Facebook’s Chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, began the first of two marathon hearings on Tuesday afternoon, answering tough questions on the company’s mishandling of data.
This was Mr. Zuckerberg’s first appearance before Congress, prompted by the revelation that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm linked to the Trump campaign, harvested the data of an estimated 87 million Facebook users to psychologically profile voters during the 2016 election.
Mr. Zuckerberg, clad in a navy suit and bright blue tie, faced hours of questioning from lawmakers, who pressed him to account for how third-party partners could data without users’ knowledge. Senator John Thune of South Dakota talked about the need for Facebook to avoid creating “a privacy nightmare.”
Lawmakers grilled the 33-year-old executive on the proliferation of so-called fake news on Facebook, Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election and censorship of conservative media. Among the highlights:
• Senators warned that they are skeptical that the company can regulate itself and threatened to enact privacy rules and other regulations. They said they weren’t sure if they could trust a company that has repeatedly violated its privacy promises.
• There were glimmers of a partisan divide: Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, asked about Facebook’s handling of conservative media, including content related to Glenn Beck and a Fox News personality; Democrats probed Mr. Zuckerberg on how quickly Facebook responded to Russian meddling.
• Mr. Zuckerberg, surrounded by his top legal and policy executives, appeared well-coached. He answered questions directly and without defensiveness as he tried to reiterate the mission of the social network to better connect the world.
— Cecilia Kang
‘I think that may be what this is all about … your right to privacy.’
Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, zeroed in on the issue at the heart of Facebook’s troubles, asking Mr. Zuckerberg whether he would be comfortable sharing the name of the hotel he stayed in last night or if he would be comfortable sharing the names of the people he has messaged this week.
“No. I would probably not choose to do that publicly here,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.
“I think that may be what this is all about,” Mr. Durbin said. “Your right to privacy. The limits of your right to privacy. And how much you give away in modern America in the name of, quote, connecting people around the world.”
— Deborah Solomon
Centering the hearing on Cambridge Analytica
Much of the hearing so far has centered on Cambridge Analytica. The hearing was called as a result of reporting by The New York Times on the company’s data harvesting. Lawmakers asked Mr. Zuckerberg what, if anything, he knew about Cambridge’s harvesting, what he was doing to ensure it would not happen again and whether he knew of other operations that engaged in similar data collection on the platform.
Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook would be “investigating many apps, tens of thousands of apps, and if we find any suspicious activity, we’re going to conduct a full audit of those apps to understand how they’re using their data and if they’re doing anything improper. If we find that they’re doing anything improper, we’ll ban them from Facebook and we will tell everyone affected.”
— Matthew Rosenberg
Did Facebook deceive its users?
Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, zeroed in on whether Facebook deceived consumers. She pressed Mr. Zuckerberg on whether the company made a decision not to inform users about the Cambridge Analytica episode when they learned in 2015 that data was sold by a researcher to the political consulting firm.
“I’m talking about notification of users. And this relates to the issue of transparency and the issue of trust: informing users of what you know in terms of how their personal information was misused,” Ms. Harris said.
Mr. Zuckerberg did not admit that the company explicitly decided to withhold that information from consumers, but he said the company made a mistake in not informing users.
The question was key to the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of Facebook’s violation of a 2011 consent decree. If the company withheld information, which would be a deceptive act, the company could face record fines for violating its promises to the agency.
The tough questions by Ms. Harris, were closely watched because she is from the San Francisco Bay Area and is seen as a rising political star within the Democratic Party.
— Cecilia Kang
Democrats press on Russian meddling
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, pressed Mr. Zuckerberg on Russia’s exploitation of the platform during the 2016 presidential election.
Mr. Zuckerberg admitted that the company’s effort to find and stop the Russian meddling was “slow,” and called that failure “one of my greatest regrets.” He said Facebook was tracking known Russian hacking groups in real time but took much longer to recognize the inflammatory posts of the Internet Research Agency, a private company with Kremlin ties.
“There are people in Russia whose job is to exploit our systems,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “This is an arms race.”
But the Facebook founder said the company deployed new artificial intelligence tools to detect malicious activity in elections in France, Italy and a special Senate race in Alabama. He said he believed the new technology would help protect the integrity of elections around the world from manipulation via Facebook.
— Scott Shane
Booker raised concerns about racial targeting
Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, questioned Mr. Zuckerberg over discriminatory uses of Facebook’s advertising platform to target ads to users by race, and tools that law enforcement officials have reportedly used to surveil activists of color.
Mr. Booker’s questioning is notable given that he and Mr. Zuckerberg have a history of friendly collaboration dating back to 2010, when Mr. Zuckerberg donated $100 million to the public school system in Newark, where Mr. Booker was mayor at the time.
