LIVE: Grand International Committee at @CommonsCMS with Facebook (Zuck ignored the summons as expected) parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/3a…
Ian Lucas: When did Zuckerberg learn about the GSR incident? Doesn’t change their story that they learned from the press, Harry Davis story from Guardian in Dec 16. Who is Joseph Chancellor, co-founder of GSR, source of breach? What actions have you taken against Chancellor? None
Ian Lucas: When Kogan asked if it was odd if Chancellor was hired, Kogan felt it was a PR crisis move. 3rd FB witness who cannot give a list of other banned apps despite repeated requests. Only banned when they got caught by the press.
Lord Allan describes how FB wins by achieving its goal of engagement at all costs without self-awareness. Lucas references Casablanca in accusing FB of lying and failing to cite any other banned app.
Chair Collins ask about Russian operations and when they knew what when, a consistent pattern of failing to disclose. Are there other instances that should be disclosed? Collins says he will not publish Six4Three documents but will cite them.
Cites Six4Three correspondence of an API key accessed from Russian reported by FB engineer. Was that reported to proper agencies? Allan dodged and dragged Plaintiff Kramer instead of answering question.
Catherine Morin-Desailly, French Senate: Had FB been warned their data would be used by Cambridge Analytica? Is it novel to target politically? Allan agrees it was abused. What about “shadow profiles?” Allan denies that create shadow profiles. But admits there is non-user data.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland: Asks about Irish DPA complaints and advise to shut down the sharing. Allan says since it was pre-scandals, and FB wasn’t legally compelled they decided to disregard recommendation, as decided by FB Ireland.
Jo Stevens MP: Asks about FTC settlement regarding how privacy controls failed to constitute consent. Asked about non-user data sitting on FB servers. Contact lists, logs of IPs. Claims not used for advertising. (I don’t buy it.)
Clive Efford MP: As a member of House of Lords yourself, how does it look that Zuck didn’t show up to Parliament? Not good.
Clive Efford MP says they have evidence that a partner’s ability to pay for mobile advertising was a factor in getting a whitelisting agreement.
Paul Farrelly MP: Asks if they’ll get an answer about Russian access via API contained in sealed, seized Six4Three documents. Was the sleazy? Ironic how FB started at Harvard. Not about bikinis but get your point.
Paul Farrelly MP: Asks about FTC consent decree and how FB has complied. Asks about RICO in the way FB has crushed competition. Asked to share identity of anonymous chuck chequers advertiser.
Naughton, Ireland: Asks about preventing foreign funded election ads in a concern over election interference. New election laws being updating for internet and whether FB agrees it needs to be regulated. Yes, would be helpful.
Erskine-Smith, ETHI, Canada: On the “we didn’t take a broad enough view” questions, not sorry enough to send Zuck, was it malicious or negligent? Did FB treat API developers differently if they bought ads? Did FB ever tell devs they needed to buy ads to stay on the platforms?
Collins clarifies that Six4Three docs were not disclosed beyond DCMS committee while Allan protests the line of questioning over pressure on developers to buy mobile ads.
Erskine-Smith: 270 Canadians downloaded GSR app yielded hundreds of thousands of users. Is that acceptable? In the context of the Canadian privacy commissioner dispute over privacy issues in 2009 where Denham raised concern over friend sharing with FB.
Rebecca Pow MP: Cites NYT reports, asks about use of Fb data for presidential campaigns. Allan says Cruz campaign contracted CA who contracted GSR. But didn’t get covered how Cruz data carried over to Trump campaign (which Nix admitted to BBC).
Pow: Internally Zuck says criticism are valid. Externally Zuck says criticism is unfair. Allan says criticism of individuals is what he’s reacting to. Pow asks about the ICO penalty for GSR/CA and why it’s appealing the judgement.
Pow: Does the appeal of the ICO penalty represent a resistance to regulation while saying they accept regulation?
