Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, reiterated his apology April 10 and assured US senators that the social network was trying to change as a result of misappropriation of data of tens of millions of users.
The 33-year-old Internet mogul was auditioned for nearly five hours on April 10 by two Senate commissions, Trade and Justice, and had to speak out on a variety of topics, ranging from the way Facebook has managed the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign on the right to privacy through hate speech. "We are going through a great philosophical change in society," said Zuckerberg, dressed for the occasion with a dark suit and tie instead of his usual T-shirt and jeans.
The boss of Facebook has contended that with its two billion users, the Californian company is in a situation of global monopoly. "It's certainly not what I feel," he said. Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that he and his team of experts were open to discussion, an attitude that appealed to investors - the Facebook action has marked its strongest growth in two years, jumping 4.5% - but who has not raised all the questions. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transport, warned the boss of the social network against the consequences of his failures. "In the past, many of my colleagues on both sides of the congregation were willing to let technology companies do self-regulation, but that could change," he warned.
Against stricter regulations
Zuckerberg notably argued that stricter regulation could complicate the creation of new start-ups, while acknowledging that Facebook's response was not up to the challenges. With a time limited to 5 minutes, like the other 43 elected officials attending the hearing, Kamala Harris, a senator from the State of California where Facebook has its headquarters, insisted on whether the company intended to inform users siphoning their personal data.
She was not convinced by the answer: "Mark Zuckerberg's inability to answer several crucial questions during his appearance before the Senate today did not remove my doubts about the value Facebook places on trust. and transparency, "she wrote on Twitter. The social network is in turmoil since a whistleblower revealed in mid-March that the data of 50 million of its users had been diverted to the benefit of Cambridge Analytica, a British firm of political counsel who worked for Donald Trump in particular. during the last presidential campaign in the United States.
On April 4, Facebook itself has revised upwards the number of users affected, to 87 million. Added to this are the suspicions of the use of the social network by Russia to influence the US presidential election of November 2016. Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in 2004 while at Harvard, tries to prove to his critics that he must remain at the helm of what has become one of the largest companies on the planet. To this end, he supported a bill on 7 April requiring social media to reveal the identity of online election campaigners. He made no new announcement on April 10, however. Zuckerberg's political marathon is not over, as he will be auditioned again in Congress on April 11, this time by the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.