Mr. Booker has long been seen as a tech-friendly lawmaker, and he has known Mr. Zuckerberg for longer than most lawmakers. His tough stance today is a sign of how dramatically the political winds around Facebook have shifted.— Kevin Roose
As Zuckerberg was being grilled, Facebook’s stock price jumped
Early impressions of Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony were positive. In his first appearance before Congress, he appeared confident and answered questions directly. At first he was grim-faced, looked tired and serious. But he warmed up after an hour and offered humor about the company’s motto. He insisted on continuing questions when offered a break, eliciting smiles and laughter from staff sitting behind him
“This is a different Mark Zuckerberg than the Street was fearing,” said Daniel Ives, chief strategy officer and head of technology research for GBH Insights in New York. “It’s a defining 48 hours that will determine the future of Facebook and so far he has passed with flying colors and the Street is relieved.”
Investors appeared pleased: Facebook’s stock closed up nearly 4.5 percent.
Some senators didn’t share investors’ enthusiasm
Not all lawmakers left appeased by Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony.
“I was unsatisfied,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. “More of the apology tour,” he said, “which we have heard before.”
Mr. Blumenthal said it was clear to him that Facebook could not and would not fully regulate itself and that Congress needed to provide a solution.
“The old saying: There ought to be a law. There has to be a law. Unless there’s a law, their business model is going to continue to maximize profit over privacy,” he said.
— Nicholas Fandos
Move fast and … what?
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the majority whip, asked if Facebook’s motto is still “move fast and break things.” Mr. Zuckerberg said it has been revised.
“I don’t know when we changed it,” Mr. Zuckerberg replied, “but the mantra is currently ‘move fast with stable infrastructure,’ which is a much less sexy mantra.” He appeared to be joking, eliciting laughs from the executives sitting behind him.
— Cecilia Kang
Facebook is working with Robert Mueller
Mr. Zuckerberg said that Facebook was working with Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to the Trump campaign.
Replying to Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, Mr. Zuckerberg initially seemed to confirm that Facebook had been served with subpoenas along the way, before saying he was not certain.
“I want to be careful here because our work with the special counsel is confidential,” he said. “And I want to make sure that in an open session I’m not revealing something that’s confidential.”
Mr. Zuckerberg said he had not personally spoken with investigators from Mr. Mueller’s team, but that he thought others at the company had.
— Nicholas Fandos
Zuckerberg has a long history of apologizing
Mr. Zuckerberg has a history of apologizing for the company’s mistakes and promising to do better. Wired Magazine recently noted that Mr. Zuckerberg has a 14-year history of apologizing. That seems to have caused some consternation on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers prodded Mr. Zuckerberg about why, exactly, they should believe his promises now.
“After more than a decade of promises to do better, how is today’s apology different and why should we trust Facebook to make the necessary changes to ensure user privacy and give people a clearer picture of your privacy policies?” Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, asked.
Mr. Zuckerberg referred again to his company’s humble beginnings in his dorm room at Harvard.
“So we have made a lot of mistakes in running the company. I think it’s pretty much impossible, I believe, to start a company in your dorm room and then grow it to be at the scale that we’re at now without making some mistakes.”
Will regulation of Facebook be coming?
Mr. Thune, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, called Facebook and its role in society “extraordinary” and began the hearing by explaining why Facebook is being singled out and why Mr. Zuckerberg was asked to appear alone.
He said the Cambridge Analytica situation underscored how Facebook can be used for nefarious reasons, saying it appeared “to be the result of people exploiting the tools you created to manipulate users’ information.”
In an indication that he may support legislation for internet companies, Mr. Thune said, “In the past, many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been willing to defer to tech companies’ efforts to regulate themselves. But this may be changing.”
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said the tech industry “has a responsibility” to protect its users and said “the status quo no longer works.”
— Cecilia Kang
A lingering question: Does Facebook favor Democrats?
That was the accusation that Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, was leveling at Mr. Zuckerberg when he grilled him for several minutes as to why the social network has been allegedly censoring content from conservative organizations and Trump supporters.
Mr. Zuckerberg declined to answer whether Facebook is a neutral public forum or if it is expressing its own views of free speech, avoiding a complex legal question that Mr. Cruz was posing.
However, Mr. Zuckerberg insisted that the company does not discriminate against Republican employees and that its definition for what kind of language should be kept off the platform was rooted in common sense.
“I am very committed to making sure that Facebook is a platform for all ideas,” he said after Mr. Cruz ticked off several examples of potential liberal bias on the social network.
— Alan Rappeport
Is Facebook a monopoly?
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, pressed Mr. Zuckerberg on whether Facebook is a monopoly, asking him to explain what other options customers have if they get frustrated with the social network.
While Mr. Graham, the South Carolina Republican, tried compare his industry to the car business, where people can switch from Ford to Chevrolet if they want, Mr. Zuckerberg insisted that in his case, it’s complicated. He noted that Facebook overlaps with companies like Google and Twitter and that he faces competition from a variety of popular apps.
“You don’t think you have a monopoly?” Mr. Graham asked.
Mr. Zuckerberg replied: “It doesn’t feel that way to me.”
