video library marks a milestone, a quarter million hours of content. since 1987programs are available on our online library. you can view them all for free at c-span.org. who zakrzewski reports for technology matters of "the washington post.". guest: thanks for having me. host: when it comes to the general attitude of washington, what do they feel about the regulation of so-called big tech companies? guest: there is momentum picking up on capitol hill to regulate these companies. for many years, there were not a lot of rules to the road when it comes to the categories of nowal media or search, and after repeated privacy violations and after the 2016 election shows how these elections could be abused, spread misinformation, lawmakers are getting more serious about holding these companies to account. host: what is the general

consensus of how they do that? are a lot of different proposals, but one of the most immediate ideas is to pass a comprehensive federal privacy law, so that is a big focus we are seeing. a mix of republicans and democrats working together to put together legislation that would address this. being forced to the table right now for the california state law that will go into effect in 2020 that the companies are resistant to. host: the world of the internet's, especially the companies that are associated, all seem to be offhand for capitol hill for a while. what do they have to reference considering all the other legislation? guest: i think one of the interesting things is while we have not seen a lot of activity in washington when it comes to regulating these companies, we have seen activity and other

parts of the world. one of the really interesting things in the privacy debate as you can look to europe which passed the general data protection regulation several years ago, and that legislation went into effect last year and put broadening restrictions on data collection practices. it is almost a one year anniversary of that law taking effect, so how should they it domestically, they are looking at europe. host: could those be applied easily in the united states or are there issues? guest: there are definitely issues of how different laws work and the eu versus united states, but there are lessons that can be learned around what are the most important measures around transparency for customers, what are some of the thing to have worked and don't work. atot people with gdpr look it and say, there is a lot more terms of service agreements and pop-ups.

what can we do to make sure there're more transparent controls for users. host: cat zakrzewski joins us from "the washington post" and she is here to talk about the regulatory efforts on big tech companies. if you want to ask questions, democrats [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, -- for democrats, (202) 748-8000, , andlicans, (202) 748-8001 independents (202) 748-8002. so what resources do they have to push back against regulatory efforts? guest: these companies have some of the most well-funded lobbying arms in washington right now so they are very well-positioned to try to shape this conversation. some of these companies, particularly facebook that are facing bad playlist city for privacy -- for bad public city for privacy missteps are saying, we want to work with you on this. the question will be what is the

devil in the details on that. companies are in favor of broad legislation that would preempt some activity at the state level and what we will see is democrats fight really hard to ensure that we do not end up with a watered-down version of this. host: a cofounder of facebook saying, it is time to break up facebook. that change the dynamic? guest: i think it is an interesting moment right now where we are seeing these calls around antitrust up with a lot more pressure on the companies politically to come to the table on regulatory efforts. op-edok's response to the , hey, do not break us up, but we will work with you on regulation. these companies are more open to being regulated with laws like privacy laws, potentially, even some measures around concept moderation to avoid what they see as the worst case scenario. , one of thekrzewski other dynamics in this topic is

the presidential race coming up. we saw joe biden reference what he would say. if you would summarize what he and other democrats are thinking at this point. guest: we are seeing a range of ideas on the campaign trail. joe biden talked about being open to changing antitrust laws for big companies like facebook, but he said it is premature to talk about break of action that elizabeth warren has called for. on one extreme, you have elizabeth warren come out earlier this year was she said it is time to break up big tech, lay down an argument for breaking up facebook, google, amazon, and later an interview with me, she also added apple to that list. it has become this stake in the ground on the campaign trail. we saw this weekend, senator harris supported looking into breaking up these companies as well, but on the other end, you

saw cory booker kind of show a little more resistance to this idea and he kind of pushback on candidates on the campaign trail targeting specific companies and compared that to a champion dynamic -- to a trumpian dynamic. host: (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001, for republicans, (202) 748-8002 for independence. elizabeth warren had a visual ad for this idea. [video clip] companies have a vast power of our economy and democracy. risel use them but an hour to power, they bulldozed competition, use our private information for profit, and -- take amazon. it makes it really hard to compete. it buys its competitors while the federal

trade commission sits on its hands instead of enforcing laws to keep the playing field fair and even. , which selectively promotes its own products over competitors. they have mastered a very powerful business model. monopolized their platform for it and forced other companies, media platforms, and publishers out of the business. the three companies run the internet. more than 70% of all internet traffic go through facebook or google, and more than half of e-commerce go through amazon. they know they have a lot to lose if washington starts putting the interest of consumers first. it is time to break up these big companies so they do not have so much power over everyone else. she: cat zakrzewski, mentioned and not add the federal trade commission. what role do they have any oversight and what are her concerns? guest: right now, the federal trade commission is probably the

