specific contracts with —
   with these companies that will provide data that you — is being
   acquired verbally through our — through our phones or, now,
   through things like Alexa or other — other products?
REP. BILL FLORES (R-TEX.)
 - Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, thank you for being
   here today. I'm up here, top row. I'm certain there are other
   things you'd rather be doing. The activities of Facebook and
   other technology companies should not surprise us. I mean, we've
   seen it before — and again, don't take this critically. But we
   saw a large oil company become a monopoly back in the late
   1800s, early 1900s. We saw a large telecommunications company
   become a near-monopoly in the '60s, '70s and '80s. And, just as
   Facebook — and these companies were founded by bright
   entrepreneurs. Their companies grew. And, eventually, they
   sometimes became detached from everyday Americans. And what
   happened is policymakers then had to step in and reestablish the
   balance between those — those folks and everyday Americans. You
   didn't intend for this to happen. It did happen, and I
   appreciate that you've apologized for it. And one of the things
   I appreciate about Facebook — it appears you're proactively
   trying to address the situation. Just as we addressed those
   monopolies in the past, we're faced with that similar — that
   situation today. We need to — and this — this goes beyond
   Facebook. This has to do with the edge providers. It has to do
   with social media organizations and also with ISPs. Back to — to
   Facebook in particular, though, we heard examples yesterday,
   during the Senate hearing, and also today, during this hearing,
   so far, about ideological bias among the users of Facebook. In
   my Texas district, I have a retired schoolteacher whose
   conservative postings were banned or stopped. The good news is I
   was able to work with Facebook's personnel and get her
   reinstated. That said, the Facebook centers still seem to be
   trying to stop her postings. And I — anything you can do in that
   regard to fix that bias will go a long way. I want to move a
   different direction; that's to talk about the future. Congress
   needs to consider policy responses, as I said earlier. And I
   want to call this policy response Privacy 2.0 and Fairness 2.0.
   With respect to fairness, I think the technology companies
   should be ideologically agnostic regarding their users' public-
   facing activities. The only exception would be for potentially
   violent behavior. I'll ask — my — my question is, on this, do
   you agree that Facebook and other technology platforms should be
   ideologically neutral?
TONKO
 - Well, 3 billion user accounts were breached at Yahoo in 2013,
   145 million at eBay in 2014, 143 million at Equifax in 2017, 78
   million at Anthem in 2015, 76 million at JPMorgan Chase in 2014
   — the list goes on and on. The security of all that private data
   is gone, likely sold many times over to the highest bidder on
   the dark web. We live in an information age. Data breaches and
   privacy hacks are not a question of if. They are a question of
   when. But the case with Facebook is slightly different. The 87
   million accounts extracted by Cambridge Analytica are just the
   beginning, with, likely, dozens of other third parties that have
   accessed this information. As far as we know, the dam is still
   broken. As you have noted, Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook's business
   model is based on capitalizing on the private personal
   information of your users. Data security should be a central
   pillar of this model. And, with your latest vast breach of
   privacy and the widespread political manipulation that followed
   it, the question that this committee must ask itself is what
   role the federal government should play in protecting the
   American people and the democratic institutions that your
   platform, and others like it, have put at risk. In this case you
   gave permission to mine the data of some 87 million users, based
   on the deceptive consent — consent of just a fraction of that
   number. When they found out I was going to be speaking with you
   today, my constituents asked me to share some of their concerns
   in person. How can they protect themselves on your platform? Why
   should they trust you again with their likes, their loves, their
   lives? Users trusted Facebook to prioritize user privacy and
   data security, and that trust has been shattered. I'm encouraged
   that Facebook is committed to making changes, but I am indeed
   wary that you are only acting now out of concern for your brand
   and only making changes that should have been made a long time
   ago. We have described this as an arms race, but, every time we
   saw what precautions you have or, in most cases, have not taken,
   your company is caught unprepared and ready to issue another
   apology. I'm left wondering again why Congress should trust you
   again. We'll be watching you closely to ensure that Facebook
   follows through on these commitments. Many of my constituents
   have asked about your business model, where users are the
   product. Mary of Half Moon, in my district, called it
   infuriating. Andy of Schenectady, New York, asked, “Why doesn't
   Facebook pay its users for their incredibly valuable data?”
   Facebook claims that users rightly own and control their data,
   yet their data keeps being exposed on your platform, and these
   breaches cause more and more harm each time. You have said that
   Facebook was built to empower its users. Instead, users are
   having their information abused with absolutely no recourse. In
   light of this harm, what liability should Facebook have? When
   users' data is mishandled, who is responsible and what recourse
   do users have? Do you bear that liability?
 - Do you bear the liability?
 - Mr. Chairman, if I might ask that other questions that my
   constituents have be answered by unanimous consent.
REP. PAUL TONKO (D-N.Y.)
 - Thank you. Mr. Zuckerberg, I want to follow up on a question
   asked by Mr. McNerney, where he talked about visiting websites
   and the fact that Facebook can track you, and, as you visit
   those websites, you can have that deleted. I'm informed that
   there's not a way to do that. Or are you telling us that you are
   announcing a new policy?
REP. DORIS MATSUI (D-CALIF.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Mr. Zuckerberg. Thank you
   very much here. You know, I was just thinking about Facebook and
   how you developed your platform — first, from a social platform
   with — amongst friends and colleagues and joining a community.
   And a lot of that was based upon trust, because you knew your
   friends, right? But that evolved into this business platform,
   and one of the pillars still was trust. And I think you would
   all — I think everybody here would agree that trust is in short
   supply here, and that's why we're here today. Now, you've
   constantly maintained that consumers own the data they provided
   to Facebook and should have control over it. And I appreciate
   that, and I just want to understand more about what that means.
   To me, if you own something, you ought to have to — say about
   how and when it's used. But, to be clear, I don't just mean
   pictures, email addresses, Facebook groups or pages. I
   understand the data and information consumers provided to
   Facebook can be, and perhaps is, used by algorithms to form
   assumptions and inferences about users to better target ads to
   the individuals. Now, do you believe that consumers actually own
   their data, even when that data has been supplemented by a data
   broker — assumptions algorithms have made about that user or
   otherwise? And this is kind of the question that Ms. Blackburn
   has come up with — our own comprehensive profile, which is kind
   of our virtual self.
ENGEL
 - You mentioned before, in your remarks, hate speech. We've seen
   the scale and reach of extremism balloon in the last decade,
   partially because of the expansion of social platforms. Whether
   it's a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that turned
   violent, or it's ethnic cleansing in Burma that resulted in the
   second-largest refugee crisis in the world, are you aware of any
   foreign or domestic terrorist organizations, hate groups,
   criminal networks or other extremist networks that have scraped
   Facebook user data? And, if they have, and if they do it in the
   future, how would you go about getting it back or deleting it?
 - So do you adjust your — your algorithms to prevent individuals
   interested in violence or nefarious activities from being
   connected with other like-minded individuals?
 - Do you adjust your algorithms to prevent individuals interested
   in violence or bad activities from being connected with other
   like-minded individuals?
 - Okay. And, finally, let me say this. Many of us are very angry
   about Russian influence in the — in the 2016 presidential
   elections and Russian influence over our presidential elections.
   Does Facebook have the ability to detect when a foreign entity
   is attempting to buy a political ad? And is that process
   automated? Do you have procedures in place to inform key
   government players when a foreign entity is attempting to buy a
   political ad or when it might be taking other steps to interfere
   in an election?
 - Thank you.
REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-ILL.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, you have a long history of
   growth and success, but you also have a long list of apologies.
   In 2003, it started at Harvard. “I apologize for any harm done
   as a result of my neglect.” 2006: “We really messed this one
   up.” 2007: “We simply did a bad job. I apologize for it.” 2010:
   “Sometimes we move too fast.” 2011: “I'm the first to admit that
   we're made — that we've made a bunch of mistakes.” 2017 — this
   is in — in connection with the Russian manipulation of the
   election and the data that was — came from Facebook initially:
   “I am — I ask for forgiveness. I will work to do better.” So it
   seems to me from this history that self-regulation — this is
   proof to me that self-regulation simply does not work. I have a
   bill — the Secure and Protect Americans' Data Act — that I hope
   you will take a look at, very simple bill about setting
   standards for how you have to make sure that the data is
   protected, deadlines on when you have to release that
   information to the public. Certainly, it ought to go to the FTC,
   as well. But, in response to the questions about the apps and
   the investigation that you're going to do, you said you don't
   necessarily know how long. Have you set any deadline for that?
   Because we know, as my colleague said, that there are tens of
   thousands — there's actually been 9 million apps. How long do we
   have to wait for that kind of investigation?
 - Mr. Chairman, since my name was mentioned, can I just respond?
REP. ANNA G. ESHOO (D-CALIF.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr. Zuckerberg. First, I
   believe that our democratic institutions are undergoing a stress
   test in our country. And I believe that American companies owe
   something to America. I think the damage done to our democracy,
   relative to Facebook and its platform being weaponized, are
   incalculable. Enabling the cynical manipulation of American
   citizens for the purpose of influencing an election is deeply
   offensive, and it's very dangerous. Putting our private
   information on offer without concern for possible misuses, I
   think, is simply irresponsible. I invited my constituents, going
   into the weekend, to participate in this hearing today by
   submitting what they want to ask you. And so my questions are
   theirs. And, Mr. Chairman, I'd like unanimous consent to place
   all of their questions in the record.
