Lawmakers must ask Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tough questions, extract pledges, threaten regulation, and press him to change his business model.
Reclusive Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s week of reckoning is here. He’ll finally face questions from Congress about his company’s negligence in allowing Cambridge Analytica to filch personal data on as many as 87 million Facebook subscribers without their assent — and use the information to boost the electoral fortunes of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
For far too long, Zuckerberg has relied upon legions of surrogates, underlings, flacks and a blizzard of apologetic press releases to shield him from accountability. The burden is now on three Senate and House committees to press home the attack on his elaborately crafted image that he is nothing more than a humble coder who cares more about lavishing billions of dollars on worthy causes than selling ad space on his platform.
Zuckerberg will certainly shed the gray T-shirt of humility for the occasion. In written testimony, he has already offered statements of repentance and vowed to do better in the future. But the committee members cannot let him off the hook. In the past, they have proved themselves willing to mercilessly grill business executives, high-level political appointees and lobbyists, and to wring significant confessions from them. That’s what they should do this week.
In 2005, Republican John McCain of Arizona used his chairmanship of the relatively minor Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to expose the fraudulent licensing of casinos by officials of the Interior Department as part of the broader investigation into the machinations of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Before that there was Rep. Henry Waxman’s 1994 interrogation of tobacco company executives. The California Democrat challenged their claim that cigarettes were not addictive and then compelled them to produce evidence from their own scientists that showed their product was addictive.
If the committee members do their homework and are effectively staffed, they may reveal problems with Facebook that have yet to surface, or even illuminate broader issues of privacy and manipulation across the tech industry. A well-prepared questioner is able to elicit revealing facts and reactions from even the most evasive witnesses.
In December, Sen. John Neely Kennedy, R-La., respectfully but relentlessly pressed President Trump’s nominee for a judgeship on the U. S. District Court. His questions revealed that the candidate was not only lacking in any judicial experience, but also was unable to answer questions that could have been tackled by most third-year law students. The nomination was subsequently withdrawn.
There might be a temptation on the part of some members to be gentle with the Hermit of Menlo Park because of his philanthropy and shy boyish manner. But Zuckerberg is one of the richest men in the world, and even if he were to give away every penny of his immense fortune to lepers and orphans, he’d still captain a vast fleet that carries in its holds the personal information of billions of people around the world — yet allows data pirates such as Cambridge Analytica to board the ships and loot the cargo.
POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media
I am not urging the committee members to be brutal or disrespectful to the self-effacing young mogul, but they must extract from him concrete and significant pledges to rid his hugely lucrative platform of the scamming, trolling and deception with which it has been infested. For too long, Facebook executives have sought to shield their boss from congressional testimony and the attendant scrutiny by the news media.
Members of Congress have been remarkably deferential to Zuckerberg’s aversion to making no public statements other than occasional inspirational messages on his own terms about the essential benevolence of Facebook’s mission. Now they must press him to consider changing the entire business model of the site from one driven almost solely by advertising revenues. Above all, they must be prepared to hold over his head the possibility of stringent regulation.
Congress does little enough legislatively that it should not be deficient in investigative vigor. The power to probe lies at the very heart of Congress’ responsibilities. The leaders of the committees have waited long enough for Mark Zuckerberg to consent to testify, and it would be a squandered opportunity if they did not pursue their inquest aggressively.
Ross K. Baker is a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @Rosbake1.
