Mark Zuckerberg Failed To Answer US Lawmaker's Question On Facebook's Trust, Which Is Alarming
Mark Zuckerberg had a tough day at the office as he was grilled by US Congress representatives with regards to its new cryptocurrency venture Libra and its efficacy.
While the entire six-hour grill-fest wasn't too different from Zuckerberg's nervous April 2018 testimony, where he came across as a robot, the section pertaining to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was particularly shocking.
She asked some really daunting questions about political advertising and fact checks on Facebook which Zuckerberg failed to answer in any sort of assured manner whatsoever.
She spoke about Facebook's recent policy that allows politicians to spread disinformation. She asked if she could use the census data to target ads to black communities with falsified voting dates, to which Zuckerberg refused and stated that any ads that incite violence or could lead to voter suppression would be taken down.
However, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spun the situation in a different angle by asking Zuckerberg if she could run a fake news campaign targeting Republicans stating that they voted for her Green New Deal (This is a proposal by Ocasio-Cortez that presents a plan for tackling economic inequality and climate change problems). To this the Facebook CEO took a step back with uncertain replies stating that it will depend on various factors.
However, when she pushed it further stating that it was a simple yes/no answer, Zuckerberg stated that it would 'probably be OK'!
She further asked him, "You don't see a problem here with complete lack of fact-checking with regards to political ads?" To which Mark slyly responded, "Lying is bad. In a democratic society, people need to see for themselves whether the people they're voting for are liars."
This very statement indicates that while he considers lying as a bad thing, he is looking away from politicians paying him to lie on his platform and disinform people.
Now, this is quite ironic, considering, Zuckerberg claimed at this very session that people trusted Facebook and chose it to send personal messages, images, videos etc. with their loved ones. He feels the response will be similar when it comes to sending or receiving money on Facebook's platforms.
He stated in his opening remarks, "When it comes to Calibra, I know some people wonder whether we can be trusted to build payment services that protect consumers. We recognise our responsibility to provide people with all the protections they expect when they are sending and receiving payments online."
How does he expect its users to trust Facebook when it is clearly becoming the forefront of spreading and misleading its users through disinformation? It was even voted as the most untrusted brand by major tech giants in the US.
Would you trust Facebook with your money after what it has done and what it plans to do? Let us know in the comments below.
She asked some really daunting questions about political advertising and fact checks on Facebook which Zuckerberg failed to answer in any sort of assured manner whatsoever.
She spoke about Facebook's recent policy that allows politicians to spread disinformation. She asked if she could use the census data to target ads to black communities with falsified voting dates, to which Zuckerberg refused and stated that any ads that incite violence or could lead to voter suppression would be taken down.
However, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spun the situation in a different angle by asking Zuckerberg if she could run a fake news campaign targeting Republicans stating that they voted for her Green New Deal (This is a proposal by Ocasio-Cortez that presents a plan for tackling economic inequality and climate change problems). To this the Facebook CEO took a step back with uncertain replies stating that it will depend on various factors.
However, when she pushed it further stating that it was a simple yes/no answer, Zuckerberg stated that it would 'probably be OK'!
She further asked him, "You don't see a problem here with complete lack of fact-checking with regards to political ads?" To which Mark slyly responded, "Lying is bad. In a democratic society, people need to see for themselves whether the people they're voting for are liars."
This very statement indicates that while he considers lying as a bad thing, he is looking away from politicians paying him to lie on his platform and disinform people.
Now, this is quite ironic, considering, Zuckerberg claimed at this very session that people trusted Facebook and chose it to send personal messages, images, videos etc. with their loved ones. He feels the response will be similar when it comes to sending or receiving money on Facebook's platforms.
He stated in his opening remarks, "When it comes to Calibra, I know some people wonder whether we can be trusted to build payment services that protect consumers. We recognise our responsibility to provide people with all the protections they expect when they are sending and receiving payments online."
How does he expect its users to trust Facebook when it is clearly becoming the forefront of spreading and misleading its users through disinformation? It was even voted as the most untrusted brand by major tech giants in the US.
Would you trust Facebook with your money after what it has done and what it plans to do? Let us know in the comments below.