Brendan O’Hara MP: Why were you sent instead of Zuckerberg? Best placed to answer questions or best placed to defend company? He volunteered himself. (Laughter)
O’Hara MP: Hammers on number of times FB has to “get back to you on that” in written answers rather than answering during hearings.
Bob Zimmer, ETHI, Canada: Is democracy at risk if we don’t deal with surveillance capitalism?
Zimmer: We represent 400M people and resent Zuckerberg’s failure to appear. References Delay, Deny, Deflect NYT article. Collecting billions of dollars. Yet Allan is downplaying effect FB has on election campaigns. Fake CA ads ran. Didn’t catch them in 2 weeks despite investments
Sun Xueing, Singapore: How is FB policing fake accounts? Most fake accounts for commercial intent not political. (Doesn’t admit politics are often exploited by commercial fraudsters because it drives engagements.)
[really sorry everyone but I have to take my son to school now. Will be back soon and get caught up]
Julie Elliot MP: hearing about new political ad verification process. IMO: To me it seems like all advertising should require equal registration, disclosure, and transparency. Isolating just political ads seems like a fool’s errand, frankly.
Nele Lijnen, Belgium: FB was convicted in Belgium for tracking users off of FB. FB considers this legal. GDPR and ePrivacy may limit the tracking-based business model which would have profound implications. Asks about data retention of IPs which GDPR considers personal data.
Lijnen: Is Facebook two-faced? Big ad campaign that they’ve changed then reports emerge of using sleazy firms like Definers. What about algorithmic transparency in dealing with disinfo? Allan references academics. Irony scandal derived from rogue academics Kogan/Chancellor.
Pritam Singh, Singapore: Asks about preventing election tampering. Allan describes war room (now task force) assigned to significant elections. What about small countries? What about regional elections? (FB as the global privatized election intermediary scares the crap out of me)
Leopoldo Moreau, Argentina: Speaks in Spanish to emphasize the global, multilingual challenge of FB’s impact on democracies. Cites Amnesty International report on fake account farms. Office in Argentina has been unresponsive to government questions. Allan has to follow-up.
Moreau: What about WhatsApp as a massive scale of disinformation, such as in Brazil, untraceable, and even more difficult for political advertising policing. Businesses using WhatsApp APIs exploited for campaigns in Brazil.
Moreau: Allan says if anyone finds shady companies exploiting WhatsApp they must be reported for FB to investigate.
Alessandro Molon, Brazil: Asking about the authoritarian nature of tech companies. What is FB doing to prevent the manipulation of its algorithms? Allan describes Zuck’s proposal to identify “borderline content” and demote it despite engagement signals.
Molon, Brazil: Illegitimate Pages/users gained 12M interations leading up to elections before being reported by journalists and removed. Allan describes how difficult it is to disambiguate between spam and campaigning, either way gaming the system.
Molon, Brazil: WhatsApp was used to spread disinfo at massive scale. 100,000+ accounts banned. Allan says they don’t want their service used for manipulation. But doesn’t want to interfere with private communications.
Dr Inese Lībina-Egnere, Latvia: Our neighbor Russia is always a concern. What about Latvian language issues? Allan says they partner with NGOs like Atlantic Council and extending language capabilities into AI systems. Describes language specific meme detection.
Morin-Desailly, France: Regarding cooperation with French govt, how can we restore trust beyond superficial promises. Are you prepared to rethink your economic model? (CNIL French DPA is probing complaints on how RTB ad model isn’t GDPR compliant).
Chalie Angus, ETHI, Canada: Trying end on a hopeful note. But brings up corporate fraud of FB’s inaccurate video metrics. Is the answer anti-trust? Leave FB, go to WhatsApp or Instagram? The problem is unprecedented control of social discourse around the world. Accountability?
ADJOURNED. wow.
ICYMI: Guardian did a liveblog with much more detailed quotes and analysis. theguardian.com/technology/liv…