comes tohen it regulating privacy among these companies, but it has very limited authorities in terms of what it can do. right now if we see a major privacy violation, the ftc cannot fine a company the first time. they have to negotiate with the company, reach a settlement, have a consent order, and then if they violate that again, then they can bring a fine. that is what we are seeing play out with facebook right now, the agency had already taken action against them because of previous privacy concerns and after all of these repeated incidents, most notably, the cambridge scandal, these issues have caused the ftc to investigate facebook. it is considering a multibillion-dollar fine against the company. host: what do those within the

silicon valley world to feel about the prospect -- is that something that they are on board with or do they have concerns? guest: there are major concerns about these calls. the first issue is would breaking up these companies actually solve the problems you are talking about. if you split up facebook, into threenstagram separate companies, you still have the problems of social media. that change that foreign actors might still try to spread disinformation targeting voters on the services? ie jury is still out, but think there is a concern within the valley and elizabeth warren makes this point a lot -- it is about competition. if you are a startup or a venture capitalist investing in companies, do you put money into something that is trying to directly compete with a company the size of facebook? it is a tough call.

especially when we see the tactics where these companies have squashed competitors. host: with all of the issues we have seen with privacy issues, they say, let's regulate ourselves. have we seen any measurable results out of arguments from these companies? guest: there certainly have been changes and there has been a buttoning up over the last two years. facebook has changed a lot of policies around data management and it is locking down data on it service, not sharing as much with developers. seeing is ag we are broader promise to pivot toward , soler groups of messaging they are making a big commitment towards encryption which is kind of the idea of the security that powers its whatsapp messaging service, and they are saying that they are going to be rolling this out across other messaging products as well. i think we see that they are making changes, but the

question, is this too little or too late? every week they announced a new change, we have new headlines about privacy incidents. host: even a headline this morning with the whatsapp allowing security spyware to be loaded on phones, can you expand? guest: sure. whatsapp had to release an update today that it came out that there were spyware that would allow people who had access to the software to gain access to the whatsapp messages. that is a big issue. this is supposed to be facebook's premier security products. thesapp is encrypted and company says, even we cannot read the messages that you have. they read this as one of the most secure forms available. and to see that the spyware was ,ble to gain access to whatsapp it was a big blow to the company's commitments. host: and people whose our

critics -- who are critics viewed this headline, too. guest: i think so. this is adding to the drumbeat on capitol hill. every time there is another privacy incidents, i reach out to some of the senators who have been active on privacy issues and they are kind of like a, we are having this conversation yet again. it adds fuel to the fire as they are considering what our next steps on these issues. host: is it difficult for the lobby for the republican to control those committees on the senate side and the democrats control them on the house side? guest: one of the interesting things on the text debate is that there is bipartisan consensus that congress needs to act on this issue and something needs to be done on privacy. i think there are slight differences in how they would approach this. generally, the republican party tends to have a more pro-business mindset. they are more wary of legislation that could be heavy-handed and in any way limit innovation among smaller

companies. there is a bit more caution in terms of what steps republicans would like to see on this. host: of your with a question from -- a viewer with a question from virginia. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question is these companies have been around for a long time and i do not know what they did to warrant this so-called regulation. as a user, we openly share our information and that is something you knowingly do. if you do not want your information out there, do not share it is kind of my attitude towards it. we like to always blame other people for what is going on. the opioid crisis, this, and a few others. what is your opinion on personal response ability? guest: i think you bring up a great point. many of the services are free

and for many years, consumers love using them so i think that is a big reason why we have not seen these companies regulated in many ways in recent years. i think the attitudes are changing because there is a feeling that these companies may have misled consumers in some ways about what they were giving up when they signed up for the services. i think there is a feeling that these companies need to be a bit more transparent. people realize that when they are using facebook, google, they are handing over data that can then be used to target ads to them. this is not really a free service. what a lot of consumer advocates say is you are the product when you are using the services. i think there is a push regulation because of that concern that there needs to be a greater conversation, a greater dialogue in the public about what you are actually giving up when you use this. i think we have seen that the services have been abused in ways that people have never

expected when they first signed up. if you think about how facebook started as this network to connect you with your college friends on campus and people really did not imagine 15 years ago when this was picking up that the data that you gave to facebook could then potentially be exploited by foreign actors trying to influence an election or obtained by developers that you were not aware of, so i think there is a growing push thatation so that to point, there is a lot of responsibility on the consumer to make choices, but regulators just want to make sure that consumers are getting fair and accurate information about what they are giving up when they engage with these businesses. int: let's hear from jim california, independent line. thatr: hi, my comment is as these companies, google, facebook, instagram, twitter are