COLLINS
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I wasn't sure where I would be
   going with this, but when you're number 48 out of 54 members you
   know you can do a lot of listening, and I've tried to do that
   today. And to — to frame where I am now, I think, first of all,
   thank you for coming. And there's a saying, you don't know what
   you know until you know it. And I really think you've done a — a
   great benefit to Facebook and yourself in particular as we now
   have heard, without a doubt, Facebook doesn't sell data. I think
   the narrative would be, of course you sell data. And now we all
   know across America you don't sell data. I think that's very
   good for you, a very good clarification. The other one is that
   the whole situation we're here is because a third-party app
   developer, Aleksandr Kogan, didn't follow through on the rules.
   He was told he can't sell the data. He gathered the data, and
   then he did what he's not supposed to and he sold that data. And
   it's very hard to anticipate a bad actor doing what they're
   doing until after they've done it, and clearly you took actions
   after 2014. So one real quick question is, what did change in,
   you know, 10 or 20 or 30 seconds? What data was being collected
   before you locked down the platform, and how did that change to
   today?
 - And — and I think that's a very good clarification as well
   because people were wondering how does 300,000 become 87
   million. So that — that's also something that's good to know.
   And — and you know, I guess my last minute as I've heard the
   tone here, I've got to give you all the credit in the world. You
   — I could tell from the tone, we would say the other side
   sometimes when we point to our left, but when the representative
   from Illinois to quote her said, “Who is going to protect us
   from Facebook?” I mean that threw me back in my chair. I mean,
   that was certainly an aggressive — we'll — we'll use the polite
   word “aggressive,” but I think out of bounds kind of comment.
   Just my opinion. And I've said I was interviewed by a couple of
   folks in the break and I said, you know, as I'm listening to you
   today I'm quite confident that you truly are doing good. You
   believe in what you're doing. 2.2 billion people are using your
   platform. And I sincerely know in my heart that you do believe
   in — in keeping all ideas equal, and you may vote a certain way
   or not but that doesn't matter. You've got 27,000 employees and
   I think the fact is that you're operating under a Federal Trade
   Commission consent decree from 2011. That's a real thing, and it
   goes for 20 years. So when someone said, do we need more
   regulations, or do we need more legislation? I said no. Right
   now what we have is Facebook with a CEO that — that's mind is in
   the right place doing the best you can with 27,000 people, but
   the consent decree does what it does. I mean, there would be
   significant financial penalties were Facebook to ignore that
   consent decree. So I think as I'm hearing this meeting going
   back and forth, I for one think it was beneficial. It's good. I
   don't think we need more regulations and legislation now, and I
   want to congratulate you, I think, on doing a good job here
   today in presenting your case, and we now know we didn't know
   before hand. So thank you again.
REP. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OKLA.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and sir, thank you for being here. I
   appreciate you using the term “Congressman” and “Congresswoman.”
   My name's Markwayne Mullin, and feel free to use that name. Sir,
   I — I just want to tell you, first of all, I want to commend you
   on your ability to not just invent something, but to see it
   through its — through its growth. We see a lot of venturers have
   the ability to do that, but to manage it, and to see that — see
   it through its tremendous growth period takes a lot of talent,
   and you can show — by your showing here today, you — you handle
   yourself well, so — so thank you on that. And you also do that
   by hiring the right people, so I commend you on doing that,
   also. You hire people, obviously, based on their ability to get
   the job done. Real quick, a couple questions I have, and I'll
   give you time to answer it. Isn't it the consumers'
   responsibility to some degree to control the content to which
   they release?
REP. MCNERNEY (D-CALIF.)
 - I thank the Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, I — I thank you for
   agreeing to testify before the House and Senate committees. I
   know it's a long, grueling process and I appreciate your
   cooperation. I'm a mathematician that spent 20 years in industry
   and government, developing technology including algorithms.
   Moreover, my constituents are impacted by these issues. So I'm
   deeply committed and invested here. I'm going to follow up on an
   earlier question. Is there currently a place that I can download
   all of the Facebook information about me, including the websites
   that I have visited?
REP. PETE OLSON (R-TEX.)
 - I thank the chair. And, Mr. Zuckerberg, I know we both wish we
   met under a different set of circumstances. When the story
   broke, you were quoted as saying, “I started Facebook. I run it.
   I'm responsible for what happens here,” end quote. You said
   those same words in your opening statement an hour and a half
   ago. I know you believe that in your heart. It's not just some
   talking point, some canned speech, because, my four years — five
   — I'm sorry, nine years in the Navy, I know the best commanding
   officers, the best skippers, the best CEOs have that exact same
   attitude. If Facebook was a Navy ship, your privacy has taken a
   direct hit. Your trust is severely damaged. You're taking on
   water and your future may be a fine with a number, per The
   Washington Post, with four commas in it. Today, over $1 billion
   in fines coming your way. As you know, you have to reinforce
   your words with actions. I have a few questions about some
   anomalies that have happened in the past. First of all, back in
   2012, apparently, Facebook did an experiment on 689,003 Facebook
   users. You reduced positive posts from users' friends and
   limited so-called “downer” posts from other friends. They see —
   fed positive information to one group, and, another group,
   negative information. The goal was to see how the tone of these
   posts would affect behavior. I look at this Forbes article, the
   L.A. Times, about un-legal — illegal human experimentation
   without permission. I want to talk about that. It seems that
   this is disconnecting people, in stark contrast to your mission
   to connect people. Explain to us how you guys thought this idea
   was a good idea — experimenting with people, giving them more
   negative information, positive information.
REP. BILLY LONG (R-MO.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for
   being here today on a voluntary basis. I want to put that out
   here — you were not subpoenaed to be here, as Mr. Barton offered
   up a little bit ago. We've had — you're the only witness at the
   table today. We've had 10 people at that table, to give you an
   idea of what kind of hearings we've had in here. Not too long
   ago, we had 10, and I'd say that, if we invited everyone that
   had read your terms of agreement — terms of service, we could
   probably fit them at that table. I also would say that I had —
   represent 751,000 people, and, out of that 751,000 people, the
   people in my area that are really worked up about this —
   Facebook, and about this hearing today — would also fit with you
   there at the table. So I'm not getting the outcry from my
   constituents about what's going on with Cambridge Analytica and
   — and this user agreement and everything else. But there are
   some things that I think you need to be concerned about. One
   question I'd like to ask before I move into my questioning is
   what was FaceMash, and is it still up and running?
REP. DIANA DEGETTE (D-COLO.)
 - Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, we
   appreciate your contrition. And we appreciate your commitment to
   resolving these past problems. From my perspective, though, and
   my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in this committee,
   we're interested in looking forward to preventing this kind of
   activity; not just with Facebook but with others in your
   industry. And as has been noted by many people already, we've
   been relying on self-regulation in your industry for the most
   part. We're trying to explore what we can do to prevent further
   breaches. So I'm going to ask you a whole series of fairly quick
   questions. They should only require yes-or-no answers. Mr.
   Zuckerberg, at the end of 2017, Facebook had a total shareholder
   equity of just over $74 billion. Is that correct?
KENNEDY
 - Okay. So can advertisers, then — understanding that you,
   Facebook, maintain the data; you're not selling that to anybody
   else — but advertisers clearly end up having access through that
   — through agreements with you about how they, then, target ads
   to me, to you, to any other user. Can advertisers in any way use
   nonpublic data — so data that individuals would not think is
   necessarily public — so that they can target their ads?
 - Understood. They don't — you don't share that, but they get
   access to that information so that — if they know — they want to
   market skis to me, because I like skis. On the realm of data
   that is accessible to them, does that include — does Facebook
   include deleted data?
 - Fair, fair. So can advertisers, either directly or indirectly,
   get access to or use the metadata that Facebook collects in
   order to more specifically target ads? So that would include — I
   know you've talked a lot about how Facebook would use access to
   information for folks that — well, I might be able to opt in or
   out about your ability to track me to other websites. Is that
   used by those advertisers, as well?
 - So does — essentially, does — the advertisers that are using
   your platform — do they get access to information that the user
   doesn't actually think is either, one, being generated, or, two,
   is public? Understanding that, yes, if you dive into the details
   of your — your platform, users might be able to shut that off,
   but I think one of the challenges with trust here is that
   there's an awful lot of information that's generated, that
   people don't think that they're generating, and that advertisers
   are being able to target because Facebook collects it.
 - Right. But, then, I guess, the question back to — and I've only
   got 20 seconds. I think one of the rubs that you're hearing is I
   don't understand how users, then, own that data. I think that's
   part of the rub. Second, you focus a lot of your testimony and
   the questions on the individual privacy aspects of this. But we
   haven't talked about the societal implication of it. And I
   think, while I applaud some of the reforms that you're putting
   forward, the underlying issue here is that your platform has
   become a — a ...
 - ... mix of — two seconds — news, entertainment, social media
   that is up for manipulation. We've seen that with a foreign
   actor. If the changes to individual privacy don't seem to be
   sufficient to address that underlying issue ...
 - ... I'd love your comments on that at the appropriate time.
   Thank you.
