Facebook shares rise sharply as Zuckerberg deters regulation talk

[webfact]

Facebook shares rise sharply as Zuckerberg deters regulation talk

By Dustin Volz and David Ingram

 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees joint hearing regarding the company’s use and protection of user data, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

 

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc <FB.O> shares posted their biggest daily gain in nearly two years on Tuesday as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg fended off questions from U.S. senators on how the world's largest social network might be regulated more closely.

 

Zuckerberg repeated apologies made on Monday for a range of problems that have beset Facebook, from data privacy to foreign attempts to influence U.S. elections, but the 33-year-old internet mogul managed to deter any specific talk about new laws and made no new promises.

 

"I’ll have my team follow up with you so that way we can have this discussion across the different categories where I think this discussion needs to happen," Zuckerberg told a joint hearing by the U.S. Senate's Commerce and Judiciary committees, when asked what regulations he thought were necessary.

 

He denied that Facebook, which has more than 2 billion monthly users across the world, was a monopoly. "It certainly doesn't feel that way to me," Zuckerberg said.

 

Wearing a dark suit and tie instead of his typical T-shirt and jeans, Zuckerberg appeared largely unruffled as senators questioned him. Investors welcomed his performance.

 

"Zuckerberg is conciliatory in his presentation," said Mariann Montagne, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments in Arden Hills, Minnesota. "The stock is running up on his comments. Maybe people like seeing Zuckerberg in a suit.”

 

Facebook shares closed up 4.5 percent at $165.04, their highest level in almost three weeks. It was their largest daily gain since April 28, 2016.

 

The shares fell steeply last month after it came to light that millions of users' personal information was harvested from Facebook by Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that has counted U.S. President Donald Trump's election campaign among its clients. The latest estimate of affected users is up to 87 million.

 

GRAPHIC: Facebook shares fly as Zuckerberg speaks -

 

 

CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE

 

That disclosure pitched Facebook into a crisis of confidence among users, advertisers, employees and investors who were already struggling with Facebook's reaction to fake news and its role in the 2016 election.

 

Facebook disclosed in September that Russians under fake names used the social network to try to influence U.S. voters in the months before and after the 2016 election, writing about inflammatory subjects, setting up events and buying ads.

 

“We believe it is entirely possible that there will be a connection there,” Zuckerberg said when asked if there was overlap between Cambridge Analytica’s harvested user data and the political propaganda pushed by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency during the 2016 presidential election, which Facebook has said was seen by some 126 million people.

 

In February, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible links between Russia and Trump's campaign, charged 13 Russians and three Russian companies with interfering in the election by sowing discord on social media.

 

On Tuesday, Zuckerberg said he believed Facebook employees have been interviewed by Mueller's office.

 

Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room in 2004, is fighting to prove to critics that he is the right person to go on leading what has grown into one of the world's largest companies.

 

On Friday, Zuckerberg threw his support behind proposed legislation requiring social media sites to disclose the identities of buyers of online political campaign ads.

 

(Reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington and David Ingram in San Francisco; Additional reporting by David Shepardson and Andy Sullivan in Washington, April Joyner and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Writing by Bill Rigby; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-04-11

[HLover]

Hello, I am rich beyond all of your wildest dreams.  In fact many of you use my product extensively.

You will do nothing. Back to my private jet now, ta ta.

 

- Zuck to Senate.

[ezzra]

This guy got the world by the balls, now he says, you don't want me to put advertisements on FB you have to pay me, so this guy, got all your life's details, chats, pictures, habits private information and now you have pay him to continue to use his product, and FB share keep going up....

Edited April 10, 2018 by ezzra

[HLover]

If he had a magical flute, he would strangely remind me of the Pied Piper.

Leading the rats/sheeple wherever the biggest advertising company wanted them to go/think/vote/eat...

 

[BuaBS]

It's easy for him with 2 billion brain dead morons hooked to his spyware.

[attrayant]

Orrin Hatch is a fossil and should have retired twenty years ago.

 

Quote

 

More notable were the questions senators asked, which were, at times, inconsistent or confused about basic topics.

 

“How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) asked Zuckerberg early on in the hearing.

“Senator, we run ads,” Zuckerberg replied.

 

 

It's terrifying that these are the people who craft the laws that govern our economy.

[Morch]

6 hours ago, ezzra said:

This guy got the world by the balls, now he says, you don't want me to put advertisements on FB you have to pay me, so this guy, got all your life's details, chats, pictures, habits private information and now you have pay him to continue to use his product, and FB share keep going up....

 

He doesn't have the "world by the balls". If FB was to disappear tomorrow, some other firm (or firms) will replace it. As for the advertisement vs. payment - other than ranting, what is your point? That FB is supposed to provide a free of charge service? Even TVF runs adds and collects data. The issue is more with proportions - how much personal data is kept and marketed to third  parties, how much advertisement and of which sort is included. 

 

I'm not keen on social media usage of personal data, and certainly there's a whole lot of things that need to be addressed. But whining about it to the extent that people expect it to be a pro bono thing, or failing to accept privacy matters on the internet are dodgy at best, is kinda lame.

 

Moreover, I don't think that ultimately things will get better on this front, but worse. This goes not just for FB, but pretty much to any instance or privacy. Maybe not right around the corner, but that's where it's headed alright.

[katana]

Not really sure I understand his stance here.
Facebook makes money by selling your private information, all gleaned by using their services, to 3rd parties. It's all hidden behind long legalese user agreements that the average user just clicks through without reading. Yet here Zuckerberg was at the senate yesterday presenting himself as some great protector of users' privacy, and claiming the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal was just some aberrant rogue 3rd party.

[EVENKEEL]

Zuckerberg also had to answer up why the right minded posters on FB were being unfairly discriminated against.

[Jonmarleesco]

Deters? Hardly. Deflects, possibly. But then, it should have little to nothing to do with Zuckerberg. He blew FB's chances of self-regulation; though the fox in charge of the chicken run always was a non-starter. Now it's time for all governments (the EU is already acting) to impose regulations, and to enforce them.

[Jonmarleesco]

12 hours ago, Morch said:

As for the advertisement vs. payment - other than ranting, what is your point? That FB is supposed to provide a free of charge service?

His point is that FB does charge for ads, then expects its users to pay to have them blocked.

[Morch]

8 hours ago, Jonmarleesco said:

His point is that FB does charge for ads, then expects its users to pay to have them blocked.

 

That's hardly an unheard of business model. Premium subscription giving extra benefits (such as blocked ads) is nothing new.