04/11/18 04/11/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> we did not take a broad enough view of our responsibility and that was a big mistake. it was my mistake. i am sorry. i started facebook. i run it. and i'm responsible for what happens here. amy: facebook ceo mark zuckerberg testifies before congress for the first time. it came a week after facebook revealed the personal information of 87 million people was improperly shared without their permission with the pro-trump voter-profiling company cambridge analytica. will congress do anything to stop what's been called facebook's surveillance machine?

are you comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night? >> um, no. messaged anyone this week, would you share with us the names of the people you messaged? >> senator, would probably choose not to do that publicly here. >> i think that might be what this is all about. your right to privacy. the limits of your right to privacy. and how much you give away in modern america in the name of connecting people around the world. amy: we will air highlights from facebook's mark zuckerberg's testimony and a roundtable discussion. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

the united nations has failed to pass to resolutions to the alleged chemical weapons attack . the alleged attack killed at least 40 people in the rebel-held suburb of damascus. russia then introduced its own resolution to investigate, but that was blocked by the united states and other countries. the world health organization is demanding unhindered access to douma to investigate the claims at least 500 people were affected by the alleged chemical attack. the syrian government is blocking anyone from entering the area. president trump has blamed the syrian government and its ally, russia, for the alleged attack and has threatened military action. the syrian government has denied responsibility for the attack. an independent investigation has not been conducted. on tuesday, president trump canceled a planned trip to latin america this weekend, saying he would stay in the u.s. to oversee the response to the

alleged weapons attack. this morning, he tweeted -- "russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at syria. get ready russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and "smart!" "you should not be partners with a gas killing animal who kills enjoys it!"nd this morning, europe's air traffic control agency warned planes flying into the eastern mediterranean of a possible impending air strike on syria. president trump's threats to carry out military action in syria in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack comes as he is facing an escalating political crisis at home after the fbi raided the offices of his longtime personal lawyer michael cohen early monday morning. "the new york times" reports the fbi agents were looking for records about payoffs to two women -- karen mcdougal and stephanie clifford -- who say they had affairs with trump, before he was president. the trump-appointed deputy attorney general rod rosenstein personally signed off on the

raid, which was carried out by the interim u.s. attorney of the southern district of new york, who was also appointed by president trump. there's now increasing speculation trump may try to fire rosenstein or even special counsel robert mueller. on tuesday, white house spokesperson sarah huckabee sanders said trump believes he has the power to fire mueller. >> certainly believes he is the power to do so. amy: republican lawmakers are urging trump not to fire rosenstein or mueller, but have resisted passing legislation aimed at protecting the special counsel. this is senate republican leader mitch mcconnell. that is still my view mohler should be allowed to finish his job. i believe that is the view of most people in congress. i have not seen clear indication yet that we need to pass to keep him from being removed because i don't think that is going to happen. and that remains my view that i

don't think he is going to be removed from this office. you should not be removed from the office. you should be allowed to finish the job. amy: mark zuckerberg faced off with lawmakers in a marathon five-hour hearing tuesday about how the voter profiling company kindred analytica harvested the data of more than 87 million facebook users without their permission in efforts to sway voters to support president donald trump. this is zuckerberg being questioned by california senator kamala harris. whenam also concerned that you personally became aware of this, did you or senior leadership do an inquiry to find out who at facebook had this information and did they not have a discussion about whether or not the users should be informed back in december of 2015? >> senator, in retrospect, i think we clearly viewed it as a mistake that we did not inform people and we did that based on false information that we

thought the case was closed and that the data had been deleted. >> so there was a decision made on that basis not to inform the users. is that correct? >> that is my understanding, yes. amy: we will have more on the five-hour hearing and face privacy scandals after headlines. among those we will be speaking to, zeynep tufekci. thomas posted has been ousted one day after -- president trump's chief homeland security adviser thomas bossert has been ousted, one day after john bolton began serving as trump's new national security adviser. bossert's resignation tuesday makes him the latest in a slew of top officials to resign or be forced out of the trump administration. the israeli military has censured israeli soldiers who cheered after one of them shot an unarmed palestinian man who was standing, motionless, in gaza, on the other side of a heavily militarized barrier a few months ago in a video that has now gone viral. the video captures the sound of a gunshot, the palestinian man falling to the ground, and then a voice shouting in hebrew "wow, what a video.

