More to add to the Facebook drama. Zuckerberg House Hearing: Opioids, Data Privacy, Diamond and Silk, Paying users for their data.

So, the house hearing brought a couple things into the table. I won't talk about the Cambridge Analytica scandal or the Russian Meddling topics, as they're not the subject of this post. I'll be pretty straight about what I percieved from them:

• Facebook by omission enables illegal online pharmacies to sell drugs without requiring prescription from buyers.

So, they enforce their AI, algorithms and their 20,000 people staff, to shut down conservative leaning content "by mistake", but then, after Rep. McKinley addresses this issue, Zuck tries to justify it:

ZUCKERBERG: Congressman, I agree that this is a terrible issue, and, respectfully, when there are tens of billions or 100 billion pieces of content that are shared every day, even 20,000 people reviewing it can't look at everything.

What we need to do is build more A.I. tools that can proactively find that content.

But A.I. tools work perfect tracking right leaning content. Interesting.

• Facebook is not really interested to be crystal clear about how to manage your own content. Read the transcript below:

PALLONE: So just let me ask you three quick questions. And I'm going to ask you to answer yes or no, because of the time. Yes or no: Is Facebook limiting the amount or type of data Facebook itself collects or uses?

ZUCKERBERG: Congressman, yes. We limit a lot of the data that we collect and use.

PALLONE: But, see, I — I don't see that in the announcements you've made. Like, you've made all these announcements the last few days about the changes you're going to make. And I don't really see how that — how those announcements or changes limit the amount or type of data that Facebook collects or uses in an effective way.

But let me go to the second one. Again, this is my concern — that users currently may not know or take affirmative action to protect their own privacy. Yes or no: Is Facebook changing any user default settings to be more privacy-protective?

ZUCKERBERG: Congressman, yes. In — in response to these issues, we've changed a lot of the way that our platform works, so, that way, developers can't get access to as much information.

PALLONE: But see, again, I don't see that in — in the changes you — that you propose. I don't really see any way that these user default settings — you're changing these user default settings in a way that is going to be more privacy protection. But let me — protective.

But let me go to the third one. Yes or no: Will you commit to changing all user default settings to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, the collection and user — and use of users' data? Can you make that commitment?

ZUCKERBERG: Congressman, we try to collect and — and give people the ability...

(CROSSTALK)

PALLONE: But I'd like you to answer yes or no, if you could. Will you make the commitment to change all the user — to changing all the user default settings to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, the collection and use of users' data?

That's — I don't think that's hard for you to say yes to, unless I'm missing something.

ZUCKERBERG: Congressman, this is a complex issue that I think is — deserves more than a one-word answer.

PALLONE: Well, again, that's disappointing to me, because I think you should make that commitment. And maybe what we could do is follow up with you on this, if possible — if that's okay. We can do that follow-up?

ZUCKERBERG: Yes.

PALLONE: All right.

So, when you sign up to Facebook, there's indeed an option of who to show everything you post. But there's no mention on specifics on how they use your info in a way that you are targeted to see ads on the platform:

There should be an option to state if you want your information to be used by Facebook in a way to receive advertising based on your interests from the beginning. Of course for Zuck this is a complex issue. Most of his business model relies on that. The same topic was addressed by Rep. Eshoo:

ESHOO: Was your data included in the data sold to the malicious third parties? Your personal data?

ZUCKERBERG: Yes.

ESHOO: It was.

Are you willing to change your business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy?

ZUCKERBERG: Congresswoman, we are — have made and are continuing to make changes to reduce the amount of...

ESHOO: No, are you willing to change your business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy?

ZUCKERBERG: Congresswoman, I'm not sure what that means.

Of course he knows. He's just avoiding to answer the question.

• The "Diamond and Silk" case:

What amazes me is that Zuck still doesn't commit to ensure that Facebook is a neutral platform:

BARTON: Well, Facebook does tremendous good. When — when I met you in my office, eight years ago — you don't remember that. But I've got a picture of you when you had curly hair and Facebook had 500 million users. Now, it's got over 2 billion. That's a success story in — in anybody's book.

It's such an integral part of, certainly, young Americans' lives that you need to work with Congress and the community to ensure that it is a neutral, safe and, to the largest extent possible, private platform. Do you agree with that?

ZUCKERBERG: Congressman, I do agree that we should work to give people the fullest free expression that is possible. That's what — when I talk about giving people a voice, that's what I care about.

"The fullest free expression that is possible". Who gets to dictate that? That's a legitimate question, isn't it?

• Facebook's 2012 experiment reveals how they could build a happy experience by manipulating the news feed.:

First of all, back in 2012, apparently, Facebook did an experiment on 689,003 Facebook users. You reduced positive posts from users' friends and limited so-called "downer" (ph) posts from other friends. They see (ph) -- fed positive information to one group, and, another group, negative information.

The goal was to see how the tone of these posts would affect behavior. I look at (ph) this Forbes article, the L.A. Times, about un-legal -- illegal human experimentation without permission. I want to (ph) talk about that.

It seems that this is disconnecting people, in stark contrast to your mission to connect people. Explain to us how you guys thought this idea was a good idea -- experimenting with people, giving them more negative information, positive information.

ZUCKERBERG: Well, Congressman, I view our responsibility as not just building services that people like to use, but making sure that those services are also good for people and good for society overall.

At the time, there were a number of questions about whether people seeing content that was either positive or negative on social networks was affecting their mood.

And we felt like we had a responsibility to understand whether that was the case, because we don't want to have that effect, right? We don't want to have it so that -- we want use of social media and our products to be good for people's wellbeing.

I mean, we continually make changes to -- to that effect, including, just recently, this year, we did a number of research projects that showed that when social media is used for building relationships -- and so when you're interacting with people, it's associated with a lot of positive effects of -- of well-being that you'd expect. It -- it makes you feel more connected, less lonely, it correlates with long term measures of happiness and health.

Whereas if you're using social media or the internet just to passively consume content, then that doesn't have those same positive effects or can even be negative. So we've tried to shift the product more towards helping people interact with friends and family as a result of that. So that's the kind of -- an example of the kind of work that we -- that we do.

Well, it seems to be that any conservative/right leaning content makes people sad, according to them.

• "Why doesn't Facebook pay its users for their incredibly valuable data?". According to Rep. Tonko. (D-NY), this question was asked by one of his constituents:

Well, this is a golden opportunity for us. If people are saying this already, we have to do a better job spreading our voice about the advantages of decentralized social media, in a way to avoid censorship by the Silicon Valley tyrants.

What do you think about it? Tell us in the comments below!

View Full Transcript of the Hearing

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