policing what is set on their platforms which is clearly and there demand to do, it is a private company, but are they risk and as such, opening themselves up to potential litigation as a publisher with litigation around libel, copyright, or things like that if they police their platform and take a stand on what is set on the platforms? guest: that is an interesting point that you bring up. a big debate right now and congress as we look at, especially after what happened in new zealand were resource how a violent video could really ricochet across the platforms. there is questions about what the platforms are doing to police content, are they doing enough, are they doing too little, that is a big topic of debate. the issue, are they acting like , it gets back to this key communications law that really governs how many of these companies operate known as section 230 of the commune

occasions decency act. this was a law passed in 1996. it has become a really contentious issue on capitol hill because it gives companies a broad immunity for the content that third parties post on their platform, but it also gives them broad immunity of when to take that content down. we have to remember that these companies as private businesses have first amendment rights, too, so they have a lot of abilities to make decisions about what they want and do not want on their platforms. i think you bring up a conversation and a question that we are going to be grappling with for years in washington. right now, these companies are publishers are not responsible for what third parties post on their site, but as they do invest more and more in content moderation, we could see different ideas come forward. host: i want to show you a

headline, this is an interview that kamala harris did on facebook. she things it is utility that needs a break up. guest: i think it is a vacant concern -- it is a big concern to be regulated right now. these companies have enjoyed a lot of freedom in the marketplace because they are viewed as these businesses that are not regulated in the same way that we regulate publishers our utilities. yes, that could certainly introduce a whole of regulatory headaches. host: in north carolina, this is timothy. hello. caller: hello. factsquestioning the same of these third parties getting on these big tech companies and dereliction of character is also a right that we have. so we are violating one person's right to give another person's

right to cause harm. zealand,video in new so the violence also spreads. sometimes, people do not even using for violating of these roles like defamation of character to make them look bad on the sites, spreading people's personal information -- that is harmful. these companies need to be held accountable, and what are we going to do to hold these companies accountable to protect the rights of smaller people? host: thank you. guest: thanks, timothy. i think you brought up some and a good ideas challenge for lawmakers because certainly, there is a broad agreement that we do not want to harmful content on these. a community foster where people can feel comfortable and are not subject to violence or hate.

it is a tricky question of what washington will do about it because of the first amendment and because people do have the rights to free speech and there is a lot of resistance to having lawmakers or the government defining what type of speech is ok online. i think we will actually see more aggressive action on this front on outside of the u.s. and countries like australia where they do not have the first amendment and they will have a different thought process about how to approach free speech. host: what should people watch for in this big topic of regulatory issues and if anything comes to these big tech companies? guest: people should be closely watching what happens with the ftc and facebook. that will have a big impact on our current debate around privacy and we will get a sense of whether or not that agency has teeth and is able to hold these companies to account. host: cat zakrzewski

liven's washington journal every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, we talk about the future of health care first with florida democratic congresswoman donna shalala and with former republican senator tom coburn and the discussion on the new poll voters thoughts on health care with our next guest. 7:00re to watch live at eastern thursday morning. during the discussion. >> to the city of milwaukee, harley davidson is more than just a motorcycle company. in a lot of ways, harley davidson captured the arrival of milwaukee as one of the cities where great american machines are built. manner is certainly a nikon company in milwaukee's history and in present. expression ofle

ethnic and economic legacy that is really important here. announcer: c-span city tour is on the road exploring americans stories. this weekend we take you to milwaukee with the help of our spectrum cable partners. located on the shores of lake michigan, this ready has one of the highest concentrations of german ancestry in the country. it was also hear about america's socialist movement got its start. >> america was becoming the machine shop of the world, so you had this big pool of largely immigrant workers who were a messageeptive to that promised to benefit the working class. announcer: we will visit america's black holocaust museum to learn about james cameron, a and attempted lynching.

>> the reason the story was so important and we wondered for published was because he realized that lynching was an important part of american history that is never taught in people too he wanted be a lot of get an eyewitness account of the survival of a lynching to see exactly what the dynamics of a lynching work. watch their saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2's book tv and sunday at 2 p.m. on american history tv on he spent three. working with our cable affiliates as we explore the american story. next, the senate banking committee holds a oversight hearing with financial regulators. they were asked about the potential risk to the financial sector. this is just under two hours. >> the committee will come to order. today will will.