LANCE
 - Fair enough. My point is that we don't favor censoring in any
   way, so long as it doesn't involve hate speech or violence or
   terrorism. And, of course, the examples today indicate quite the
   contrary, number one. Number two, Congresswoman Blackburn has
   mentioned her legislation. I'm a co-sponsor of the BROWSER
   legislation. I commend it to your attention, to the attention of
   your company. It is for the entire ecosystem. It is for ISPs and
   edge providers. It is not just for one or the other. It is an
   opt-in system, similar to the system that exists in your — might
   I respectfully request of you, Mr. Zuckerberg, that you and your
   company review the BROWSER legislation? And I would like your
   support for that legislation after your review of it.
 - Thank you very much. Your COO, Sheryl Sandberg, last week,
   appeared on the Today program. And she admitted the possibility
   that additional breaches in personal information could be
   discovered by the current audits. Quote, “We're doing an
   investigation. We're going to do the audits. And, yes, we think
   it's possible. That's why we're doing the audits.” Then the COO
   went on to say, “Facebook cared about privacy all along, but I
   think we got the balance wrong.” Do you agree with the statement
   of your COO?
 - Thank you. I — I certainly concur with the statement of the
   COO, as affirmed by you today, that you got the balance wrong.
   And then, regarding Cambridge Analytica, the fact that 300,000
   individuals or so gave consent, but that certainly didn't mean
   they gave consent to — to 87 million friends — do you believe
   that that action violated your consent agreement with the
   Federal Trade Commission?
 - Thank you. I think you may have violated the agreement with the
   Federal Trade Commission, and I'm sure that will be determined
   in the future. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MULLIN
 - Right. And — and does the device settings, does it really help
   you protect what information is released? For instance, there's
   been a lot of talk about them searching for something, maybe on
   Google, and then the advertisement pops up on Facebook. Isn't
   there a setting on most devices to where you can close out the
   browser without Facebook interacting with that?
 - See, I — I come from the — from the background of believing
   that everything I do, I assume is open for anybody to take when
   I'm on the Internet. I — I understand that it is — it is privacy
   concerns, but you're still releasing it to something farther
   than a pen and pad. So once I'm — once I'm on the Web, or I'm on
   an app, then that information is subject to — to going, really,
   anyplace. All I can do is protect it the best I can by my
   settings. And so what I'm trying to get to is, as a — as an
   individual, as a user of Facebook, how can someone control
   keeping the content within the realm that they want to keep it,
   without it being collected? You say that, you know, you don't
   sell it. However, you do — you do sell advertisement. As a
   business owner, I have a demographic that I go after, and I
   search advertisers that — that market to that demographic. So
   you collect information for that purpose, right?
 - Sure.
 - Value-based. But if I don't — If I'm a customer or a user of
   Facebook, and I don't want that information to be shared, how do
   I keep that from happening? Is there settings within the app
   that I need to go to to set — to block all that?
 - Would that have kept apps from seeking our information, if
   that's ...
 - Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chairman.
BLACKBURN
 - And where does privacy rank as a corporate value for Facebook?
 - Okay.
 - Well ...
 - No, I can't let you filibuster right now. A constituent of mine
   who's a benefits manager brought up a great question in a
   meeting at her company last week. And she said, you know, health
   care, you've got HIPAA, you've got Gramm-Leach-Bliley, you've
   got the Fair Credit Reporting Act. These are all compliance
   documents for privacy for other sectors of the industry. She was
   stunned, stunned, that there are no privacy documents that apply
   to — to you all. And we've heard people say that — you know, and
   you've said you're considering, maybe you need more regulation.
   What we think is, we need for you to look at new legislation.
   And you're hearing there'll be more bills brought out in the
   next few weeks. But we have had a bill. The BROWSER Act, and I'm
   certain that you're familiar with this, is bipartisan. And I
   thank Mr. Lipinski and Mr. Lance and Mr. Flores for their good
   work on this legislation. We've had it for over a year and
   certainly we've been working on this issue for about four years.
   And what this would do is have one regulator, one set of rules
   for the entire ecosystem. And will you commit to working with us
   to pass privacy legislation, to pass the BROWSER Act? Will you
   commit to doing that?
 - Okay, let's get — let's get familiar with the details. As you
   have heard, we need some rules and regulations. This is only 13
   pages. The BROWSER Act is 13 pages, so you can easily become
   familiar with it. And we would appreciate your help. And I've
   got to tell you, as Mr. Green just said, as you look at the E.U.
   privacy policies, you're already doing much of that, if you're
   doing everything you claim. Because you will have to allow
   consumers to control their data, to change, to erase it. You
   have to give consumers opt-in so that mothers know — my
   constituents in Tennessee want to know that they have a right to
   privacy. And we would hope that that's important to you all. I
   want to move on and ask you something else. And please get back
   to me once you've reviewed the BROWSER Act. I would appreciate
   hearing from you. We've done one hearing on the algorithms. I
   chair Communications and Technology Subcommittee here. We're
   getting ready to do a second one on the algorithms. We're going
   to do one next week on prioritization. So I'd like to ask you,
   do you subjectively manipulate your algorithms to prioritize or
   censor speech?
 - Let me tell you something right now: I — Diamond and Silk is
   not terrorism.
REP. KURT SCHRADER (D-ORE.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. Mr. Zuckerberg,
   again, thank you for being here — appreciate your — your good
   offices and voluntarily coming before us. You have testified
   that you voluntarily took Cambridge Analytica's word that they
   had deleted information, found out subsequently that they did
   not delete that information, have sent in your own forensics
   team, which I — I applaud. I just want to make sure — get some
   questions answered here. Can you tell us that they were not told
   — they were told not to destroy any data — misappropriated data
   they may find?
CRAMER
 - Thank you, and thanks for being here, Mr. Zuckerberg. And you
   know, “Don't eat the fruit of this tree” is the only regulation
   that was ever initiated before people started abusing freedom.
   Since then, millions of regulations, laws and rules have been
   created in response to an abuse of freedom. Oftentimes, that
   response is a — is more extreme than the abuse, and that's what
   I fear could happen, based on some of the things I've heard
   today in response to this. So this national discussion is very
   important. First of all, it's not — not only for these two days,
   but that it continues, lest we over-respond, Okay? Now, that
   said, I think that the consumer and industry, and whatever
   industry it is, your company or others — others like yours,
   share that responsibility. So I appreciate both your patience
   and your preparation coming in today. But in response to the
   questions from a few my colleagues related to the — the illegal
   drug ads, I have to admit that there were times when I was
   thinking, “His answers aren't very reassuring to me.” And I'm
   wondering what your answer would be as to how quickly you could
   take down an illegal drug site, if there was a million-dollar
   per post, per day regulation fine tied to it. In other words,
   give it your best. I mean, don't wait for somebody to flag it.
   Look for it. Make it a priority. It's certainly far more
   dangerous than a couple of conservative Christian women on — on
   TV. So please, be better than this.
 - And I don't expect it to be perfect, but I do expect it to be a
   higher priority than conservative thought. Speaking of that, I
   think in — in some of your responses to Senator Cruz yesterday,
   and some responses today, related to liberal bias, you've —
   you've sort of implied the fact that while you have these 20,000
   enforcement folks, you've implied that the Silicon Valley —
   perhaps this was more yesterday — that Silicon Valley is a very
   liberal place, and so the talent pool perhaps leans left, and
   it's biased. Let me suggest that you look someplace perhaps in
   the middle of the North American continent for some people,
   maybe even your next big investment of — of capital could be in
   — in some place like, say, Bismarck, North Dakota, or Williston,
   where you have visited, where people tend to be pretty common
   sense, and probably, perhaps, even more diverse than Facebook in
   — in some respects. If the talent pool is a problem, then let's
   look for a different talent pool, and maybe we can even have a
   nice, big center someplace. I want to then close with this,
   because you testified yesterday, and the opening statement by
   the ranking member of the committee bothered me, in that
   suddenly there is this great concern that the providers,
   particularly Facebook, other large ads providers, and — and
   content providers should be hyper-regulated, when all along, we
   — we, as Republicans, have been talking about net neutrality. We
   — we talked about earlier this year, when we — or last year,
   when we rolled back the Internet service provider privacy stuff
   that seemed tilted heavily in your favor, and against them.
   Don't you think that ubiquitous platforms like Google, and
   Facebook, and — and many others have — should have the same
   responsibility to privacy as an Internet service provider?
 - It is.
 - I would submit to you that I have fewer choices in — on the
   platform, in — in your type of a platform, than they do Internet
   service providers, even in rural North Dakota. With that, thank
   you, Mr. Chairman.
 - Isn't he funny?
FLORES
 - Good.
 - I've got to — I've got limited time. With respect to privacy, I
   think that we need to set a baseline. When we talk about a
   virtual person that each technology user establishes online —
   their name, address, their online purchases, geolocation, data,
   websites visited, pictures, et cetera — I think that the
   individual owns the virtual person they set up online. My second
   question is this. You've said earlier that each user owns their
   virtual presence. Do you think that this concept should apply to
   all technology providers, including social media platforms, edge
   providers and ISPs?
