Mark Zuckerberg Senate Testimony Highlights

(cameras flashing)

Facebook is an idealistic and optimistic company.

For most of our existence, we focused on

all of the good that connecting people can do.

And as Facebook has grown,

people everywhere have gotten a

powerful new tool for staying connected

to the people they love,

for making their voices heard

and for building communities and businesses.

But it's clear now that we didn't do enough

to prevent these tools for being used for harm as well.

And that goes for fake news,

for 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.

And it was my mistake.

And I'm sorry.

I started Facebook, I run it,

and I'm responsible for what happens here.

It's not enough to just connect people,

we have to make sure that those connections are positive.

It's not enough to just give people a voice.

We need to make sure that people aren't using it

to harm other people, or to spread misinformation.

It's not enough to just people control

over their information.

We need to make sure that the developers

they share it with protect their information too.

It will take some time to work through

all the changes we need to make across the company.

But I'm committed to getting this right.

Mr. Zuckerberg, I remember well your first visit

to Capitol Hill back in 2010.

You spoke to the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force

which I chair.

You said back then that Facebook would

always be free.

Is that still your objective?

Senator, yes.

There will always be a version of Facebook

that is free.

Mr. Zuckerberg, what is Facebook doing

to prevent foreign actors from interfering

in U.S. elections?

Thank you, Senator.

This is one of my top priorities in 2018

is to get this right.

One of my greatest regrets in running the company

is that we were slow in identifying

the Russian information operations in 2016.

Now, I have more confidence that we're gonna

get this right because since the 2016 election,

there have been several important elections

around the world, where we've had a better record.

Explain what is better about the record.

So we've deployed new A.I. tools

that do a better job of identifying fake accounts

that may be trying to interfere in elections

or spread misinformation.

And the nature of these attacks, though,

is that there are people in Russia

who's job it is is to try to exploit our systems

and other internet systems and other systems as well.

So this is an arms race.

They're gonna keep on getting better at this,

and we need to invest in keeping on

getting better at this, too.

Which is why one of the things I mentioned before is

we're gonna have more than 20 thousand people

by the end of this year

working on security and content review across the company.

[Senator] Mr. Zuckerberg,

would you be comfortable sharing with us

the name of the hotel you stayed in last night?

Um

(laughs)

No.

(audience laughs)

[Senator] If you've messaged anybody this week,

would you share with us the names of the people

you've messaged?

Senator, no, I would

probably not choose to do that publicly here.

I think that may be what this is all about.

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.

Mr. Zuckerberg,

quite a story, right?

Dorm room to the global behemoth that you guys are,

only in America, would you agree with that?

Senator, mostly in America.

[Senator] You couldn't do this in China, right?

What you did in 10 years.

Well, Senator, there are some very strong

Chinese internet companies.

Right, but,

you're supposed to answer yes to this question.

(audience laughs)

Okay?

Come on, I'm trying to help you, right?

I mean, give me a break,

you're in front of a bunch of

the answer's yes, okay?

So, thank you.

(audience laughs)

One of the key issues here is,

is Facebook too powerful?

Are you too powerful?

And do you think you're too powerful?

Senator, I think most of the time when people

talk about our scale,

they're referencing that we have

two billion people in our community.

And I think one of the big questions

that we need to think through here

is the vast majority of those two billion people

are outside of the U.S.

And I think that that's something that

to your point, that Americans should be proud of.

When I brought up the Chinese internet companies,

I think that that's a real,

a real strategic and competitive threat that

in American technology policy

[Senator] we should be thinking about. Let me get you

another point here real quick,

I don't want to interrupt but

when companies become big and powerful

and accumulate a lot of wealth, and power,

what typically happens from this body

is there's a instinct to either regulate,

or break up.

Right?

Look at the history of this nation.

You have any thoughts on those two

policy approaches?

Well, Senator,

I'm not the type of person who thinks that

all regulation is bad.

So, I think the internet is becoming increasingly

important in people's lives,

and I think we need to have a full conversation

about what is the right regulation,

not whether it should be or shouldn't be.

For years, Facebook said that there should be

strict limits on the information the government

can access on Americans.

And by the way, I agreed with you

that privacy, because privacy is important

to Nevadans.

You argued that Facebook users wouldn't trust you,

if they thought you were giving their private information

to the intelligence community.

Yet you use and sell the same data to make money.

And in the case of Cambridge Analytica,

you don't even know how it's used after you sell it.

Can you tell us why this isn't hypocritical?

Well, Senator, once again,

we don't sell any data to anyone.

We don't sell it to advertisers,

and we don't sell it to developers.

What we do allow is for people to sign into apps,

and bring their data and it used to be the data

of some of their friends but now it isn't

with them.

And that I think makes sense.

I mean that's basic data portability.

The ability that you own the data,

you should be able to take it from one app to another

if you'd like.

Do you believe you're more responsible

with millions of Americans' personal data

than the Federal Government would be?

Yes.

But, Senator, the

your point about surveillance,

I think that there's a very important distinction

to draw here.

Which is that, when organizations do surveillance,

people don't have control over that.

But on Facebook, everything that you share there,

you have control over.

You can say I don't want this information to be there.

You have full access to understand all

every piece of information that Facebook

might know about you,

and you can get rid of all of it.

And I don't know of any other

any surveillance organization in the world

that operates that way,

which is why I think that that comparison

just isn't really apt here.

One way to regulate a company is through competition,

through government regulation.

Here's the question that all of us gotta have answered.

What do we tell our constituents,

given what's happened here,

why we should let you self-regulate?

What would you tell people in South Carolina

that, given all of the things we just discovered here,

is a good idea for us to rely upon you to

regulate your own business practices?

Well, Senator, my position is not that there

should be no regulation.

I think the internet has increasingly

[Senator] Do you embrace regulation?

I think the real question, as the internet becomes

more important in people's lives,

is what is the right regulation,

not whether there should be or not.

[Senator] You as a company welcome regulation?

I think if it's the right regulation, then yes.

[Senator] Do you think the Europeans have it right?

I think that they get things right.

[Senator] Have you ever submitted

(audience laughs)

That's true.

So, would you work with us in terms of

what regulations you think are necessary in your industry?

Absolutely.