🔰AOC grills Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica and campaign ads

It's good to see you, Mr. Zuckerberg. I think you, of all people, can appreciate using a person's past behavior in order to determine, predict, or make decisions about future behavior. In order for us to make decisions about Libra, I think we need to kind of dig into your past behavior and Facebook's past behavior with respect to our democracy. Mr. Zuckerberg, what year and month did you personally first become aware of Cambridge Analytica? I'm not sure of the exact time, but it was probably around the time when it became public. I think it was around March of 2018. I could be wrong, though. When did Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg become aware of Cambridge Analytica? I don't know off the top of my head. You don't know. Did anyone on your leadership team know about Cambridge Analytica prior to the initial report by The Guardian on December 11, 2015? Congresswoman, I believe so, in that some folks were tracking it internally. Actually, as you're asking this, I do think I was aware of Cambridge Analytica as an entity earlier. I don't know if I was tracking how they were using Facebook specifically. When was the issue discussed with your board member, Peter Thiel? Congresswoman, I don't know that off the top of my head. You don't know? This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company that had catastrophic impacts on the 2016 election. You don't know? Well, Congresswoman, I'm sure we discussed it after we were aware of what happened. You announced recently that the official policy of Facebook now allows politicians to pay to spread disinformation in 2020 elections and in the future. I just want to know how far I can push this in the next year. Under your policy, using census data as well, could I pay to target predominantly black zip codes and advertise them the incorrect election date? No, Congresswoman, you couldn't. We have, even for these policies around the newsworthiness of content that politicians say and the general principle that I believe that— But you said you're not going to fact-check my ads. We have—if anyone, including a politician, is saying things that can cause—that is calling for violence or could risk imminent physical harm or voter or census suppression when we roll out the census suppression policy, we will take that content down. So you will—there is some threshold where you will fact-check political advertisements. Is that what you're telling me? Well, Congresswoman, yes, for specific things like that where there's imminent risk of harm. Could I run ads targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal? Sorry, can you repeat that? Would I be able to run advertisements on Facebook targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal? I mean, if you're not fact-checking political advertisements, I'm just trying to understand the bounds here. What's fair game? I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head. So you don't know if I'll be able to do that. Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements? Well, Congresswoman, I think lying is bad. And I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie, that would be bad. That's different from it being—in our position, the right thing to do to prevent your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you had lied. So we can—so you won't take down lies or you will take down lies? I think that's just a pretty simple yes or no. Congresswoman— I'm not talking about spin. I'm talking about actual disinformation. Yes, in a democracy, I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for are saying because of their character for themselves. So you may flag that it's wrong, but you won't take it down. Congresswoman, it depends on the context that it shows up. Organic Post adds that the treatment is— One question. One more question. In your ongoing dinner parties with far-right figures, some of who advance the conspiracy theory that white supremacy is a hoax, did you discuss so-called social media bias against conservatives and do you believe there is a bias? Congresswoman, I don't remember everything that was in the question. That's all right. I'll move on. Can you explain why you've named the Daily Caller, a publication well-documented with ties to white supremacists, as an official fact-checker for Facebook? Congresswoman, sure. We actually don't appoint the independent fact-checkers. They go through an independent organization called the Independent Fact-Checking Network that has a rigorous standard for who they allow to serve as a fact-checker. So you would say that white supremacist-tied publications meet a rigorous standard for fact-checking? Thank you. Congresswoman, I would say that we're not the one assessing that standard. The International Fact-Checking Network is the one who is setting that standard. Get the latest up-to-the-minute market analysis, big interviews in the world of finance and information on how to manage your money every day, wherever you are.