 - Thank you. I'm not trying to catch you off. You can provide
   more information supplementally, after, if you don't mind. In
   this regard, I believe that Congress enact — if Congress enacts
   privacy standards for technology providers, just as we have for
   financial institutions, health care, employed benefits, et
   cetera, the policy should state that the data of technology
   users should be held privately unless they specifically consent
   to the use of the data by others. This release should be based
   on the absolute transparency as to what data will be used, how
   it will be processed, where — how — where it will be stored,
   what algorithms will be applied to it, who will have access to
   it, if it will be sold and to whom it might be sold. The
   disclosure of this information and the associated opt-in actions
   should be easy to understand and easier for nontechnical users
   to execute. The days of the long-scrolling fine-print
   disclosures with a single check mark at the bottom should end.
   In this regard, based on my use of ...
 - ... Facebook, I think you've come a long way toward meeting
   that objective. I think we must move further. I'll have two
   questions to submit later. And thank you — if you can expand on
   your responses to my earlier questions later, thank you.
REP. DAVID LOEBSACK (D-IOWA)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and the ranking
   member for holding this hearing today, and I want to thank Mr.
   Zuckerberg for being here today, as well. Add my name to the
   rural broadband list, as well. I have one-fourth of Iowa, the
   southeast part of Iowa. We definitely need more help on that
   front. Thank you. You may recall, last year, Mr. Zuckerberg,
   that you set out to visit every state in the country, to meet
   different people, and one of those places you visited was, in
   fact, Iowa — my home state of Iowa. And you did visit the
   district that I probably represent, and you met some of my
   constituents. As you began your tour, you said that you believed
   in connecting the world and giving everyone a voice, and that,
   quote — you wanted, quote, “to personally hear more of those
   voices.” I'm going to do the same thing in just a second that a
   number of my colleagues did, and just ask you some questions
   that were submitted to my Facebook page by some of my
   constituents. I do want to say at the outset, though — and I do
   ask for unanimous consent to enter all those questions on the
   record, Mr. Chair ...
REP. DAVID B. MCKINLEY (R-W.VA.)
 - Thank you for coming, Mr. Zuckerberg. I've got a yes or no
   question, if you could give that. Should Facebook — should
   Facebook enable illegal online pharmacies to sell drugs such as
   Oxycodone, Percocet, Vicodin without a prescription?
REP. BRETT GUTHRIE (R-KY.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for being here. When I first
   got into public office, the Internet was really kicking off, and
   I had a lot of people complain about ads, just the inconvenience
   of ads, trying to get the — and the cumbersome of the Internet.
   I remember telling someone one time, being from Kentucky, a
   basketball fan. I said “There's nothing I hate worse than the
   four-minute timeout, the TV timeout. It's flow of the game, and
   everything. But because of the four-minute timeout, I get to
   watch the game for free, so that's something I'm willing to
   accept to move for free. What you're not really willing to
   accept is that your data's just out there, and it — it's being
   used. But it's being used in the — in the right way, and it's —
   it's funny, because I was going to ask this question anyway. My
   — my friend and I was planning a family trip to Florida, and I
   searched a town in Florida, and all of a sudden, I started
   getting ads for a brand of hotel that I typically stay in, and a
   great hotel at the price available to the public, because it was
   on the Internet, that I was willing to pay and stay there. So I
   thought it was actually convenient. Instead of getting just an
   ad to someplace I'll never go, I got an ad specifically to a
   place I was — I was looking to go, so I thought that was
   convenient. And it wasn't Facebook, although my wife used
   Facebook to message my mother-in-law this weekend for where
   we're meeting up, so it's very valuable. We get to do that for
   free, because your business model relies on consumer-driven
   data. This wasn't Facebook. It was a search engine, but they use
   consumer — consumer-driven data to target an ad to me, so you're
   not unique in Silicon Valley, or in this Internet world in doing
   this type of targeted ads, are you?
REP. TONY CÁRDENAS (D-CALIF.)
 - Thank you very much. Seems like we've been here forever, don't
   you think? Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, for
   holding this important hearing. I'm of the opinion that,
   basically, we're hearing from one of the leaders — the CEO of
   one of the biggest corporations in the world — but yet almost
   entirely in an environment that is unregulated, or, for basic
   terms, that — the lanes in which you're supposed to operate in
   are very wide and broad, unlike other industries. Yet, at the
   same time, I have a chart here of the growth of Facebook.
   Congratulations to you and your shareholders. It shows that, in
   2009, your net value of the company was less than — or revenue
   was less than a billion dollars. And then you look all the way
   over to 2016 — it was in excess of $26 billion. And then, in
   2017, apparently, you're about close to $40 billion. Are those
   numbers relatively accurate about the growth and the phenomenon
   of Facebook?
REP. MICHAEL C. BURGESS (R-TEX.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our witness for — for
   being here today. Mr. Chairman, I have a number of articles that
   I ask unanimous consent to insert into the record. I know I
   won't have time to get to all of my questions.
WALDEN
 - Before my opening statement, just as a reminder to our
   committee members on both sides, it's another busy day at Energy
   and Commerce. In addition, as you will recall, to this morning's
   Facebook hearing, later today, our Health Subcommittee will hold
   its third in the series of legislative hearings on solutions to
   combat the opioid crisis. And, remember, Oversight and
   Investigations Subcommittee will hold a hearing where we will
   get an update on the restoration of Puerto Rico's electric
   infrastructure following last year's hurricane season. So, just
   a reminder: When this hearing concludes, I think we have votes
   on the House floor. Our intent is to get through every — every
   member before that point, to be able to ask questions. But then,
   after the votes, we will come back into our subcommittees to do
   that work. As Ray Baum used to say, “The fun never stops.” The
   chair now recognizes himself for five minutes for purposes of an
   opening statement. Good morning. Welcome, Mr. Zuckerberg, to the
   Energy and Commerce Committee in the House. We've called you
   here today for two reasons. One is to examine the alarming
   reports regarding breaches of trust between your company, one of
   the biggest and most powerful in the world, and its users. And
   the second reason is to widen our lens to larger questions about
   the fundamental relationship tech companies have with their
   users. The incident involving Cambridge Analytica and the
   compromised personal information of approximately 87 million
   American users — or mostly American users — is deeply disturbing
   to this committee. The American people are concerned about how
   Facebook protects and profits from its users' data. In short,
   does Facebook keep its end of the agreement with its users? How
   should we, as policymakers, evaluate and respond to these
   events? Does Congress need to clarify whether or not consumers
   own or have any real power over their online data? Have edge
   providers grown to the point that they need federal supervision?
   You and your co-founders started a company in your dorm room
   that's grown to one — be one of the biggest and most successful
   businesses in the entire world. Through innovation and
   quintessentially American entrepreneurial spirit, Facebook and
   the tech companies that have flourished in Silicon Valley join
   the legacy of great American companies who built our nation,
   drove our economy forward, and created jobs and opportunity. And
   you did it all without having to ask permission from the federal
   government and with very little regulatory involvement. The
   company you created disrupted entire industries and has become
   an integral part of our daily lives. Your success story is an
   American success story, embodying our shared values of freedom
   of speech, freedom of association and freedom of enterprise.
   Facebook also provides jobs for thousands of Americans,
   including my own congressional district, with data centers in
   Prineville. Many of our constituents feel a genuine sense of
   pride and gratitude for what you've created, and you're rightly
   considered one of the era's greatest entrepreneurs. This
   unparalleled achievement is why we look to you with a special
   sense of obligation and hope for deep introspection. While
   Facebook has certainly grown, I worry it may not have matured. I
   think it's time to ask whether Facebook may have moved too fast
   and broken too many things. There are critical unanswered
   questions surrounding Facebook's business model and the entire
   digital ecosystem regarding online privacy and consumer
   protection. What exactly is Facebook? Social platform? Data
   company? Advertising company? A media company? A common carrier
   in the information age? All of the above? Or something else?
 - Users trust Facebook with a great deal of information; their
   name, home town, email, phone number, photos, private messages,
   and much, much more. But, in many instances, users are not
   purposefully providing Facebook with data. Facebook collects
   this information while users simply browse other websites, shop
   online or use a third-party app. People are willing to share
   quite a bit about their lives online, based on the belief they
   can easily navigate and control privacy settings and trust that
   their personal information is in good hands. If a company fails
   to keep its promises about how personal data are being used,
   that breach of trust must have consequences. Today we hope to
   shed light on Facebook's policies and practices surrounding
   third-party access to and use of user data. We also hope you can
   help clear up the considerable confusion that exists about how
   people's Facebook data are used outside of the platform. We hope
   you can help Congress, but, more importantly, the American
   people better understand how Facebook user information has been
   accessed by third parties, from Cambridge Analytica and Cubeyou,
   to the Obama for America presidential campaign. And we ask that
   you share any suggestions you have for ways policymakers can
   help reassure our constituents that data they believe was only
   shared with friends or certain groups remains private to those
   circles. As policymakers, we want to be sure that consumers are
   adequately informed about how their online activities and
   information are used. These issues apply not just to Facebook,
   but equally to the other internet-based companies that collect
   information about users online. So, Mr. Zuckerberg, your
   expertise in this field is without rival. So thank you for
   joining us today to help us learn more about these vital matters
   and to answer our questions. With that, I yield now to the
   gentleman from New Jersey, the ranking member of the Energy and
   Commerce Committee, my friend, Mr. Pallone, for five minutes for
   purposes of an opening statement.
