U.S. senators opened Tuesday’s hearing on Facebook by reciting statistics on its size to show the potential risks its data practices pose to user privacy in America — and in the rest of the world.
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded with an admission that he’s responsible for everything that happens at the social media giant — and a pledge, once again, to take better care of users’ information.
“For most of our existence, we focused on all the good that connecting people can do,” Zuckerberg told a joint session of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees. “It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well.”
The potential for misuse was highlighted last month with the disclosure that information was acquired by Donald Trump’s campaign consultant, Cambridge Analytica, on some 87 million Facebook users and their connections, and that the consultant hadn’t disposed of it as Facebook requested.
[Mark Zuckerberg can’t answer how many times third party apps have taken data improperly]
While Facebook — which boasts 2 billion users a month — has rolled out a series of initiatives since mid -March to improve its privacy practices and reassure users, the disclosure heightened criticism sparked by allegations that phony news articles on its site were used to influence elections around the globe.
That followed a Federal Trade Commission settlement seven years ago over claims that Facebook had repeatedly shared data that it told users would be confidential.
Usage of the social media platform has exploded over the past dozen years, with the company generating $40 billion in revenue in 2017, about 98 percent of it from advertising, said Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley.
“The potential for further growth and innovation based on the collection of data is limitless,” he added. “However, the potential for abuse is significant.”
Many mistakes have been made “in running the company,” Zuckerberg conceded to senators. “It’s pretty much impossible to start a company in your dorm room,” grow it to Facebook’s present size “and not make mistakes,” he added.
The Menlo Park, Calif., company has been contacted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director investigating whether President Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia, and some employees have been interviewed, Zuckerberg noted. He himself has not.
“Our work with the special counsel is confidential and I want to make sure that in an open session, I’m not revealing something that’s confidential,” the CEO said. “We are working with them.”
The company’s stock has fallen 12 percent to $161.66 since disclosing the Cambridge Analytica issues, outpacing declines on the S&P 500 and other major indexes linked to trade-war concerns and the possibility of accelerating interest-rate hikes.
The company said March 16 that Cambridge Analytica and its parent Strategic Communications Laboratories were suspended after Facebook learned that the companies didn’t delete data improperly shared by Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, a University of Cambridge psychology professor who obtained it through his app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” which used Facebook Login.
About 270,000 people downloaded the app, advertised as a research tool used by psychologists, giving their consent for Kogan to access information such as their location, content they had liked and limited data on friends whose privacy settings allowed access, Facebook said.
Although Kogan obtained the information legitimately, using the same techniques as other app developers on Facebook at the time, Facebook said he violated the company’s policies by sharing it with SCL, Cambridge Analytica and Christopher Wylie, a one-time Cambridge employee who exposed what had happened.
“Most of us understand that – whether we’re using Facebook or Google or other online services – we are trading certain information about ourselves for free or low-cost services,” said Sen. John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee. “For this model to persist, both sides of the bargain need to know the stakes involved. Right now, I’m not convinced that Facebook’s users have the information they need to make meaningful choices.”
While many lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, have been willing to defer in the past to tech companies’ efforts to regulate themselves that “may be changing,” Thune said.