yes! son of a --!" despite censoring the soldiers for filming the shooting and celebrating it, the israeli military defended the shooting itself. israel's defense minister avigdor lieberman said the israeli sniper who shot the palestinian across the border deserves a medal. in burma, seven soldiers have been sentenced to 10 years in prison for participating in the massacre of rohingya muslims in the village of inn din in western rakhine state. the bodies of 10 rohingya men were discovered in a mass grave there last september. the massacre was uncovered by reuters investigative journalists wa lone and kyaw soe oo, who are also imprisoned, facing up to 14 years in jail under burma's colonial-era official secrets act. this morning, a court in yangon refused to dismiss the case against the two journalists, and their petition for bail was denied. in india, the supreme court has upheld the right of interfaith marriage, in a high-profile case of a hindu woman who married a

muslim man. in its ruling, the supreme court affirmed that the 26-year-old student named hadiya has the right to choose her husband, shafin jahan, and convert to islam, despite the opposition of her father, who tried to have the marriage nullified by claiming his daughter had been forced into the marriage as part of an plot by the isis to recruit her to fight in syria. the supreme court's ruling is a major blow to right-wing hindu nationalists, who have tried to brand interfaith marriage between hindus and muslims as "love jihad." in oklahoma, dozens of teachers have completed a seven day, 110-mile march from tulsa to the state capital oklahoma city, where they will now meet with lawmakers to demand they pass legislation to fund education in oklahoma. public schools across tulsa and oklahoma city remain closed as thousands of teachers continue their strike into its 9th day. in florida, the broward county public school district has officially voted not to arm teachers. this school district includes the marjory stoneman douglas high school, where 17 people -- 14 students and 3 staff -- were

killed in a valentine's day shooting massacre, which sparked a nationwide student-led movement demanding increased gun control. in california, a 12-year-old video has resurfaced of kern county sheriff donny youngblood claiming it is better financially for officers to kill rather than wounded a suspect. financially?tter -- amy: the sheriff's upper reelection will stop -- the sheriff is of her reelection. at least 79 people killed by police between 2005 and 2015. in arizona, the state supreme court has ordered arizona public universities and community colleges to stop giving in-state tuition to students with daca,

that's the obama-era deferred action for childhood arrivals program that president trump has tried to cancel. the ruling means students with daca will now have to pay up to three times as much in tuition to attend public universities in arizona. in new york city, immigration lawyers staged a walkout at a queens courthouse on tuesday, to protest against immigration and customs enforcement agency, known as ice, for deploying its agents to the courthouse to arrest undocumented immigrants. immigration lawyers say ice's practice violates the rights of defendants, victims, and witnesses, as well as the accused. in retaliation for the protest, court officers reassigned some of the protesting lawyers cases to other lawyers. -- federal toys have indicted the website's cofounders and five others have conspiracy facilitating prosecution and money laundering , but sex workers and advocates

say shuttering the website will make sex workers jobs more dangerous. the organizers of the women's march tweeted -- "the shutting down of #backpage is an absolute crisis for sex workers who rely on the site to safely get in touch with clients. sex workers rights are women's rights." and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. facebook ceo mark zuckerberg faced off with senators tuesday in a marathon five-hour hearing on the privacy scandals plaguing the social network. zuckerberg was called to answer questions about how the voter-profiling company cambridge analytica harvested the data of more than 87 million facebook users, without their permission, in efforts to sway voters to support president donald trump. in the first of two days of hearings, zuckerberg repeated -- repeatedly apologized. >> we did not take a broad enough view of our responsibility and that was a big mistake. and it was my mistake and i am sorry. i started facebook. i run it.

and i am responsible for what happens here. amy: the facebook data was first obtained by a cambridge university academic named aleksandr kogan, whose company, global science research, built an app that paid facebook users to take a personality test and agree to have their data collected. the app also collected data on these users' friends, meaning it actually collected personal information from tens of millions of users without their knowledge. cambridge analytica then bought this data in order to turn a voter-profiling company into a powerful psychological tool, which began launching targeted political ads aimed at carrying out robert mercer's far-right political agenda. democratic senator kamala harris questioned zuckeberg about why it took facebook 27 months to alert users to the cambridge analytica breach. >> are you aware of anyone in leadership at facebook who was

in a conversation where a decision was made not to inform your users or do you believe no such conversation ever took place? >> i am not sure whether there is a conversation about that, but i can say the thought process at the time of the company, which is in 2015 when we heard about this, we banned the developer and we demanded that they delete all of the data and stop using it, and some of cameron's analytica. they told us they have. >> i'm talking about notification of the users and this relates to the issue of transparency and the relationship of trust, informing the user about what you know in terms of how their personal information has been misused. that whenso concerned you personally became aware of this, did you or senior to findip do an inquiry out who at facebook had this information, and did they not have a discussion about whether or not the users should be