 - I think I thank the gentleman for his opening comments.
   (LAUGHTER) With that, we now conclude with member opening
   statements. The chair would like to remind members that,
   pursuant to the committee rules, all members' opening statements
   will be made part of the record. Today, we have Mr. Mark
   Zuckerberg, Chairman and CEO of Facebook Incorporated, here to
   testify before the full Energy and Commerce Committee. Mr.
   Zuckerberg will have the opportunity to give a five-minute
   opening statement, followed by a round of questioning from our
   members. So thank you for taking the time to be here, and you
   are now recognized for five minutes.
 - Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg. I'll start out, and we'll go into
   the questioning phase. We'll go back and forth, as we always do.
   Remember, it's four minutes today, so we can get to everyone.
   Mr. Zuckerberg, you've described Facebook as a company that
   connects people and as a company that's idealistic and
   optimistic. I have a few questions about what other types of
   companies Facebook may be. Facebook has created its own video
   series, starring Tom Brady, that ran for six episodes and has
   over 50 million views. That's twice the number of the viewers
   that watched the Oscars last month. Also, Facebook's obtained
   exclusive broadcasting rights for 25 major league baseball games
   this season. Is Facebook a media company?
 - All right, let me ask the next one. You can send money to
   friends on Facebook Messenger using a debit card or a PayPal
   account to, quote, “split meals, pay rent and more,” close
   quote. People can also send money via Venmo or their bank app.
   Is Facebook a financial institution?
 - So you've mentioned several times that you started Facebook in
   your dorm room in 2004; 15 years, 2 billion users and several —
   unfortunately — breaches of trust later, Facebook's today — is
   Facebook today the same kind of company you started with a
   Harvard.edu email address?
 - And — and you've recently said that you and Facebook have not
   done a good job of explaining what Facebook does. And so, back
   in 2012 and 2013, when a lot of this scraping of user and friend
   data was happening, did it ever cross your mind that you should
   be communicating more clearly with users about how Facebook is
   monetizing their data? I understand that Facebook does not sell
   user data, per se, in the traditional sense, but it's also just
   as true that Facebook's user data is probably the most valuable
   thing about Facebook. In fact, it may be the only truly valuable
   thing about Facebook. Why wasn't explaining what Facebook does
   with users' data a higher priority for you as a co-founder and —
   and now as CEO?
 - Given the situation, are — can you manage the issues that are
   before you? Or does Congress need to intercede? I'm going to
   leave that, because I'm out — I'm over my time — that and I want
   an issue the Vietnam Veterans of America have raised, too. And
   we'll get back with your staff on that about some fake pages
   that are up. But I want to stay on schedule, so, with that, I'll
   yield to Mr. Pallone for four minutes.
 - We're going to have to move on to our next question.
 - The chair now recognizes a former chairman of the committee,
   Mr. Barton of Texas, for four minutes.
 - Absolutely. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
   Illinois, Mr. Rush, for four minutes for questions.
 - The gentleman's time has expired. We need to go now to the
   gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Upton, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time's expired. Chair recognizes the gentlelady
   from California, Ms. Eshoo, for four minutes.
 - Without objection.
 - The gentlelady's time is expired.
 - Chair now recognize gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus, for
   four minutes.
 - The gentleman's time has expired. We now turn to the gentleman
   from New York, Mr. Engel, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time has expired.
 - Chair recognizes the chairman of the Health Subcommittee, Mr. —
   Dr. Burgess of Texas, for four minutes.
 - Without objection. And we put the slide up you requested.
 - Without objection.
 - It's time.
 - Gentleman's time has expired. Chair recognizes the gentleman
   from Texas, Mr. Green, for four minutes.
 - Thank the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady
   from Tennessee, Ms. Blackburn, for four minutes.
 - Gentlelady's time's expired. Chair recognizes gentlelady from
   Colorado, Ms. DeGette, for four minutes.
 - The gentlelady's time is expired. Chair recognizes the
   gentleman from Louisiana, the whip of the House, Mr. Scalise,
   for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time has expired.
 - Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
   Doyle, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's ...
 - ... Gentleman's time's expired. Chair recognizes the chairman
   of the Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection,
   Mr. Latta of Ohio, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman yields back. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
   Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky, for four minutes.
 - The gentlelady's time ...
 - Gentlelady's time's expired. Chair recognizes the gentlelady
   from Washington state, the conference chairman.
 - Gentlelady's ...
 - Gentlelady's time is expired. Chair recognizes the gentleman
   from North Carolina, Mr. Butterfield, for four minutes.
 - The gentleman's time has expired. Chair now recognizes the
   chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee,
   gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Harper, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman yields back the balance of his time. Gentlelady from
   California, Ms. Matsui, is recognized for four minutes.
 - The gentlelady's time is expired. As previously agreed, we will
   now take a five-minute recess, and committee members and — and
   our witness need to plan to be back in about five minutes. We
   stand in recess. (RECESS)
 - We'll call the Energy and Commerce Committee back to order and
   recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Lance, for four
   minutes for purposes of questions.
 - Thank the gentleman from New Jersey, recognize the gentlelady
   from Florida, Ms. Castor, for four minutes.
 - The gentle — the gentlelady's time.
 - The gentlelady's time ...
 - Without objection.
 - Chair now recognizes the gentlemen from Kentucky, Mr. Guthrie,
   for (inaudible) minutes.
 - Gentleman's time ...
 - Recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, for four
   minutes.
 - Gentleman's time ...
 - ... gentleman's time's expired.
 - Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Olson, for four
   minutes.
 - That's fine.
 - Go ahead.
 - Thank you for that clarification. We'll now go to Mr. Olson
   from Texas for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time is expired. Chair recognizes the gentleman
   from California, Mr. McNerney for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time — gentleman's time is expired. Chair
   recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. McKinley, for
   four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time has expired. Chair recognizes the gentleman
   from Vermont, Mr. Welch, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman yields back. Chair recognizes the gentleman from
   Illinois, Mr. Kinzinger, for four minutes.
 - The gentleman's time has expired. Chair recognizes the
   gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Lujan, for four minutes.
 - The gentleman's time is expired.
 - The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
   Griffith, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time ...
 - Gentleman's time is expired.
 - Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko,
   for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time has expired. Chair recognizes ...
 - Sure. Without objection, of course. That's — that goes for all
   members. Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
   Bilirakis, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time ...
 - ... gentleman's time has expired.
 - Yes, sir.
 - Without objection. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from New
   York, Ms. Clarke, for four minutes.
 - Gentlelady's time ...
 - Gentlelady's time has expired. Chair recognizes the gentleman
   from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for four minutes.
 - The gentleman's time's expired. The chair recognizes the
   gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Loebsack.
 - Without objection.
 - The gentleman's time is expired.
 - Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Long, for
   four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time ...
 - ... gentleman's time's expired.
 - Gentleman's time has expired.
 - Well I — I'd tell you, I'd — if we could move on, just because
   we're going to run out of time for members down dais to be able
   to ask their questions ...
 - I now recognize the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Schrader, for
   questions for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time has expired. And, just for our — our members
   who haven't had a chance to ask questions, we will pause at 1:30
   — well, we will have votes at 1:40. We will continue the hearing
   after a — a brief pause, and we'll — we'll coordinate that.
   We'll go now to Dr. Bucshon.
 - The gentleman's time is expired. Chair recognizes the gentleman
   from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time ...
 - Gentleman's time has expired.
 - Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Flores, for four
   minutes.
 - Gentleman's ...
 - Gentleman's time has expired. Chair recognizes the gentleman
   from California for four minutes, Mr. Cardenas.
 - Chairman — the gentleman's time.
 - Sure.
 - And, with that, we will recess for about five minutes, 10
   minutes. We'll recess for 10 minutes and then resume the
   hearing. (RECESS)
 - All right, we're going to reconvene the Energy and Commerce
   Committee, and we will go next to the gentlelady from Indiana,
   Ms. Brooks, for four minutes to resume questioning.
 - Sure.
 - I appreciate that. Thank you. We go now to the gentleman from
   California, Mr. Ruiz.
 - Now go to gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Mullin, for four
   minutes.
 - The gentleman's time.
 - Recognize now the gentleman from California for four minutes.
 - Thank you. We'll go now to the gentleman from North Carolina,
   Mr. Hudson, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time's expired. We now go to the gentleman from New
   York, Mr. Collins for four minutes.
 - Okay. Now I think we go next in order to Mr. Walberg actually,
   who was here when the gavel dropped. So we will go to Mr.
   Walberg for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's time ...
 - Yes. Now recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Walters,
   for four minutes.
 - Gentle — gentlelady's time has expired. Recognize the
   gentlelady from Michigan, Ms. Dingell for four minutes.
 - Gentlelady's time has expired. Chair recognizes the gentleman
   from Pennsylvania, Mr. Costello, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman yields back. We go now to the gentleman Georgia, Mr.
   Carter, for four minutes.
 - Gentleman's ...
 - Gentleman's time has expired. Chair recognizes, Mr. Duncan, for
   four minutes.
 - Only by two minutes, did he come in late. (LAUGHTER)
 - And for our final four minutes of questioning comes from Mr.
   Cramer, North Dakota, former head of the Public Utility
   Commission there. We welcome your comments. Go ahead.
