Congress Lights Into Mark Zuckerberg at Hearing: ‘You Are Willing to Step On Anyone To Get What You Want’ – By Charlie Nash (Mediaite) / Oct 23 2019
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was grilled by members of the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, as part of a congressional hearing organized in response to reports that Facebook plans to launch its own currency.
Committee chairwoman Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), and Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) all engaged in heated clashes with the Facebook co-founder over a variety of issues.
Rep. Maxine Waters told Zuckerberg that his “claim to promote freedom of speech does not ring true,” and declared, “2.7 billion people use your products. That’s over a third of the world’s population. That’s huge. That’s so big it’s clear to me and to anyone who hears this list that perhaps you believe that you’re above the law.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0s23Q54rcY
“And it appears that you’re aggressively increasing the size of your company, and are willing to step on or over anyone, including your competitors, women, people of color, your own users, and even our democracy to get what you want,” she continued, as Zuckerberg smirked. “All of these problems I’ve outlined and given the company’s size and reach, it should be clear why we have serious concerns about your plans to establish a global digital currency that would challenge the US dollar. In fact you have opened up a serious discussion about whether Facebook should be broken up.”
In her own clash with Zuckerberg, Rep. Joyce Beatty asked if the Facebook chief knew what “red-lining” was, before insinuating that Facebook is ruining the lives of African-Americans.
After Zuckerberg couldn’t say which firm Facebook had hired to deal with civil rights, Beatty declared, “It’s almost like you think this is a joke when you have ruined the lives of many people, discriminated against them.”
“Do you know what the percentage of African Americans are on Facebook in comparison to majority folks? Do you know what the percentages are?” Beatty asked, to which Zuckerberg was unable to answer.
“Well it came out in a report in the Pew Research Center that was sent to you. So maybe you just don’t read a lot of things that deal with civil rights or African Americans,” the congresswoman proclaimed, concluding, “I have a lot of questions I’m going to send to you that I’m not going to be able to get through, and I would like an answer because this is appalling and disgusting to me.”
Rep. Katie Porter clashed with Zuckerberg over privacy, Facebook’s use of external contractors to moderate graphic content on the platform, and reports that these contractors were cut off of mental health support after leaving the job, which allegedly gave some moderators PTSD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8GDAFQ8E64
“Today can you affirm that Facebook cares about user privacy and still holds itself to the standards and articulates public policies?” asked Porter.
“Congresswoman, we certainly care about privacy. It’s incredibly important to people,” Zuckerberg replied.
“If that’s true that you care about privacy and you’re adhering to these principles, why are you arguing Facebook in federal court consumers can’t hold you liable for any of these promises because ‘as plaintiffs admit, they and every Facebook user are bound by Facebook’s terms of service which release Facebook from liability for users’ contract and common law claims,’” Porter questioned, prompting Zuckerberg to state, “Congresswoman, I’m not familiar with that specific legal argument.”
“You’re arguing in federal court that the consumer data privacy lawsuit in which your own lawyers admit that users’ information was stolen, that the plaintiffs fail to articulate any injury. In other words, no harm no foul, Facebook messed up but it doesn’t matter,” responded Porter. “Is that your position?”
Zuckerberg declared, “Congresswoman, I’m not familiar with all the context here and I’m not a lawyer, so it’s a little bit hard for me to weigh in on the…” before Porter interrupted, “Mr. Zuckerberg, as CEO and the tremendously proportional shareholder of Facebook, you are responsible for the legal arguments that your company makes. You hire these lawyers. Will you commit to withdrawing this argument and this pleading and never again plead that there is no liability on Facebook when data breaches occur?”
“Congresswoman, you’re certainly right that I’m CEO and I’m responsible for everything that happens in the company, all that I’m saying is that I imagine there are more pages to this document,” the Facebook CEO argued, leading Porter to announce, “I’m gonna take that as a no for right now but I’d like you to consider it.”
“I will,” Zuckerberg proclaimed.
Porter then stated her opinion that Facebook’s “pleading is inconsistent with your privacy principles and I think that American people are tired of this hypocrisy,” before moving on to Facebook’s content moderation contractors.
“Facebook’s known as a great place to work. Free food, ping pong tables, great employee benefits, but Facebook doesn’t use its employees for the hardest jobs in the company. You’ve got about fifteen thousand contractors watching murders, stabbings, suicides, other gruesome disgusting videos for content moderation, correct?” she asked, to which Zuckerberg replied, “Congresswoman, yes, I believe that’s correct.”
“You pay many of those workers under 30,000 dollars a year and you’ve cut them off from mental health care when they leave the company, even if they have PTSD because of their work for your company, is that correct?” Porter questioned. “According to one report I have, and this is straight out of an episode of Black Mirror, these workers get nine… nine minutes of supervised wellness time per day. That means nine minutes to cry in the stairwell while somebody watches them. Would you be willing to commit to spending one hour a day for the next year watching these videos and acting as a content monitor and only accessing the same benefits available to your workers?”
After trying to dodge the question, Porter shot back, “I would appreciate a yes or a no. Would you be willing to act as a content monitor and have that life experience?”
“I’m not sure it would best serve our community for me to spend that much time…” Zuckerberg responded, before Porter interrupted “Are you saying you’re not qualified to be a content monitor?”
“No congresswoman, that’s not what I’m saying,” the Facebook CEO declared.
“Okay, well then you’re saying you’re not willing to do it,” she concluded.