informed back in december 2015? >> senator, in retrospect, i think we clearly viewed it as a mistake that we did not inform people, and we did that based on false information that we thought that the case was closed and that the data had been deleted. >> so there was a decision made on that basis not to inform the users. is that correct? >> that is my understanding, ye >> but -- >> in retrospect, think that was a mistake and knowing what we know now, we should have handled a lot of things here differently. amy: that is mark zuckerberg and senator kamala harris. withgin today's show zeynep tufekci associate , professor of information and library science at the university of north carolina at chapel hill. she is also a faculty associate at the harvard berkman center for internet and society. author of "twitter and tear gas: the power and fragility of networked protest." her recent piece for the "new york times" is headlined "we already know how to protect ourselves from facebook."

more than 2 million people have .iewed her recent ted talk welcome to democracy now! happenedalk about what yesterday, what mark zuckerberg said, what he did not say, and what was and wasn't asked by the senators in the first of two days of hearings. >> what was real interesting yesterday is that the senators started asking questions that sounded fine probably because the staffers sort of prepared the questions well, and then they got lost in asking the questions. they were not able to understand how facebook actually works. they kept asking technically weird questions that did not make sense. even more striking, there were times that facebook's own ceo, mark zuckerberg, could not answer fairly basic questions on how the platform worked.

for example, he was asked, and facebook track users across devices? does it track their activities when they're logged out? the answers to both are yes. zuckerberg struggled and said, i will have my team get back to you. toe, this was kind of like the interesting moment where we are finally struggling to understand and grapple with the new information -- even after all of these scandals. i wrote a piece recently where i listed the 14 years of apologies. this is not even the first time facebook ceo is apologizing. ps that apologizing nonstop -- he has been apologizing nonstop come even for the initial prototype. 15 years later and we are starting to deal with the kind of power, a platform with 2 billion users, pretty much significant amount of an are mission an are

mission flows, civic functions, politics. i did find it quite information -- quite interesting or finally some questions on its power, whether it had competition. because facebook is essentially without competition. that is what makes a partly so powerful. there were a lot of questions that were not really asked. facebook tracks people who don't even use the platform. they have shadow profiles. zuckerberg-- mark try to say we keep it within our walls. the problem is, how much data they collect in the first place. of course, it is better if they don't just recklessly give away the data as they did probably more than once, not just cambridge analytica. but even if they shut that down as they did in 2015 and even if they did a good job, collecting this much data on 2 billion people, then selling their attention -- that is the product of facebook -- that is a huge problem. if you want to socialize, if

you're an immigrant and have family around the world, the fact that that is the platform you kind of have to be on is the huge problem. it was touched upon, but not really delved into. and maybe what i did not really see is -- which is what i wrote in "the new york times" op-ed you mentioned, what are we going to do about it? we know enough. we don't really need mark zuckerberg to explain the very basics of facebook to a bunch of to even who don't seem understand that. we need to sit down and say, how do we deal with a new information comments? how do we deal with the new public sphere as it operates? >> i want to turn to dick durbin of illinois questioning facebook ceo mark zuckerberg. >> would you become trouble sharing with us the na ofhe hotel u sted ilast night? no. >> if you have messaged anybody

this week, would you share with us the names of the people you have message? >> senator, no, i would probably not choose to do that publicly here. >> i think that might be what this is all about -- your right to privacy, the limits of your right to privacy, and how much you give away in modern america in the name of "connecting people around the world." question, basically, of what information facebook's collecting, who they're sending it to, and whether they were -- they ever asked me an investment permission to do that. is that a fair thing for user of facebook to expect? >> yes, senator, i think everyone should have control of how their information is used. as we have talked about in some of the other questions, i think that that is laid out in some of the documents. but more important, you want to control in the product itself. and you go that was mark zuckerberg's response. zeynep tufekci, just excited

exactly what is going on will stop and also this bigger point kamala harris raised, that more than two years you decided not to tell anyone about the fact that 80 million users had their information given. >> the first thing, what happened is, if your friend has downloaded an app, then your information got transferred to the app maker. while cameras analytica is in the news because of its political implications, there were maybe tens of thousands, maybe even more apps that had a .ind of access i would personally be surprised if the number of people's information was taken that way and then transferred to other parties and is existing somewhere on the dark web is not pretty much everybody who has been on the site. that was about one million people at the time.

