OTHERS :On Wednesday, Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg returned to Capitol Hill for a second round of testimony in front of lawmakers that lasted well over four hours.Tuesday’s hearing before the US senate stretched for over five hours.Facebook has been consumed by turmoil for nearly a month, since it came to light that millions of users’ personal information was wrongly harvested from the website by Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that has counted US President Donald Trump’s election campaign among its clients. The latest estimate of affected users is up to 87 million.Here are highlights from Day 2 of Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the US Congress:
Mark Zuckerberg completes US testimony in Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal
A few closing points from Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony on Wednesday:â– Mark Zuckerberg says company has not seen activity by Russia or China to scrape Facebook data.â– Zuckerberg says Facebook’s audits of data harvesting by outside apps will take ‘many months’ to complete.â– Zuckerberg says he does not know when Facebook will launch new European privacy controls, says “we’re working on it”.â– Zuckerberg tells US Congress that Facebook cannot stop all unlawful ads, but it needs to be more ‘proactive’ to take down unlawful opioid ads, will work on automated software. Reuters
Zuckerberg asked if lack of diversity hobbled Facebook on Russia
Lawmakers’ questions for Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday included whether a lack of diversity among Facebook Inc. workers left the social media giant blind to Russian attempts to inflame minority groups during the 2016 US presidential election.“I’m concerned that there are not eyes that are culturally competent looking at these things,” said Representative Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat. She asked whether “the lack of diversity—culturally competent personnel in your C-suite and throughout your organization”—kept Facebook from detecting Russian attempts to incite racial and religious divisions.“I agree that we need to work on diversity,” Zuckerberg replied. “In this specific case I don’t think that that was the issue.” Facebook was “‘frankly slow” in identifying “the whole Russian information operation and not just that specific example,” he said. Bloomberg
Snippets from Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony on Day 2 of his hearing
â– Zuckerberg says Facebook keeps logs of users’ web browsing ‘temporarily’ to find out interests for ad targeting.â– Zuckerberg declines to say if he disagrees with any parts of European privacy law, says “i need to think about that”.â– Zuckerberg says Facebook has 200 people working on counterterrorism.â– Zuckerberg says he would want to get people’s consent before using facial recognition for non-Facebook users.Reuters
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook collects internet data on non-users
Mark Zuckerberg, under stern questioning by US House lawmakers about the social network’s privacy practices, said Facebook Inc. does collect digital information on consumers who aren’t registered as users, acknowledging something that has been reported but not publicly spelled out by the company.“In general we collect data on people who are not signed up for Facebook for security purposes,” Zuckerberg said Wednesday in a hearing in Washington before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.Representative Ben Lujan, a Democrat from New Mexico, asked Zuckerberg how many data points Facebook has on each user. The 33-year-old CEO replied that his team would need to get back to the congressman. Bloomberg
No Facebook data storage in Russia: Mark Zuckerberg
In a revelation that reduces Moscos’s potential access to data, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during Day 2 of his testimony said that the social media firm doesn’t store any data in Russia. He later added that his social media is “not collecting data from verbal conversations”. Reuters
Zuckerberg on Facebook’s ad policy
Mark Zuckerberg tells US Congress that Facebook cannot stop all unlawful ads, in response to questions on painkiller ads. “Facebook will take down unlawful opioid ads ‘if people flag those ads for us,” he said.“Even 20,000 people reviewing it (ads) can’t look at everything”, he added. Reuters
Cambridge Analytica’s Alexander Tayler resigns as acting CEO
Cambridge Analytica on Wednesday said Alexander Tayler Has resigned as acting CEO of the data firm. Tayler will resume former position as chief data officer in order to focus on the various technical investigations and inquiries. Reuters
EU says ‘thanks Mr Zuckerberg’ for highlighting new data rules
Brussels: The European Union (EU) on Wednesday thanked Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg for highlighting the bloc’s tough new data protection rules after he said the social media giant planned to follow them during grilling by US lawmakers.The Facebook CEO, however, says he does not know when the social media firm will launch new European privacy controls, “We’re working on it.”The EU’s justice and consumer commissioner Vera Jourova said it was “only good news” that Zuckerberg had acknowledged Facebook planned to follow the bloc’s strict new rules worldwide.“I was really desperate about thinking how to make the best possible campaign for GDPR so now this is well done, so thank you Mr Zuckerberg,” Jourova told reporters in Brussels. “His declaration that they want to expand our European rules globally, it’s only good news, it sounds very nice to me.” AFP
Facebook users now being told if data taken: Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says users whose personal information was obtained by Cambridge Analytica are being informed, starting this week. Zuckerberg told a lawmaker during his appearance Wednesday he believes the notices about Cambridge Analytica’s possession of their information began going out Monday.Facebook has set up a page where any Facebook user can check to see if Cambridge Analytica vacuumed up any of their information. Zuckerberg told Congress that the firm got some of his information. AP
Zuckerberg on adding an African American on Facebook management
Mark Zuckerberg told the Congress “this is an important issue” when asked if he will add an African American to facebook management. Reuters
Facebook data audits to take months to complete: Zuckerberg
Facebook’s audits of data harvesting by outside apps will take ‘many months’ to complete, says CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his testimony over the Cambridge Analytica scnadal. Reuters
Facebook shares slump
Facebook shares hit fresh session low of $163.30 on second day of testimony by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The stock recovered to $164.57 as CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress for a second day. Facebook surged during the first part of his testimony on Tuesday afternoon and finished the day with a gain of 4.5%, its best in almost two years. The stock is down about 11% since the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal broke in mid-March. Reuters
Regulation of social media industry ‘inevitable’, says Zuckerberg
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he believes it is “inevitable” that there will be regulation of his industry.Lawmakers in both parties have floated possible regulation of Facebook and other social media companies amid privacy scandals and Russian intervention on the platform. It’s not clear what that regulation would look like.Zuckerberg said at a House hearing Wednesday that it is “inevitable that there will be some sort of regulation”, but he warned that lawmakers should be careful in what they propose. He noted that larger companies like Facebook have more resources to comply with regulations than small startups. AP
Mark Zuckerberg says his own data was included in Cambridge Analytica breach
Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, during his testimony on Wednesday, told lawmakers that his own personal data was included in that of 87 million or so Facebook users that was improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.He was answering a question from Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat from California.But he pushed back on congress members’ suggestions that users do not have enough control of their data on Facebook in the wake of the data scandal at the world’s largest social media network.“Every time that someone chooses to share something on Facebook ... there is a control. Right there. Not buried in the settings somewhere but right there,” Zuckerberg told the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. Reuters
Day 2 of Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony begins
A house hearing examining the company’s privacy policies and the role Facebook played as Russians intervened in the 2016 election has begun. Zuckerberg testified for around five hours in a Senate hearing on Tuesday.In that hearing, Zuckerberg apologized several times for Facebook failures and disclosed that his company was “working with” special counsel Robert Mueller in the federal probe of Russian election interference. He also said Facebook was working hard to change its own operations after the harvesting of users’ private data by a data-mining company affiliated with Donald Trump’s campaign.
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