Facebook's Zuckerberg to meet with U.S. lawmakers Monday - sources

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Facebook's Zuckerberg to meet with U.S. lawmakers Monday - sources

By David Shepardson

 

FILE PHOTO: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, appears on stage during a town hall at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 27, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg will hold meetings with some U.S. lawmakers on Monday, a day before he is due to appear at Congressional hearings over a political consultancy's use of customer data, two congressional aides said on Sunday.

 

The planned meetings at Capitol Hill are expected to continue through Monday afternoon and include some lawmakers from committees before whom Zuckerberg is due to testify, said the aides, who asked not to be identified because the meetings have not been made public.

Facebook declined to comment.

 

Zuckerberg is scheduled to appear before a joint hearing of the U.S. Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees on Tuesday and the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

 

Facebook has come under fire in recent weeks after it said that the personal information of up to 87 million users, mostly in the United States, may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

 

A Facebook spokesman said on Sunday that the company plans to begin telling affected users on Monday.

 

London-based Cambridge Analytica, which has counted U.S. President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign among its clients, has disputed Facebook's estimate of the number of affected users.

 

Zuckerberg is expected in his testimony to recognise a need to take responsibility and acknowledge an initial failure to understand how many people were affected, a person briefed on the matter, who asked for anonymity, said on Sunday.

 

Zuckerberg said in a conference call with reporters last week that he accepted blame for the data leak, which has angered users, advertisers and lawmakers, while also saying he was still the right person to head the company he founded.

 

On Friday, Facebook backed proposed legislation requiring social media sites to disclose the identities of buyers of online political campaign ads and introduced a new verification process for people buying "issue" ads.

 

The steps are designed to deter the kind of election meddling and online information warfare that U.S. authorities have accused Russia of pursuing, Zuckerberg said on Friday. Moscow has denied the allegations.

 

In February, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russians and three Russian companies with interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by sowing discord on social media.

 

Zuckerberg, on the call with reporters, said Facebook should have done more to audit and oversee third-party app developers like the one hired by Cambridge Analytica in 2014.

 

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-04-09

[lannarebirth]

I'm not sure what the issue is. Isn't it indeed Facebook's business model to collect as much information on their users as is possible and then sell it on for whatever the market will bear? Didn't everyone fail to read the contract when clicking "I Agree".

 

I mean they sell it to predatory lenders, reverse mortgage peddlers, whoever will pay. Didn't everyone know that already and aren't there many many more companies just like them doing the same thing? I show there are 8 such trackers collecting information of this site's users.

[BuriramSam]

23 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

I'm not sure what the issue is. Isn't it indeed Facebook's business model to collect as much information on their users as is possible and then sell it on for whatever the market will bear? Didn't everyone fail to read the contract when clicking "I Agree".

 

I mean they sell it to predatory lenders, reverse mortgage peddlers, whoever will pay. Didn't everyone know that already and aren't there many many more companies just like them doing the same thing? I show there are 8 such trackers collecting information of this site's users.

I am amazed at how many people complain about this. Given Facebook is free to users, anyone with a 3-digit IQ can deduce they are getting revenue from ads and selling user data. A person who doesn't understand this should stay of the internet.

 

That said, I do find it interesting Cambridge Analytica is pretty much the sole focus here. Trump is certainly not the first presidential candidate to use Facebook data for campaigning purposes.

[4evermaat]

I think it is more of an issue of which type of information they are allowed to collect and which ones they shared. Myself I keep social media info to a minimum.

Sent from my LDN-LX2 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[janclaes47]

19 minutes ago, BuriramSam said:

That said, I do find it interesting Cambridge Analytica is pretty much the sole focus here. Trump is certainly not the first presidential candidate to use Facebook data for campaigning purposes.

 

When the lefties don't succeed in blaming the Russians for their loss, they need another to blame for their own failure, and that will Facebook then.

[Morch]

22 minutes ago, janclaes47 said:

 

When the lefties don't succeed in blaming the Russians for their loss, they need another to blame for their own failure, and that will Facebook then.

 

Allow me to doubt you'd feel the same had circumstances been reversed.

[geriatrickid]

25 minutes ago, janclaes47 said:

 

When the lefties don't succeed in blaming the Russians for their loss, they need another to blame for their own failure, and that will Facebook then.

Are you aware that  some of the most vociferous voices urging caution are bonafide conservatives? The concerns are justified.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/19/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-met-with-conservatives-over-the-trending-bias-spat.html

Privacy and the protection of personal information are core conservative values.

"Lefties" who are speaking up share the same views as conservatives when it comes to privacy issues. "Liberals" and " Conservatives" are on the same page.

 

[Ralf61]

52 minutes ago, BuriramSam said:

Given Facebook is free to users, anyone with a 3-digit IQ can deduce they are getting revenue from ads and selling user data.

No one with a 3-digit IQ uses Facebook...

[lannarebirth]

27 minutes ago, janclaes47 said:

 

When the lefties don't succeed in blaming the Russians for their loss, they need another to blame for their own failure, and that will Facebook then.

I don't blame lefties or the Russians. I blame the government that is supposed to regulate such practices. Facebook's lobbyists are undoubtedly former government regulators. There's the problem.

[lannarebirth]

3 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

Are you aware that  some of the most vociferous voices urging caution are bonafide conservatives? The concerns are justified.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/19/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-met-with-conservatives-over-the-trending-bias-spat.html

Privacy and the protection of personal information are core conservative values.

"Lefties" who are speaking up share the same views as conservatives when it comes to privacy issues. "Liberals" and " Conservatives" are on the same page.

 

 

That is so. It is the mainstrem that is increasingly out of touch with historical American values. A good book on the subject:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Emerging-Left-Right-Dismantle-Corporate/dp/156858525X

[RobFord]

Loveable Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called his first few thousand users "dumb <deleted>" for trusting him with their data, published IM transcripts show. Facebook hasn't disputed the authenticity of the transcript.

 

The exchange apparently ran like this:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb <deleted>

 

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/facebook_trust_dumb/

Edited April 9, 2018 by RobFord
Added Quote

[SOTIRIOS]

...so...breaking the law....and profiting from it.....can now be excused with an apology...???

 

....and an explanation as to how...in fact...nobody is to blame...???

 

...society has definitely been ....dumbed down....

 

....with mainstream media....and social media...ruling their lives....

 

...it all started with the fictitious tale of the inception of Facebook...which was made into a movie...

 

[lannarebirth]

14 hours ago, lannarebirth said:

I don't blame lefties or the Russians. I blame the government that is supposed to regulate such practices. Facebook's lobbyists are undoubtedly former government regulators. There's the problem.

More in that vein:

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-bill-nelson-meet-hearing-congress-2018-4