i think that kind of data harvesting probably is much larger than just the cambridge analytica at them in just one among many. the second thing about the privacy controls is facebook does two things. one, they keep trying to say we give you control, we give you control, we will keep the data ourselves. even if you take that at face even if they do this going forward, what happens is, it is quite hard for people to understand exactly what kind of data is collected. a lot of their control is up secure. there is no one little click thing, "do not collect data about me." i've a technical background. i have been studying this stuff for a long time. i sometimes get lost in the weeds of their menus and cannot figure out how to do it. how is an ordinary person supposed to figure this out? the second thing, by promising

to keep the data completely secure from now on, they are still not dealing with the fact that they are collecting an enormous amount of data, and that is not just what you voluntarily share. a lot of people say, you know what? i don't care. i told facebook or my colleges, what my political views are, and i told facebook the pages i like and that is ok. but that is not all in collects. a purchases data from data brokers. there are your shopping habits. it merges off-line data. data while you're browsing across the web by tracking pixels. it tracks you across devices. on android phones, there was control if you missed it, it flashed before you. before you knew it, you had just given them permission to read and sort of have information on all of the text messages you

sent outside of the app. you're just texting normal people. and when people are downloading their facebook database this week as a result of the scandal and thinking what is in there, and a lot of people found that every single text message they had sent on their android phone -- there just messaging their parents or their girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever -- it is all in facebook's database. this kind of surveillance machine, which is then used -- were the data is used to target you to whomever is paying on itsk is dangerous own. a lot of people mistakenly think that facebook sales your data. it does not sell your data. it sells you. it is selling your attention. it is selling people's attention screen by screen. you don't really good to see it on a global level what is going on. a lot of media critics would remember when leading up to the iraq war, "the new york times" got a lot wrong and it was horrible and the consequences. it was a grave problem.

that you could at least see it and say, look, this is wrong. you could try to get in the public sphere and try to correct it. it is not an ideal situation, obviously. but at least you know what is in front of you and you confronted do something. when misinformation is targeted on facebook or hate speech or things that either go viral organically or were advertisers can target you, you don't even see it. it is the combination of this kind of power is a huge problem that we need to deal with. amy: you gave this very interesting ted talk or you talked about artificial intelligence. this kind of ad targeting. people know about ad targeting -- maybe. but how deep it is. and you talk, for example, about identifying people who i -- who are bipolar. explain this. it is just astounding. >> it is astounding.

this is the part, once again, does not get understood. i subscribe to outside magazine, like this travel adventure. if summit he was to advertise that to me, i'm on the subscriber list. that is the old method. it is a pretty clear directly. what happens with artificial takeligence, computers can seemingly unrelated data, things , yourour facebook likes posting -- your posting frequency. the semantic tone of your words, and you can predict things like weather you're likely to enter into clinical depression or whether you are likely to enter a manic phase if you have ,ipolar, mental-health iues before the onset of clinical symptoms. so the computer, if there was enough data about you -- and it is not a lot of data post of

definitely the kind facebook has on you. you can predict people's likelihood of entering a depressive state or manic state in the next few months before we even have a clinical test for a because there are no clinical symptoms. you can imagine the kind of manipulation -- you want to target people that you want to sell them discounted las vegas tickets to, and fight them to a casino. you know what? people about to enter a manic phase are prime for this. people's personality profiles, which we know from research you can do with facebook, certain kinds of personality traits are more open to voting for authoritarian's when they are freight, according to research. you can try to target those people. and sometimes you can do all of this because of the way current copy occasional models work. you can do all of those without even knowing you're doing this. you're going to tell the

computer and "gofundme people who are more likely to buy tickets to vegas or more likely to vote for this guy when they are freight." you can sort of tell the computer what to optimize for. you don't even know. you cannot have intention to do this, but the way the sheen learning works today, you could do this. this is what i said that we could enter into a phase of what i term surveillance authoritarianism where we don't face a cut of 1984 model where there is open to tell a terry and, where we are kind of dragged off in the middle of the night kind of situation. but we are silently and currently does quietly person by person, screen by screen, nudged according to our individual vulnerability. that would even be hard to realize and sort of being nudged here and there and slow changes isr time and that is what scary. that is what we have to get ahead of and not end up there.

