Mark Zuckerberg hearing: 'It was my mistake. And I'm sorry.'
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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced more than five hours of questions from the joint Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees over the privacy and the use of citizen's data..
The long-awaited showdown – one of the first times that Mr Zuckerberg has spoken publicly since a data scandal hit – saw nearly half the US Senate, 44 legislators, interrogate Mr about an issue that threatens to permanently damage the site he co-founded.
Mr Zuckerberg agreed to testify in Congress after revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm affiliated with Donald Trump's presidential campaign, was sold access to personal information from 87 million Facebook users. Cambridge Analytica denies any laws were broken
In his testimony, Mr Zuckerberg disclosed that his company is “working with” special counsel Robert Mueller in the federal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign — and working hard to change its own policies.
“We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake," he said. "It was my mistake, and I'm sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens here.”
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Mr Zuckerberg apologised for his company's errors in failing to better protect the personal information of its millions of users, a controversy that has brought a flood of bad publicity and sent the company's stock value plunging. However, as he answered questions, Facebook shares surged and closed up 4.5 per cent for the day, the biggest gain in two years.
Mr Zuckerberg said it had been “clearly a mistake” to believe the data-mining company Cambridge Analytica had deleted user data that it had - although Analytica said on Tuesday that it had deleted all the data. Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook had considered the data collection “a closed case” because it thought the information had been discarded and therefor that is why it did not inform users when it became aware of the data use in 2015.
The Facebook founder said the company is going through “a broader philosophical shift in how we approach our responsibility.” He said the company needs to take a “more proactive role” that includes ensuring the tools it creates are used in “good and healthy” ways.
He denied that Facebook, which has more than two billion monthly users across the world, was a monopoly. “It certainly doesn't feel that way to me,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
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The billionaire appeared mostly comfortable with the questioning, with some senators struggling with some aspects of the technology. Although Mr Zuckerberg was at points to point out repeatedly that Facebook "does not sell" advertising and that users "have full control" over the data they provide.
Asked about the prospect of regulation, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mr Zuckerberg said that his company would back "the right regulation".
Mr Graham asked whether the company "would work" with Congress to craft that regulation, to which Mr Zuckerberg replied: “Absolutely.”
"It’s not enough to just connect people, we have to make sure those connections are positive. It’s not enough to just give people a voice, we have to make sure people aren’t using it to hurt people or spread misinformation. It’s not enough to give people control of their information, we have to make sure developers they’ve given it to are protecting it too. Across the board, we have a responsibility to not just build tools, but to make sure those tools are used for good. It will take some time to work through all of the changes we need to make, but I’m committed to getting it right.
"That includes improving the way we protect people’s information and safeguard elections around the world."
He has changed up some things from his written statement that was published by the committees yesterday.
His big takeaway message is:
“My top priority has always been our social mission of connecting people, building community and bringing the world closer together,” Mr Zuckerberg says. “Advertisers and developers will never take priority over that as long as I’m running Facebook.”
Cambridge Analytica just responded on Twitter to claims that it hacked people's Facebook data, saying that it has instructed its lawyers to go after any media making false claims.
Mr Zuckerberg has said that he and other tech companies have struggled with reducing what will be a full legal document to something readable when talking about privacy issues. As they know users are unlikely to read a long document.
Mr Zuckerberg has said that Facebook asked the companies involved in the recent data scandal to delete the data and said the companies had told them they did.
They said it was a mistake and they should have followed up. In answer to a question about advising users and the FCC, Mr Zuckerberg said they didn't as they considered it a "closed case" as they had been told the data had been deleted.
Senator Nelson didn’t appear to fully understand Facebook’s business model. He insists the only way for the social network to make money is either through its data-based ad platform that serves targeted ads, or through a paid service.
Mr Zuckerberg explains that users are already able to opt out of data-based ads without having to pay for Facebook. His company still makes money from these users, albeit less, through non-targeted ads.
You will rightfully have hard questions for me to answer. Before I talk about the steps we taking to address them, I want to talk about how we got here.
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, feel -- people have gotten is powerful new tool for staying connected to people they love and recently we’ve seen the #metoo movement and after hurricane Harvey, people came to the and 70 million small businesses used Facebook to create jobs and grow.
But it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools for being used as harm as well. That goes for fake news, for interference in elections and 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. So now we have to go through our -- all of our relationship with people and make sure we’re taking a broad enough view of our responsibility. It’s not enough to just connect people. We have to make sure those connections are positive. It’s not enough to give people a voice. We have to make sure people aren’t using it to harm people or spread disinformation.
Across the board we have a responsibility to not just build tools but to make sure that they’re used for good. It will take some time to work through all the changes but I’m committed to getting this right. Here are a few things that we are doing to address this and to prevent it from happening again.
First, we’re getting to the bottom of exactly what Cambridge Analytica did and telling everyone affected. What we know now is that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed information by buying it.
When we first contacted Cambridge Analytica, they told us they had deleted the data. About a month ago, we heard new reports that suggested that wasn’t true. Now we’re working with governments in the US, the UK And around the world to do a full audit of what they’ve done and make sure they get rid of any data they may still have.
Second, to make sure no other app developers out there are misusing data, we’re investigating every app and to prevent this from going forward, we’re making sure they can’t access as much information now. The good news is we already made big changes in our platform in 2014 that would have prevented this specific situation with Cambridge Analytica from occurring again today.
But there’s more to do. You can find more details on the steps we’re taking in my written statement. My top priority has always been our social mission of connecting people, building community and bringing the world closer together.
Advisers and developers will never take priority over that as long as I am running Facebook. I started Facebook when I was in college. We’ve come a long way since then. We now serve more than two billion people around the world, and every day people use our services to stay connected to the people that matter to them most. I believe deeply in what we are doing and I know that when we address these challenges, we’ll look back and view helping people connect and giving more people a voice as a positive force in the world.
I realise the issues we’re talking about today aren’t just issues for Facebook in our community, they’re issues and challenges for all of us as Americans. Thank you for having me here today. I’m ready to take your questions.
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