 - I suppose you don't want to hang around for another round of
   questions? Just kidding. Mr. Zuckerberg ...
 - Staff, several of them, just passed out behind you. You know,
   on a serious note as we close, I would welcome your suggestions
   of other technology CEOs we might benefit from hearing from in
   the future for a hearing on these issues, as we look at net
   neutrality, as we looked at privacy issues. These are all
   important. They are very controversial. We're fully cognizant of
   that. We want to get it right, and — and so we appreciate your
   comments and — and testimony today. There are no other members
   that haven't asked you questions, and we're not doing a second
   round, so seeing that, I just want to thank you for being here.
   I know we agreed to be respectful of your time. You have been
   respectful of our questions, and we appreciate your answers and
   your candor. As you know, some of our members weren't able to
   ask all the questions they had, so they'll probably submit those
   in — in writing, and we would — we would like to get answers to
   those back in a timely manner. I'd also like to include the
   following documents be submitted for the record by unanimous
   consent: a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union, a
   letter from NetChoice, a letter from the Vietnam Veterans of
   America, which I referenced in my opening remarks. A letter from
   Public Knowledge, a letter and an FTC complaint from Electronic
   Privacy Information Center, a letter from the Motion Picture
   Association of America, a letter from ACT, the App Association,
   a letter from the Committee for Justice, a letter from the
   Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, and a letter from the Civil
   Society Groups, and a letter from the National Council of Negro
   Women. Pursuant to committee rules, I remind members they have
   10 business days to submit additional questions for the record,
   and I ask that the witness submit their responses within 10
   business days upon receipt of those questions. Without
   objections, our — our committee is now adjourned.
REP. FRED UPTON (R-MICH.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to the committee. A number
   of times in the last day or two, you've indicated that, in fact,
   you're now open to some type of regulation. And we know, of
   course, that you're the dominant social media platform without
   any true competitor, in all frankness. And you have hundreds, if
   not thousands, of folks that are — would be required to help
   navigate any type of regulatory environment. Some would argue
   that a more regulatory environment might ultimately stifle new
   platforms and innovators some might describe as desperately
   needed competition; i.e., regulatory complexity helps protect
   those folks like you. It could create a harmful barrier to entry
   for some start-ups, particularly ones that might want to compete
   with you. So should we policymakers up here be more focused on
   the needs of start-ups, over large incumbents? And what kind of
   policy regulation — regulatory environment would you want,
   instead of managing, maybe, a Fortune 500 company, if you were
   launching a start-up to — taking on the big guy?
REP. MIKE DOYLE (D-PA.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, welcome. Facebook uses
   some of the most advanced data processing techniques and
   technologies on the planet, correct?
REP. PETER WELCH (D-VT.)
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, you acknowledge
   candidly that Facebook made a mistake. You did an analysis of
   how it happened. You've promised action. We're at the point
   where the action will speak much louder than the words. But, Mr.
   Chairman, this Congress has made a mistake. This event that
   happened, whether it was Facebook or some other platform, was
   foreseeable and inevitable. And we did nothing about it.
   Congresswoman Blackburn and I had a — a group, a privacy working
   group, six meetings with many of the industry players. There was
   an acknowledgment on both sides that privacy was not being
   protected, that there was no reasonable safeguard for Americans'
   privacy. But there was an inability to come to a conclusion. So
   we also have an obligation. And, in an effort to move forward,
   Mr. Zuckerberg, I've framed some questions that hopefully will
   allow a reasonable yes or no answer to see if there's some
   common ground to achieve the goal you assert you have, and we
   certainly have: the obligation to protect the privacy of
   American consumers. First, do you believe that consumers have a
   right to know and control what personal data companies collect
   from them?
RUSH
 - Mr. Zuckerberg, you should be commended that Facebook has grown
   so big, so fast. It is no longer the company that you started in
   your dorm room. Instead, it's one of — great American success
   stories. That much influence comes with enormous social
   responsibility, on which you have failed to act and to protect
   and to consider. Shouldn't Facebook, by default, protect users'
   information? Why is the onus on the user to opt in to privacy
   and security settings?
 - All right.
 - Mr. Zuckerberg, I only have a few more seconds. In November
   2017, (inaudible) reported that Facebook was — still allowed
   housing and work advertisements to systematically exclude
   advertisements to specific racial groups, an explicitly
   prohibited practice. This is just one example where Facebook has
   allowed race — so race — race to improperly play a role. What
   has Facebook done, and what are you doing, to ensure that you
   are — that your targeted advertisements and other components of
   your platform are in compliance with federal laws such as the
   Civil Rights Act of 1968?
 - When did you do that?
DINGELL
 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, thank you for your
   patience. I am a daily Facebook user. Much to my staff's
   distress, I do it myself. And because we need a little humor,
   I'm even married to a 91-year-old man that's thinking of
   Twitter. But I know Facebook's value. I've used it for a long
   time. But with that value also comes obligation. We've all been
   sitting here for more than four hours. Some things are striking
   during this conversation. As CEO, you didn't know some key
   facts. You didn't know about major court cases regarding your
   privacy policies against your company. You didn't know that the
   FTC doesn't have fining authority and that Facebook could not
   have received fines for the 2011 consent order. You didn't know
   what a shadow profile was. You didn't know how many apps you
   need to audit. You did not know how many other firms have been
   sold data by Dr. Kogan other than Cambridge Analytica and Eunoia
   Technologies, even though you were asked that question
   yesterday. And yes, we were all paying attention yesterday. You
   don't even know all the kinds of information Facebook is
   collecting from its own users. Here's what I do know. You have
   trackers all over the Web.
 - On practically every website you go to, we all see the Facebook
   Like or Facebook Share buttons. And with the Facebook pixel,
   people browsing the Internet may not even see that Facebook
   logo. It doesn't matter whether you have a Facebook account.
   Through those tools, Facebook is able to collect information
   from all of us. So I want to ask you, how many Facebook like
   buttons are there on non-Facebook Web pages?
 - Is the number over hundred million?
 - How many share buttons are there on non-Facebook Web pages?
 - And do we think that's over 100 million likely? How many chunks
   of Facebook pixel code are there on non-Facebook Web page?
 - Can you commit to get the committee, the European Union is
   asking for 72 hours on transparency? Do you think we could get
   that back in committee in 72 hours?
 - I know you're still reviewing, but do you know now whether
   there are other fourth parties that had access to the data from
   someone other than Dr. Kogan? Or is this something we're going
   to find out in a press release down the road? I think what
   worries all of us and you've heard it today is it has taken
   almost three years to hear about that. And I am convinced that
   there are other people out there.
 - And you will make it public quickly? Not three years.
 - So I just — I'm going to conclude because my times almost up
   that I worry that when I hear companies value our privacy, it's
   meant in monetary terms, not the moral obligation to protect it.
   Data protection and privacy are like clean air and clean water,
   there need to be clear rules of the road.
WALBERG
 - Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. And I — Mr.
   Zuckerberg, I appreciate you being here as well. It has been
   interesting to listen to all of the comments from both sides of
   the aisle. To get an idea of the breadth, length, depth, the
   vastness of our World Wide Web, social media and more
   specifically Facebook. I want to ask three starter questions.
   Don't think they'll take a long answer but I'll let you — let
   you answer. Earlier you indicated that there were bad actors,
   and that triggered your platform policy changes in 2014, but you
   didn't identify who those bad actors where. Who were they?
 - Secondly, is there any way, any way, that Facebook can with any
   level of certainty ensure Facebook users that every single app
   on it's platform is not misusing their data?
 - And I think that — I think that's an adequate answer. It's a
   truthful answer. Can you assure me that ads and content are not
   being denied based on particular views?
 - Let me — let me ...
 - And I wanted to bring up a — a screen grab that we had, again
   going back to Representative Upton earlier on was his
   constituent, but was my legislative director for a time. It was
   his campaign ad that he was going to boost his post, and he was
   rejected. It was rejected as being — it said here, ad wasn't
   approved because it doesn't allow — doesn't follow advertising
   policies, we don't allow ads that contain shocking,
   disrespectful or sensational content, including ads that depict
   violence or threats of violence. Now, as I read that, I also
   know that you have since — or Facebook has since declared no,
   that was a mistake; an algorithm problem that went on there. But
   that's our concern that we have, that it wouldn't be because he
   had his picture with a veteran, it wouldn't be because he wanted
   to reduce spending, but pro-life, second amendment, those things
   and conservative, that causes us some concerns. So I guess what
   I'm saying here, I believe that we ought to have a light touch
   in regulation. And when I hear some of my friends on the other
   side of the aisle decry the fact of what's going on now, and
   they were high-fiving what took place in 2012 with President
   Obama and what he was capable of doing in bringing in and
   grabbing, for use in a political way. I would say the best thing
   we can do is have these light-of-day hearings, let you self-
   regulate as much as possible with a light touch coming from us
   but recognizing that, in the end, your Facebooks or subscribers
   are going to tell you what you need to do ...
 - So thank you for your time and thank you for the time you've
   given me.
DUNCAN
 - Thank you Mr. Chairman. Usually I'm last, but today I think we
   have one behind me that came in late. Mr. Zuckerberg, I want to
   ...