amy: facebook has been accused inhumannd investigators rights groups of facilitating violence against the minority writing the muslims in burma. by allowing anti-muslim hate speech and false news to spread on its platform. for my democratic senator patrick leahy questioned facebook zuckerberg about this at the hearing yesterday. >> senator, what is happening in myanmar is a terrible tragedy and we need to do more. >> we all agree with that. -- you and investigators have blamed facebook for playing a role in the genocide. we all agree it is terrible. how can you dedicate and we have dedicated resources, made sure such hate speech is taken down within 24 hours? >> yes, we're working on this. and there are three specific things that we're doing. one is we're hiring dozens of more burmese line which content reviewers because hate speech is

very language-specific. it is hard to do it without people who speak the local language, and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically. second, we're working with civil society in myanmar to identify specific hate figures so we can take down their accounts, rather than specific pieces of content. and third, we're standing up a product team to do specific product changes in myanmar and other countries that may have similar issues in the future to prevent this from happening. amy: that is mark zuckerberg. zeynep tufekci, if you can respond? >> there are some things that are genuinely hard in conflict about this economy and will need to figure out, include in facebook. there are some things i have sympathy for. the situation in myanmar and what facebook allowed is inexcusable because i know that -- i personally know at least in 2013, civil society groups have been literally begging facebook

to step up. what happened is, as the country transition from the military junta to a more democratic, open situation, facebook amen along with the rapid spread of digital sim cars and phones, but without the proper oversight. imagine -- consider all of the the new public sphere is causing in the u.s. and europe were we have a lot of accounting institutions. an extremiste is buddhist group that is very anti-muslim and is promoting ethnic cleansing. this is not a joke. it is the second biggest refugee outflow in the world. and what they started doing is all ofacebook to spread these false accusations. there was an interview with a burmese person about the muslim

minority. he was like, there are horrible. they're doing all of these horrible things. they said, how do you know? he said i know it thanks to facebook. the enormous amount of hate withoutent viral facebook putting in the kind of things that zuckerberg is finally saying they're going to put in. $500is a company with billion in market apple is asian. people have been crying and pleading with the company, publicly, privately, for years to hired enormous amount of people and try to get a handle on the situation. the fact there causing the whole problem by themselves, of course, but they were -- thatntal, they were is the kind of role they played in the country. it it was only recently and in the wake of the scandal i am finally hearing the ceo address this. i think when we look back on it, some of the stuff -- again,

digital transition is hard and we're all in over our heads will stop there's no excuse for their ignorance, the negligence, and the fact tt dozens of people for a country where ethnic cleansing is going on after so many years is such a minimal step, they should of had as large a team as necessary. they have the money. as early as possible. it is the kind of thing, like, if you wake up as a ceo of this company, should be the first question you ask everyone and say, "i'm going to spend as much time and energy on this because this is the kind of thing that is going to go down in history that is causing in north human misery. it is destabilizing the whole country. people stuck in bangladesh and elsewhere. dustnk it is an example for me, it the most egregious example of what facebook's lack of internal drive for proper oversight and what our society

is -- society's lack of attention to intervene and say burma and myanmar might be another country, but if our company -- it is our company that is implicated here. u.s. and europe could of done more, too. and it is the saddest situation because now that it is so out of hand, there are couple dozen moderators, new products finally happening. we will probably have a marginal effect. maybe as earlier with enough civil society and globally to templates facebook doing what it needed to do, maybe we would not be here. and this is millions of people who are displaced. there are thousands of people who are killed. i think it is the worst example and just shameful. i don't know what else to say. amy: professor, you write in twitter and tear gas about a facebook censorship and turkey, in your country. you write about facebook page of the mayor of the biggest majority kurdish city in the

region banned from even though liked 400,000 people had his page before it was taken down. this issue of turkey was that raised in yesterday's hearing. we will see what happens in the house hearing today. >> this is an interesting thing. i also write -- i want to sort of present the complexity. around the world, there are a lot of countries in which facebook is also an an-censorship tool. this is why it is so crucial that it happens better because there are a lot of countries where tb is censored, radio is censored, newspapers are censored. in social media is one way in which -- we see black lives matter, women's march. a lot of movements that have difficulties getting respect or traction from traditional media or mainstream media can use social media to circumvent the censorship. but what we usually see -- again, as the problem --

facebook, the company, just does that have the kind of staffing you need to understand which page is correct, which is not. and what happens is, political opponents report one another's pages and then it gets taken down. facebook is just this giant company in menlofacebook is just company in menlo park. you have people saying egypt is beggg them, can you do this? maybe somebody will get to it. they're just not equipped to be the moderators of speech for the whole world as things stand. the complexity of social media and digital tools have both allowed enormous interest censorship around the world. so you don't want a situation in which facebook is just shutting anything down at once. what you want is sensible rules were a situation like something promoting ethnic cleansing is actually shut down, whereas political speech is not. and that is not an easy thing.

