'Zuckerberg has lost all trust, if he ever had any': Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal demands Facebook CEO appear in Congress next month after he called Facebook 'morally bankrupt' in whistleblower hearing
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Wednesday demanded Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg appear before Congress to address accusations by a company whistleblower who accused the company of knowingly harming children with its products.
Blumenthal accused the platform of 'amplifying and weaponizing hate speech,' and blasted the exec for spending Monday sailing a day before a powerful Commerce subcommittee aired allegations about the multi-billion company.
'He ought to spend more time looking at the platform,' Blumenthal fumed. He said he has already 'invited' the tech titan to testify, and that he could appear within weeks.
'We can't count on Mark Zuckerberg to tell us the truth,' he said, saying 'he has lost all trust if he ever had it.'
'We can't count on Mark Zuckerberg to tell us the truth,' said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who has invited the exec to testify before his subcommittee
He faulted the platform for allowing 'online bullying' with an algorithm that feeds 'anxieties and insecurities of teenagers.'
He spoke a day after Facebook whistleblower Frances Hougan testified that the company knew its produce was damaging to children.
'Facebook faces the same moment of reckoning and a moment of truth,' he told CNN's New Day.
'He is back from sailing but he has not yet discovered he has to come clean. And we will be asking him to come testify before our subcommittee. If he has disagreements with [Hougan] he should come tell it.'
Zuckerberg posted an image of himself sailing a 26-foot sailboat on his Instagram account.
Frances Haugen testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing entitled 'Protecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower'
Blumenthal blasted Zuckerberg for sailing on Monday while the whistleblower furor raged
Here Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on April 10, 2018. Blumenthal wants him to appear before his committee to address a whistleblower's charges
He said he hoped Zuckerberg would appear in the 'next weeks' or 'month or so.'
But he said Zuckerberg 'would rather avoid these problems. He said Zuckerberg's modus operandi was 'essentially no acknowledgement, no admissions, no apologies. No action. Nothing to see here - I'm out sailing.'
He compared what was happening with the company to the moment when 'Big Tobacco' was forced to contend with a raft of internal documents that prosecutors used to show companies knew the dangers of their products.
Zuckerberg posted a message to employees where he said the whistleblower allegations 'don't make any sense.'
'The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical, he said. 'We make money from ads, and advertisers consistently tell us they don’t want their ads next to harmful or angry content. And I don’t know any tech company that sets out to build products that make people angry or depressed. The moral, business and product incentives all point in the opposite direction.'
'We care deeply about issues like safety, well-being and mental health. It’s difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and our motives. At the most basic level, I think most of us just don’t recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted,' he said.
Blumenthal at Tuesday's hearing delivered a blistering statement where he called Facebook 'morally bankrupt' and criticized Zuckerberg for going sailing in Hawaii with wife Priscilla Chan instead of answering questions from lawmakers.
'Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror today,' he said. 'And yet rather than taking responsibility and showing leadership, Mr. Zuckerberg is going sailing.'
'Mark Zuckerberg you need to come before this committee, you need to explain to Frances Hougan, to us, to the world, and to the parents of America - what you were doing and why you did it,' he scolded the exec.
Haugen told senators that no similar company's CEO has as much unilateral control as Zuckerberg does.
'Mark holds a very unique role in the tech industry in that he holds over 55% of all the voting shares for Facebook. There are no similarly powerful companies that are as unilaterally controlled,' she said. 'There's no one currently holding him accountable but himself.'
She said 'the buck stops with' Facebook's tech billionaire owner, adding that 'Facebook needs to take responsibility for the consequences of its choices.'
Later in the hearing Haugen said Zuckerberg himself even made choices that put engagement over public safety.
'We have a few choice documents that contain notes from briefings with Mark Zuckerberg where he chose metrics defined by Facebook like "meaningful social interactions" over changes that would have significantly decreased misinformation, hate speech and other inciting content,' she told Senator Ben Ray Lujan.
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