 - I want to thank you for all the work you've done. And I want to
   let you know that I've been on Facebook since 2007. Started as a
   state legislator, used Facebook to communicate with my
   constituents. And it has been an invaluable tool for me in
   communicating. We can actually do in real time multiple issues
   as we deal with them in here in Congress, answer questions. It's
   almost like a town hall in real time. I also want to tell you
   that your staff here at the Governmental Affairs Office, Chris
   Herndon and others do a fabulous job in keeping us informed. So
   I want to thank you for that. Before this hearing when we heard
   about it, we asked our constituents and our friends on Facebook,
   what would they want me to ask you? And the main response was
   addressing the perceived, and in many instances confirmed bias
   and viewpoint discrimination against Christians and
   conservatives on your platform. Today, listening to this, I
   think the two main issues are user privacy and censorship.
   Constitution of the United States and the First Amendment says,
   “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
   religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Nor will
   they abridge the freedom of speech of the press, the right of
   people to assemble or address the Congress for address of
   grievances — or petition Congress to address for grievances.”
   I've got a copy of the Constitution I want to give you at the
   end of this hearing. The reason I say all that, this is maybe a
   rhetorical question but why not have a community standard for
   free speech and free exercise of religion that is simply a
   mirror of the First Amendment, with algorithms that are viewed —
   that have a viewpoint that is neutral? Why not do that?
 - And I appreciate — I appreciate that answer. You're right about
   propaganda and other issues there. And I believe the
   Constitution generally applies to government and says that
   Congress shall make no law respecting — talks about religion.
   And then we don't want to bridge the freedom of speech or the
   press. But the standard has been applied to private businesses,
   whether those are newspapers or other media platform. And I
   would argue that social media has now become a media platform to
   be considered in a lot of ways the same as other press media. So
   I think the First Amendment probably does apply and will apply.
   What will you do — and let me ask you this, what will you do to
   restore the First Amendment rights of Facebook users and ensure
   that all users are treated equally, regardless of whether
   they're conservative, moderate, liberal or whatnot?
 - In the essence of time, conservatives are the ones that raise
   the awareness that their content has been pulled. I don't see
   the same awareness being raised by liberal organizations,
   liberal candidates or liberal policy statements. So I think —
   and I think you've been made aware of this over the last two
   days, probably need to go back and make sure that those things
   are treated equal. And I would appreciate if you do that. Again,
   I appreciate the platform, I appreciate the work that you do.
   And we stand willing and able to help you here in Congress,
   because Facebook is an invaluable part of what we do and how we
   communicate, so thanks for being here.
 - I yield back.
UPTON
 - And, to follow up a question with — that Mr. Barton asked about
   Silk and Diamond — I don't know whether you know about this
   particular case — I have a former state rep who's running for
   state senate. He's the former Michigan Lottery commissioner, so
   he's a guy of — of fairly good political prominence. He is a —
   he announced for state senate just in the last week, and he had
   what I thought was a rather positive announcement. It's — and
   I'll read to you precisely what it was. “I'm proud to announce
   my candidacy for state senate. Lansing needs conservative west
   Michigan values, and, as our next state senator, I will work to
   strengthen our economy, limit government, lower our auto
   insurance rates, balance the budget, stop sanctuary cities, pay
   down government debt, be a pro-life, pro-2nd-Amendment
   lawmaker.” And it was rejected. And the response from you all
   was it wasn't approved because it doesn't follow our advertising
   policies. We don't allow ads that contain shocking,
   disrespectful or sensational content, including ads that depict
   violence or threats of violence. I'm not sure where the threat
   was, based on what he tried to post.
 - Okay.
 - Okay. Thank you.
REP. YVETTE D. CLARKE (D-N.Y.)
 - I thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for coming before us,
   Mr. Zuckerman (sic). Today, I want to take the opportunity to
   represent the concerns of the newly formed Tech Accountability
   Caucus, in which I serve as a co-chair with my colleagues,
   Representative Robin Kelly, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver and
   Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, but, most importantly,
   people in our country and around the globe who are in vulnerable
   populations, including those who look just like me. My first
   question to you is, as you may be aware, there have been
   numerous media reports about how more than 3,000 Russian ads
   were bought on Facebook to incite racial and religious division
   and chaos in the U.S. during the 2016 election. Those ads
   specifically characterized and weaponized African American
   groups like Black Lives Matter, in which ads suggested, through
   propaganda — or fake news, as people call it these days — that
   they were a rising threat. Do you think that the lack of
   diversity, culturally competent personnel in your C suite and
   throughout your organization, in which your company did not
   detect or disrupt and investigate these claims, are a problem in
   this regard?
LATTA
 - None at all?
 - Okay. Let me ask this question. You know, it's a little bit
   that's been going on — when you made your opening statement in
   regards to what you'd like to see done with the — with the
   company and — and steps going — moving forward, there's been a
   couple questions, you know, about that you're going to be
   investigating the apps. How many apps are there out there that
   you'd have to investigate?
 - Just to follow up on that, then, how long would it take to then
   investigate each of those apps, once you're doing that? Because,
   again, when you're talking about tens of thousands and you're
   going through that entire process, then how long will it take to
   go through each one of those apps?
 - Okay.
 - Okay. We were talking about audits, as there have been some
   questions about this. On the audits, in 2011, Facebook signed —
   it did sign that consent order with the Federal Trade Commission
   for the privacy violations. Part of that consent order requires
   Facebook to submit third-party privacy audits to the FTC every
   two years. First, are you aware of the audits? And, second, why
   didn't the audits disclose or find these issues with the
   developer's access to users' data?
 - Let me — I'm about out of time here. Are you aware that
   Facebook did provide the auditors with all the information they
   requested for — when doing the FTC audits?
 - Yeah. Did we — did Facebook provide the auditors with all the
   information it requested when they were preparing the audit for
   the FTC?
 - Okay. So — but all the information is provided. And were you
   ever personally asked to provide information or feedback in
   these audits to the FTC?
 - Okay. Mr. Chair, my time's expired and I yield back.
REP. ROBERT E. LATTA (R-OHIO)
 - Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. And — and, Mr. Zuckerberg, thanks
   very much for being with us today. First question I have is, can
   you tell the Facebook users that the Russians and the Chinese
   have not used the same methods as other third parties to scrape
   the entire social network for their gain?
WALTERS
 - Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr.
   Zuckerberg, for being here. One of my biggest concerns is the
   misuse of consumer data and what controls users have over their
   information. You have indicated that Facebook users have
   granular control over their own contact — content and who can
   see it. As you can see on the screen, on the left is a
   screenshot of the on-off choice for apps which must be on for
   users to use apps that require a Facebook login and which allows
   apps to collect your information. On the right is a screenshot
   of what a user sees when they want to change the privacy
   settings on a post, photo or other content. Same account, same
   user. But which control governs? The app platform access or the
   user's decision as to who they want to see a particular post?
 - So, which — which app governs, Okay? Or which control governs?
   The app platform access or the user's decision as to who they
   want to see a particular post? So if you look up there on the
   screen.
 - Okay, do you think that the average Facebook user understands
   that is how it works? And how would they find this out?
 - Okay, so these user control options are in different locations.
   And it seems to me that putting all privacy control options in a
   single location would be more user-friendly. Why aren't they in
   the same location?
 - Okay. California has been heralded by many on this committee
   for its privacy initiatives. Given that you and other major tech
   companies are in California and we are still experiencing
   privacy issues, how do you square the two?
 - So, given that you and other major tech companies are in
   California and we're still experiencing privacy issues, how do
   you square the two?
 - California's been heralded by many in this committee for its
   privacy initiatives.
REP. GUS BILIRAKIS (R-FLA.)
 - Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman — appreciate it. And thanks
   for your testimony, Mr. Zuckerberg. Well, first of all, I wanted
   to follow up with Mr. — Mr. McKinley's testimony. This is bad
   stuff, Mr. Zuckerberg, with regard to the illegal online
   pharmacies. When are the — those ads — I mean, when are you
   going to take those off? I think we need an answer to that. I
   think they need to get off — we need to get these off as soon as
   possible. Can you give us an answer, a clear answer as to when
   these pharmacies — we have an epidemic here with regard to the
   opioids. I think we're owed a clear answer, a definitive answer
   as to when these ads will be off — offline.
LONG
 - It's coincidental. The timing was the same, right? Just
   coincidental.
 - You put up pictures of two women, and decide which one was the
   better — more attractive of the two, is that right?
 - Okay. Okay, I just — but, from that beginning — whether it was
   actually the beginning of Facebook or not — you've come a long
   way. Jan Schakowsky — Congresswoman Schakowsky, this morning,
   said self-regulation simply does not work. Mr. Butterfield,
   Representative Butterfield, said that you need more African
   American inclusion on your board of directors. If I was you — a
   little bit of advice — Congress is good at two things: doing
   nothing, and overreacting. So far, we've done nothing on
   Facebook. Since your inception in that Harvard dorm room, many
   years ago, we've done nothing on Facebook. We're getting ready
   to overreact. So take that as just a shot across the bow,
   warning to you. You've got a good outfit there, on your front
   row, behind you, that — they're very bright folks. You're
   Harvard-educated. I have a Yale hat that costs me $160,000 —
   that's as close as I ever got to an Ivy League school. But I'd
   like to show you, right now, a — a little picture here. You
   recognize these folks?