and that is not something facebook has done well. all of these hearings, people are asking mark zuckerberg questions. i have been saying, look, these are political questions. i do know what to hear what mark zuckerberg has to say. but with the political discussion on this and legislation and us to tell mark zuckerberg and all of silicon valley what to do. who died and made them king of the world in the political sphere? we need to have this conversation, how we're going to regulate this, what can of oversight is necessary, and tell these companies were rules they have to follow. until now, it is just in the wild west. amy: so many are saying, do you want to be regulated? we support regulation? i mean, regulation of his own company. i have a question about an issue that has been discussed a bit, and that is -- we have high was of the united states, the infrastructure of our country, how we get around. for the most part, they are not

owned by private corporations. do you think facebook, the information highway innocence all over the world, should be nationalized? >> well, the threat with nationalization, to such an attractive tool for governments to do their own propaganda in their own surveillance, right? so if a government owned something like facebook, can you imagine the kind of surveillance that it would allow and the kind of manipulation it would allow? so what you want is a method and rules that make it so that it is not a tool of surveillance, it is not a tool of authoritarianism. there are a lot of things that can be done. antitrust is certainly on the table because one of the questions mark zuckerberg was struggling to answer was, who is your competitor? well, the answer is not really anyone. that brings up a lot of monopoly power in antitrust questions.

maybe we also need to say, what about limiting data retention? what about limiting the kind of surveillance they can do? what about mandating some kind of oversight and appeals process? what about breaking certain things up? there are all of these things that can be done without taking facebook, as it is, and just appending it to the u.s. government. i think that would be quite dangerous to give any government this kind of potent tool. i think what we should do is make sure this tool is less dangerous, that it serves people and not just profit. that there are political decisions that we face are made as political decisions and we have this discussion. and we bring, like, when you go on adangerous, that it serves pe and not just profit. highway, we have safety rails, seatbelts, emission controls come all sorts of things that companies fought tooth and nail. it is not perfect, but at least it got us to a better place. we need that version for the digital public sphere just the way we needed it with traditional media, just the way

we need it with any other information -- amy: do you see europe as a model? how is your dealing with this forces the u.s.? >> at least in europe on may 25, there is going to be a legislation that is going to go in to affect called gdpr the general data protection. it has a lot of good things. it is a big star. a lot of people are like, oh, this is so -- actually, it is just the start. it is bringing some better privacy rights and some more control to users and it will probably benefit the united states and other countries to because the companies are going to comply with it and it is easier to comply globally. i think we have just begun, as i can tell from the hearings, even mark zuckerberg, i think he is in over his head. i don't think any one person can deal with this. the senators are trying to grapple with it. these are very political questions, even if you're not on facebook, doesn't matter.

this is going to affect people even if you don't care about -- this is how politics happens. i think we are beginning. amy: we're just lost the satellite link to university of north carolina chapel hill. i want to thank professor zeynep tufekci, associate professor of information and leverage sides of the university of north carolina at chapel hill. also a faculty associate at the harvard berkman center for internet and society. her book, "twitter and tear gas: the power and fragility of networked protest." we will interviews and "the new york times" headlined "we already know how to protect ourselves from facebook." when we come back, we're going to hone in on the issue of surveillance and the threat to privacy. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we continue to discuss facebook ceo mark zuckerberg's first testimony before congress that started yesterday and continues today. yesterday he was in the senate. i want to turn to re-cantwell of washington questioning zuckerrg. >> do you believe european regulations should be applied here in the u.s.? senator, i think everyone in the world deserves good privacy

protection. regardless of whether we implement the exact same regulations, i would guess that it would be somewhat different because with somewhat different sensibilities in the u.s., as is other countries. we are committed to rolling out the controls and different of consent. amy: that is mark zuckerberg. we're joined by neema singh guliani legislative counsel for surveillance and privacy at the american civil liberties union. can you respond to what he said and what has been covered and uncovered so far? >> i think a very important issue going forward is going to be how are the new regulations in europe going to affect people here in the u.s.? at the end of may, europe's conference of privacy legislation -- regulation, the going to go into effect. they do with some very important issues, many of which have come up as part of this cambridge analytica debate. they provide protections around consent for making sure that companies get affirmative

consent before they use individuals data. they talk about things like transparency to make it easier for users to get information about how their data is being used. importantly, they have various structures around enforcement to make sure the regulations are not just words on a piece of paper, but they are actually people who can take action against companies when they don't comply with these regulations. an issue i think that has arisen is now that facebook has to comply with these regulations, now that they will be providing many of these protections for individuals in the european union, will they provide the same protections for individuals here in the u.s.? doy should be pressured to so. but really, notwithstanding that, i think it is finally time for us to be having this debate in the u.s. we are behind the eight ball when it comes to privacy regulation. we see conversations around the world about what laws and what regulatory framework do we need to make sure that user's data is

