Michigan Members of Congress Ready to Unfriend Facebook
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes his mea culpa on Capitol Hill today. And Michigan members of the committees grilling Mark Zuckerberg say Facebook may require far stricter government oversight to protect user data.
The head of Facebook testifies before Congress today and tomorrow about how the social media website allowed data from millions of users to be taken without their permission.
And Michigan members of those Congressional committees say they have many questions for Mark Zuckerberg.
Congress is unhappy with the response from Facebook to Russian trolls that U.S. intelligence services say used fake news to manipulate the 2016 elections, as well as the recent revelation that data was harvested from almost 87 million users without their knowledge.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says in testimony prepared for the House Energy and Commerce Committee that Facebook did not take a broad enough view of its responsibilities to users.
But a member of that committee, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI,) says Facebook must do more to safeguard personal data.
“We can’t just trust their safety and protection to millions of individual choices. There needs to be very clear rules of the road,” Dingell says. “If companies play fast and loose, like we’re now witnessing, there could be reverberations for years to come.”
Some in Congress say Facebook and other social media sites should be regulated just as stringently as any other media organization.
