Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was grilled on Capitol Hill by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Wednesday as part of his two-day testimony prompted by the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Zuckerberg’s second day in front of politicians followed the same lines as his previous questioning, with him apologizing and saying that he « started this company and [is] responsible for what happens. »
Speaking with Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear, award-winning editorial cartoonist Ted Rall stated that regardless of how tough Republicans and Democrats might’ve been on the CEO, nothing major is going to come out of the hearing.
« There will be some sort of regulation of Facebook… but it’s absolutely not going to matter, » Rall told show hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. « Facebook is not ‘too big to fail,’ but it’s too powerful to regulate. »
« Their influence in Washington is just too pervasive and too pernicious… I think we’re not going to see anything with any teeth come out of this, » he added.
According to The Verge, Facebook has contributed a total of $641,685 to the election campaigns of members of Congress that questioned Zuckerberg on Tuesday and Wednesday. Top recipients included Sen. Cory Booker with $44,025; Sen. Kamala Harris with $30,990 and Rep. Anna Eshoo with $39,800 in donations.
Even though it was revealed that Facebook also collected personal data indicating, for example, which users were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, erectile dysfunction and binge-eating disorders, Rall urged the revelation isn’t going to lead to any useful legislation that would protect such private information.
« Don’t expect anything meaningful to change, » he told listeners.
« The privacy barn door has been left open, the horses are gone, the horses don’t have a tracking device in them, they’re never coming back and we’re not getting [our privacy] back, » Rall told Becker. « It’s over… it’s too late… there’s nothing we can do about it now. »
Rall later noted that « under the existing system, under the gangster capitalism… it’s impossible to put this stuff back because there’s just too much money behind the people that are monetizing our privacy. »
