Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg protects his privacy, not ours

Mark Zuckerberg hesitated when asked whether he would be comfortable disclosing the people he has messaged this week.

The media crowd closes in on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg before his testimony to senators in Washington yesterday. Picture: AP

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took a painfully long pause before answering a question that goes to the heart of the problem inside a huge leak of personal information from the ­social media giant.

Asked whether he would mind sharing aloud the name of the hotel where he stayed in Washington on Monday night, or whether he would be comfortable disclosing the names of the people he has messaged this week, Mr Zuckerberg failed for the first time to give an immediate answer.

“Um,” he said before a seven-second pause and a nervous chuckle. “Um, no. I would probably not choose to do that publicly here.”

“I think that may be what this is all about,” Democrat senator Dick Durbin said. “Your right to privacy. The limits of your right to privacy. And how much you give away in modern America in the name of, quote, connecting people around the world.”

It was the most telling moment during almost five hours of questioning from US politicians who appeared uncomfortable with the $US477 billion company’s failure to police abuses on its platform.

After a nervous start, Mr Zuckerberg appeared confident and ­answered questions directly while sitting on a 10cm-thick booster cushion during his first appearance before congress. Clad in a navy suit and blue tie, the 170cm-tall Facebook CEO’s performance even helped bolster his stock, adding $US2.8bn to his $US64bn fortune. Facebook shares were up 2.5 per cent before his testimony began and ended the day 4.5 per cent higher at $US165.04, adding $US21bn to the company’s market value. It was the biggest daily percentage gain since April 2016, after falling almost 11 per cent over the past month.

Mr Zuckerberg faced almost five hours of questions.

The first of two back-to-back hearings before congressional committees was called after it emerged last month that the personal information of 87 million people was improperly harvested from Facebook and passed to Cambridge Analytica, the market research firm tied to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

John Thune, the Republican chairman of the Senate commerce committee, said Washington had been “willing to defer to tech companies” on regulating their own platforms but “this may be changing”.

“You and the company you have created ... represent the American dream,” he said. “At the same time, you have an obligation to ensure that that dream doesn’t become a privacy nightmare for the scores of people that use Facebook.”

Democrat Bill Nelson said: “If Facebook and other online companies will not, or cannot fix the privacy invasions, then we are going to have to, we the congress.”

Mr Zuckerberg admitted that the company had made a “lot of mistakes”. “We need to take a more proactive view in policing the ecosystem,” he said. “At the end of the day, people will measure us by our results on this. I don’t expect anything I say today will change people’s view.”

Some of the harshest criticism came from senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat. “What happened here was in effect wilful blindness — it was heedless and reckless,” he said. “We’ve seen these apology tours before. You have refused to acknowledge even an ethical obligation to have reported this violation.”

Mr Zuckerberg’s appearance before more than 40 senators came after weeks of preparation, and it appeared to pay off. As he calmly answered questions, Facebook was informing 87 million people worldwide whether their personal data was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, including 311,129 Australia-based users. The leaks prompted the Australian privacy commissioner to open an investigation. Among the victims was Garrett Cummins, of Adelaide, who said the violation confirmed his ­already low opinion of the social media network.

“I was just about to delete Messenger as Facebook admitted that our private messages are also being read,” Mr Cummins said.

Despite being a cautious user of the platform, and having taken steps to protect his privacy on Facebook, including turning off location-based services, his ­efforts were thwarted through no fault of his own.

“I was informed that my information (may) have been disclosed because of a third-party app that someone on my friends list was using,” he said. “Facebook banned that app. I do not trust Facebook at all.”

Mr Cummins said his concerns with Facebook went beyond the Cambridge Analytica incident. He was also unimpressed with Facebook’s permissive stance on “hate groups” using the network while “banning groups that speak up” against ­racism.

Sydney academic Sandra Peter watched the entire hearing, and was underwhelmed partly because every senator was limited to less than five minutes.

Mr Zuckerberg had tried to run the clock down, she said, by talking about “philosophy”, “community” and other high-minded pursuits.

“Most of the answers he gave we have seen in formats in other speeches he has given. I don’t think it went to the fundamental questions around Facebook’s business model,” said Dr Peter, the director of Sydney Business Insights at the University of Sydney Business School.

“He didn’t address how the underlying problem isn’t necessarily companies like Cambridge Analytica, but rather the business model. Facebook is predicated on monetising in some shape or form the data that they have on you. They may not be selling data ­directly to the advertiser, but they are selling access. Facebook is the broker.

“As long as they skirt around that problem, I don’t think we’re going to get any real answers. Zuckerberg also hasn’t answered questions on how they track users across the internet.”