protected, and we don't have those same level of regulations here in the u.s. amy: i want to turn to democratic senator cory booker of new jersey questioning mark zuckerberg. >> there are a lot of communities of color worried that data could be used to surveil groups like black lives matter, like folks who are tryi to organize against substantive issues of discrimination in this country. is this something you're are committed to addressing? close yes, senator, i think that is very important. we're committed to that. amy: neema singh guliani, can you respond? >> this is a great exchange with senator booker. what he was asking were two simple questions. one, what are the concerns around all of this data facebook collecting being used for surveillance? obviously, this is an issue that goes beyond facebook. because be on the consumer context, but also questions around our laws governing when

the government can access certain technologies, are they strong enough? the reality is, they are not. many of our laws governing when law enforcement can get things like emails or text messages were written even before people have cell phones and were using email. what we're saying the concern is is that there's this massive amount of data collection by facebook, and there's not really the controls to make sure it doesn't get into the hands of the government improperly. there is not the controls to ensure that surveillance companies who want to use facebook data and sell it to law enforcement are not able to do so. and that is a real concern because it could really affect protesters, other individuals are using facebook and using the platform to communicate and of the nothing wrong. but the other issue that i think that was raised as part of this exchange is also this question of discrimination on facebook.

when we have laws in this country that make it illegal to discriminate in terms of housing and in credit, there been concerns recently that advertisers who are advertising in these areas can actually use the platform to discriminate. if you talk to users, the idea that they might not see housing ads is because there didn't to fight as being a particular ethnicity or they might not see in employment opportunity simply because the platform identifies them as being a woman, that is something that is very concerning. it is something that has a very real impact on the job they have or where they live. this is an issue that civil liberties groups have raised with the company saying, look, based on the research that has been done, advertisers can actually post ads that exclude particular ethnic groups or particular genders or individuals who are associated with having a disability or other types of characteristics.

concerns had been raised with facebook they said, look, we're going to take action and prohibit these types of advertisements. we recognize this is a serious concern in a serious problem. but even after these issues were raised, even after facebook said they took action, a study by propublica found that you still in fact good -- you had these types of advertisements and wrongly excluded individuals whom i belong to or particular ethnic group, who might be considered to have veteran status. and that is a real problem. so when mark zuckerberg says, i am not happy with where we are when it comes to add discrimination, you should not be happy. the company needs to do much, much more to make sure the platform does not essentially become a tool that individuals can use to discriminate against individuals and discriminate against individuals in a way that really runs awry of many of

our existing civil rights laws. amy: i want to get your response to sheryl sandberg, the coo of facebook, the chief operating officer. she was interviewed by savannah guthrie last week could you come up with a told us that, i do not want facebook to use my personal profile data to target me for advertising? could you have an opt out button? ofwe have different forms opt out. we do not have an opt out of the highest level. that would be a paid product. amy: that would be a paid product. neema singh guliani, can you respond to this? >> you have seen this, not just in sheryl sandberg's comments, but at the hearing yesterday. this is the idea of data control. i think when you ask the average user or the average member of congress, the idea that the individual should control how their data is used, how it is shared, and that is something that should belong to them not the company, it is something

that is seen quite simple and quite logical. to response from facebook these concerns is to say, well, you can do that -- sort of. one, it islity is, not easy to figure out how to even use the control the facebook has provided to opt out of certain types of sharing. and two, there are many areas were you still don't control your data. certain things the platform has deemed to be public. i think that looking at facebook, looking at the issues that have been raised, not just in the last month but over the last several years, it really emphasizes this need to have some types of rules in place to make clear the types of consent people have to provide. in many cases, the types of information being collected by these platform go far beyond the service they are providing, far beyond what people think are being collected come and go far beyond what i think is the day-to-day understanding of how

this information is being treated. amy: what do you think is the single most important regulation around privacy that should be put in place, if that is a fair question, before we go? >> sure. regardless of what rules are in place, we have to think about enforcement. these can't be things that are just words on a piece of paper. as part of that, it is really important that individuals have a private right of action, that if they feel a company has violated their rights, that they have a way to go into court and raise those challenges. and also that there are government agencies that have the powers and the authorities to take action. a question we should all be asking, these have been massive privacy incidents that have come out of the last month, why was no one aware? why were government agencies at the federal and state level only now opening investigations into practices that had existed for years? so we need to make sure that agencies like the ftc and others