 - Who are they?
 - That is Diamond and Silk, two biological sisters from North
   Carolina. I might point out they're African American. And their
   content was deemed by your folks to be unsafe. So, you know, I
   don't know what type of picture this is — if it was taken in a
   police station, or what, in a lineup — but apparently they've
   been deemed unsafe. Diamond and Silk have a question for you,
   and that question is, what is unsafe about two black women
   supporting President Donald J. Trump?
 - ... you have 20,000 employees, as you said, to check content.
   And I would suggest, as good as you are with analytics, that
   those 20,000 people use some analytical research and see how
   many conservative websites have been pulled down, and how many
   liberal websites. One of our talk show hosts at home — Nick Reed
   — this morning, on the radio, said that, if Diamond and Silk
   were liberal, they'd be on the late-night talk show circuit,
   back and forth. They're humorous, they have their opinion, not
   that you have to agree or that I have to agree — to agree —
   don't agree — with them. But the fact that they're conservative
   — and I would just remember — if you don't remember anything
   else from this hearing here today, remember we do nothing and we
   overreact.
 - And we're getting ready to overreact. So I would suggest you go
   home and review all these other things people have accused you
   of today, get with your good team — they're behind you ...
 - ... you're the guy to fix this. We're not. You need to save
   your ship. Thank you.
 - I didn't say it was an overreach. All I said was that — I was
   just letting — reminding with several ...
WELCH
 - Do you believe that consumers have a right to control how and
   with whom their personal information is shared with third
   parties?
 - And do you believe that consumers have a right to secure and
   responsible handling of their personal data?
 - And do you believe that consumers should be able to easily
   place limits on the personal data that companies collect and
   retain?
 - Okay. And do you believe that consumers should be able to
   correct or delete inaccurate personal data that companies have
   obtained?
 - Well, then, let's get — you get back to us with specifics on
   that. I think they do have that right. Do you believe that
   consumers should be able to have their data deleted immediately
   from Facebook when they stop using the service?
 - Good. And do you believe that the Federal Trade Commission, or
   another properly resourced governmental agency with rulemaking
   authority, should be able to determine on a regular basis what
   is considered personal information, to provide certainty for
   consumers and companies what information needs to be protected
   most tightly?
 - There's not a big discussion here. Who gets the final say? Is
   it the private market companies, like yours? Or is there a
   governmental function here that defines what privacy is?
 - All right. Let me ask you this. I've appreciated your
   testimony. Will you work with this committee to help put us — to
   help the U.S. put in place our own privacy regulation that
   private — prioritizes consumer's right to privacy, just as the
   E.U. has done?
 - All right. And you have indicated that Facebook has not always
   protected the privacy of their users throughout the company's
   history. And it seems, though, from your answers, that consumers
   — you agree that consumers do have a fundamental right to
   privacy that empowers them to control the collection, the use,
   the sharing of their personal information online. And, Mr.
   Chairman — and thank you. Mr. Chairman, privacy cannot be based
   just on company policies, whether it's Facebook or any other
   company. There has to be a willingness on the part of this
   Congress to step up and provide policy protection to the privacy
   rights of every American consumer. I yield back.
HUDSON
 - Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for being here. This is a
   long day. You're here voluntarily, and we sure appreciate you —
   you being here. I can say from my own experience, I've hosted
   two events with Facebook in my district in North Carolina
   working with small business and finding ways they can increase
   their customer base on Facebook, and it's been very beneficial
   to us, so I thank you for that. I do want to pin this slightly
   and frame the discussion in other light for my question. One of
   the greatest honors I have as I represent the men and women of
   Fort Bragg, epicenter of the universe, home of the airborne
   special operations, you visited last year.
 - Very well received, so you understand that due to the sense of
   nature of some of the operations these soldiers conduct, many
   are discouraged or even prohibited from having a social media
   presence. However, there are others who — who still have
   profiles or some who may have deleted their profiles upon
   entering military service. Many have family members who have
   Facebook profiles. And as we've learned, each one of these
   user's information may have been shared without their consent.
   There's no way that Facebook can guarantee the safety of this
   information on another company's server that they sell this
   information. If private information can be gathered by apps
   without explicit consent of the user, they're almost asking to
   be hacked. Are you aware of the national security concerns that
   would come from allowing those who seek to harm our nation
   access to information such as the geographical location of
   members of our Armed Services? Is this something that you're —
   you're looking at?
 - Great, well I'd love to follow up with you on that. It's been
   said many times here that you refer to Facebook as a platform of
   all ideas — or a platform for all ideas. I know you've heard
   from many yesterday and today about concerns regarding Facebook
   censorship of content, particularly content that may promote
   Christian beliefs of conservative political beliefs. I have to
   bring up Diamond & Silk again because they're actually from my
   district, but — but I think you've addressed these concerns, but
   I think it's also become very apparent, and I hope it's become
   very apparent to you, that this is a very serious concern. I
   actually asked on my Facebook page for my constituents to give
   me ideas of things they'd like for me to ask you today, and the
   most common question was about personal privacy. So this is
   something that I — I think there is an issue, there — there's
   issues that your company, in terms of trust with consumers, that
   I think you need to deal with. I think you recognize that based
   on your testimony today. But my question to you is, what is the
   standard that Facebook uses to determine what is offensive or
   controversial, and how has that standard been applied across
   Facebook's platform?
 - That's probably the most difficult to define, so I guess my
   question is how do you apply — what standards do you apply to
   try to determine what's hate speech versus what's just speech
   you may disagree with?
 - I'm just running out of time here. I hate to cut you off. But
   let me just say that, you know, based on the statistics Mr.
   Scalise shared and the anecdotes we can provide you, it seems
   like there's still a challenge when it comes to conservative
   (inaudible), and I hope you will address that.
 - With that, Mr. Chairman, I'll stop talking.
BURGESS
 - And so I'm going to be submitting some questions for the record
   that are referencing these articles. One is “Friended: How the
   Obama Campaign Connected with Young Voters,” by Michael Scherer;
   “We Already Know How to Protect Ourselves from Facebook,” and I
   hope I get this name right — Zeynep Tufekci; and “It's Time to
   Break Up Facebook,” by Eric Wilson, who, in the interest of full
   disclosure ...
 - ... was a former staffer. And I will be referencing those
   articles in — in some written questions. I consulted my
   technology guru, Scott Adams, in the form of Dilbert, going back
   21 years ago. And, when you took the shrink-wrap off of a piece
   of software that you bought, you were automatically agreeing to
   be bound by the terms and conditions. So we've gone a long way
   from taking the shrimp wrap — shrink wrap off of a — off of an
   app. But I don't know that things have changed so much. And, I
   guess, does Facebook have a position — a — a position that you
   recommend for elements of a company's terms and conditions that
   you encourage consumers to look at before they click on the
   acceptance?
 - Let me just ask you, because we're going to run short on time,
   do you have — have you laid out for people what it — would be
   indicative of a good actor, versus a less-than-good actor, in
   someone who's developed a — one of these applications?
 - Is the average consumer able to determine what elements would
   indicate poor or weak consumer protections, just by their
   evaluation of the terms and conditions? Do you think that's
   possible?
 - Well, can you — can someone — can the average person — the
   average layperson look at the terms and conditions and make the
   evaluation, “Is this a strong enough protection for me to enter
   into this arrangement?” Look, I'm as bad as anyone else. I see
   an app, I want it, I download it, I breeze through the stuff.
   Just take me to the — to the good stuff in the app. But, if a
   consumer wanted to know, could they know?
 - Yeah, let me move onto something else. Mr. Pallone brought up
   the issue of — he wanted to see more regulation. We actually
   passed a bill through this committee last Congress dealing with
   data breach notification — not so much for Facebook, but for the
   credit card breaches — a good bill. Many of the friends on the
   other side of the dais voted against it. But it was Ms.
   Blackburn's bill, and I think it's one we should consider again,
   in light of what is going on here. But you also signed a consent
   decree back in 2011. And, you know, when I read through that
   consent decree, it's — it's pretty explicit. And there is a
   significant fine of $40,000 per violation, per day. And, if
   you've got 2 billion users, you can see how those fines would
   mount up pretty quickly. So, in the course of your audit, are
   you — are you extrapolating data for the people at the Federal
   Trade Commission for that — the terms and conditions of the
   consent decree?
 - Well, you're — you've said — you've referenced there are audits
   that are ongoing. Are you making that information from those
   audits available to our friends at the — at the agency, at the
   Federal Trade Commission?
REP. CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS (R-WASH.)
 - Yeah, turn on the — thank you. And thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg,
   for joining us. Today is clearly timely. There's a number of
   extremely important questions Americans have about Facebook,
   including questions about safety and security of their data,
   about the process by which their data is made available to third
   parties, about what Facebook is doing to protect consumer
   privacy as we move forward. But one of the issues that is
   concerning me and I'd like to dig a little deeper into is how
   Facebook treats content on its platform. So, Mr. Zuckerberg,
   given the extensive reach of Facebook and its widespread use as
   a tool of public expression, do you think Facebook has a unique
   responsibility to ensure that it has clear standards regarding
   the censorship of content on its platform? And do you think
   Facebook adequately and clearly defines what these standards are
   for its users?