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(Bloomberg) – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's charming offensive in Washington seemed to ease tensions between the social media giant and US lawmakers who criticized his business practices.
Most lawmakers said their meetings with the CEO were productive, even as they called for new regulations for high-tech companies, which would improve user experience and industry competition.
"This was a positive and solid discussion about privacy," said Friday representative Greg Walden, a Republican from Oregon, after his meeting. "They pledged to work with Congress on a strong national law on the protection of privacy."
In addition to Walden, Zuckerberg also met Friday with House Leader Kevin McCarthy and Doug Collins, a Republican from Georgia on the Judiciary Committee. He met with Speaker of the House Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, and Speaker of the Judiciary Jerry Nadler, a Democrat whose committee is investigating the technology sector.
On Thursday, Zuckerberg met with President Donald Trump at the White House, according to a Facebook spokesman. Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, was present alongside Dan Scavino, the president's social media director, Bloomberg reported. Trump then tweeted that it was a "nice meeting".
Zuckerberg has spent the last three days defending Facebook's practices with some of his harshest critics, claiming that the company was not taking enough steps to prevent voter manipulation on the platform in anticipation of the day. the 2020 presidential election. They also criticize the company's handling of user data and the treatment of conservative voices on its platform.
On Friday, Facebook announced that it had suspended "tens of thousands" of third-party applications using the company's development tools as part of the company's review following the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal last year. . In response to the thorough review of his platform, Zuckerberg called for the adoption of basic regulations governing confidentiality and harmful content online.
The chances of a federal privacy law being passed before the end of 2020 remain low, even though Republicans and Democrats say they are negotiating the terms of any legislation.
Antitrust Panel
Zuckerberg met Nadler on Friday in New York as the Antitrust Judiciary Subcommittee examined competition issues in the technology sector. Last week, the panel sent a letter to Facebook for information on its acquisitions as well as communications from Zuckerberg and other leaders.
Democratic representative David Cicilline, chair of the committee's antitrust subcommittee, said he had had a "productive meeting" with Zuckerberg.
"It was an opportunity to reaffirm the bipartisan nature of the investigation – the fact that the President, myself and our Republican colleagues, are very united in this effort," said Cicilline. "Mr. Zuckerberg is committed to cooperating with the investigation."
& # 39; A wall & # 39;
A day earlier, Zuckerberg had a test exchange with Republican Senator Josh Hawley about his company's privacy and data protection record. Hawley told Zuckerberg that Facebook should be subject to independent audits of its content analytics and that there should be a "wall" between Facebook and its other platforms, and Zuckerberg said no.
"I told him," Prove that you're serious about data, sell WhatsApp and sell Instagram. "That's what they should do," Hawley told reporters after a meeting on Thursday. "I think it's safe to say that he was not receptive to these suggestions."
Zuckerberg's visit to the capital also included a dinner Wednesday with Virginia Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic's greatest Democrat Intelligence Committee, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, along with other lawmakers.
The executive did not seem to have met with government officials in charge of other investigations. The Federal Trade Commission has opened an antitrust investigation on the company and New York is leading a coalition of states as part of an extensive survey of the social media giant. In July, Facebook agreed to pay $ 5 billion to settle the FTC's claims that it violates users' privacy.
– With the help of Steven T. Dennis, Billy House and Daniel Flatley.
To contact the reporters on this story: Naomi Nix in Washington at [email protected], Daniel Stoller in Washington at [email protected], Rebecca Kern in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at [email protected], Steve Geimann, Laurie Asséo
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