are really equipped both from an authority standpoint and a resource standpoint to monitor companies and make sure they are in compliance with whatever privacy regulations are adopted in the u.s. amy: neema singh guliani, take you for being with us legislative counsel for , surveillance and privacy at the american civil liberties union. when we come back, we're going to talk specifically about facebook and kids. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we turn now to democratic ofator ed markey massachusetts, question facebook ceo mark zuckerberg. would you support a privacy bill of rights for kids where opt in is the standard? principle --e best clothes and appreciate that. >> do we need a law to protect those children? that is my question. do you believe we need a law to do so? yes or no? >> senator, i'm not sure we need a law but i think this is, is certainly a thing that deserves a lot of discussion. >> i could not disagree with you more. we're leaving these children to the most rapacious commercial predators in the country who

will exploit these children unless we absolutely have a law on the books. amy: that is ed markey questioning mark zuckerberg. josh golin is with us, executive director of the campaign for a commercial-free childhood. the group has launched a campaign to end facebook messenger kids. respond to what mark zuckerberg just said and then talk about that campaign. >> sure. mark zuckerberg is -- was basically evading the question and not saying that we need legislation to protect kids and teenagers with an opt in. i think that is just ridiculous. as your previous guest said, we should not even be asking mark zuckerberg these questions. we should have laws that protect the privacy of children and teens online. in the midst of this huge controversy about facebook and an awakening on what happens on social media, facebook has launched the first

ager social media product for children under 13. they launched this thing called facebook messenger kids in december. my organization has been trying to pressure facebook to pull this product back. there is a wealth of research that shows social media is harmful to adolescents that excessive time on social media is laid to things like depression, girls are more likely to feel dissatisfied about their bodies. and here is facebook doing this research and deliberately trying to get even younger kids to use their platform. and we think it is a huge mistake every time when most prince are concerned about screen time, at a time when kids are not getting enough face-to-face time with their friends, we think the last thing that gets need is to normalize this idea that relationships should take place online, that relationships should take place through a commercial product. for so many reasons, we believe

that facebook should pull this product and that we should let kids grow up without being ensnared in facebook's surveillance and advertising platform. amy: limited to a clip of dick durbin of illinois questioning mark zuckerberg. >> your recently announced something messenger kids. kids between six and 12 to send video and text messages through facebook as an extension of their parent's account. you have cartoonlike stickers and her features designed to go to little kids -- first-aders, kindergarers. i'm generate 30, the campaign for commercial free childhood and lots of other child develop in organizations warned facebook will stop they pointed to a wealth of research demonstrating the excessive use of digital devices and social media is thatul to kids, and argued

young children simply are not ready to handle social media accounts at age six. in addition, their concerns about data that is being gathered about these kids. now, there are certain limits of the law, we know. there's a children's online protect -- tillman's on the privacy protection act. at guarantees can you give us that no data from messenger kids is or will be collected or shared with those that might violate that l? >> a number of things are important here. the background messenger kids is we heard feedback from thousands of parents that they want to be able to stay in touch with their kids and call them me use apps like facetime, when they're working late or not around and want to communicate with her kids, but they want to have complete control. i think we can all agree when your kid is six or seven, even if they could have access to a phone, you are to be about control everyone they can contact. there was not an app out there that did that, so we build this service to do that. the app collects a minimum amount of information that is

necessary to operate the service. for exple, the messages people send is something that we collect in order to operate the service. in general, that data is not going to be shared with third parties. amy: does that satisfy you, josh golin? meknow, it does not satisfy for a couple of reasons. first of all, it is not a minimal amount of data they're collecting. they're keeping a record of every text, every video, every picture that a child sense. if you look at whether own privacy policies as the may says they do share it with some third parties. run say it is necessary to the platform that they need to share it with these third parties. when you ask them who those third parties are, they won't tell you. they say that is proprietary information. it is another case of where facebook knows this information about us alone we asked them to share information with us, they're not so forthcoming. the other thing that i think we really need to push back on is this idea people doing this as a

service for parents. facebook is doing this because they want young kids to be on facebook and because they're losing young kids to snapchat. this is all about building their brand, not providing a service for kids so they can call grandma. amy: josh golin, than you. weill continue to cover this. executive director of the campaign for a commercial-free childhood. breaking story, house speaker paul ryan reportedly is not going to run for reelection in november. he is leaving the house of representatives. this out of algeria, up to 257 people have died in a military plane crash near algiers this morning. among the dead are reportedly 26 members of the polisario front which is seeking western sahara's independence from morocco. that does it for our broadcast. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york0013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

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