The middle east, in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts. After all of the blood and treasure america has poured into the deserts of the middle east, i am committed to pursuing a different course, one that leads to victory for america. Through much work, we have done things that everybody said couldnt be done. Todays announcement validates our course of action with turkey that only a couple of weeks ago was scorned and now people are saying, wow, what a great outcome, congratulations. Its too early to me to be congratulated. But weve done a good job. We saved a lot of lives. Most importantly, we have avoided another costly military intervention that could have led to disastrous consequences, many thousands of people could have been killed. The last administration said assad must go. They could have easily produced that outcome, but they didnt. In fact they drew a very powerful red line in the sand, you all remember, the red line in the sand, when children were gassed and killed but then did not honor their commitment as other children died in the same horrible manner. But i did honor my commitments with 58 tomahawks. Eight long years after president obamas illfated push at regime change, u. S. Troops are still on the ground in syria. More than half a Million People are dead, hundreds of thousands are terribly injured and millions more syrians are displaced. It really is a nightmare of misery. Across the middle east, we have seen anguish on a colossal scale. We have spent 8 trillion on wars in the middle east never really wanting to win those wars. But after all of that money was spent and all those lives lost, the young men and women gravely wounded so many. The middle east is less safe, less stable, and less secure than before these conflicts began. The same people pushing for these wars are often the ones demanding america open its doors to unlimited migration from wartorn regions, importing the terrorism and the threat of terrorism right to our own shores. But not anymore. My administration understands that immigration security is National Security. As a candidate for president , i made clear that we needed a new approach to American Foreign policy, one guided not by ideology, but by experience, history, and a realistic understanding of the world. We are building up americas military might like never before. Investing 2 1 2 trillion dollars since my election. But we will not be depleted. We will not happen again. It will not be allowed to happen again where our military is depleted, fighting in areas of the world where we shouldnt be. When we commit american troops to battle, we must do so only when a Vital National interest is at stake. And when we have a clear objective, a plan for victory and a path out of conflict, thats what we have to have. We need a plan of victory. We will only win. Our whole basis has to be the right plan and when we will only win. Nobody can beat us. Nobody can beat us. I want to again thank everyone on the American Team who helped achieve the ceasefire in syria, save so many lives, along with president erdogan of turkey, a man ive gotten to know very well and a man who loves his country and in his mind hes doing the right thing for his country. And we may be meeting in the very near future. I also want to thank general mazloum for his understanding and great strength and incredible words today to me, but me just as a representative of the United States because he knows that we saved tens of thousands of kurds and were not talking in the long term, were talking in the short term. Were talking something that was going on immediately and something, frankly, that was planned for a long time. The job of your military is not to police the world. Other nations must step up and do their fair share that hasnt taken place. Todays breakthrough is a critical step in that direction. Thank you all very much and god bless america. Thank you, thank you. You said that the isis fighters who escaped have been recaptured. But today your top envoy said thats not true. Do you have a comment . Just taking a vote break in this hearing. Its allowing members to go to the floor to vote on Election Security. Also a hearing on syria that we were planning on bringing you around this time is Available Online at cspan. Org taking a look at u. S. Policy in syria. Expecting the committee to come back as soon as members are done voting. Theyve been hearing from Facebook Ceo Mark Zuckerberg on the cryptocurrency he wants to launch as well as data and Election Security issues having to do with facebook posts and ads. While we wait for the hearing to resume, hell take a look at some of the opening statements. Today were here to examine the impact of facebook on the housing sectors. Our sole witness is mark zuckerberg. Facebooks plans to create a Digital Currency, libra, and a digital wallet, calibra, raised many concerns relating to privacy, trading risk, discrimination, opportunities for diversed owned financial firms, National Security, Monetary Policy and the stability of the Global Financial system. I and other democrats have called for a moratorium on the development of its Digital Currency libra until congress can examine the issues associated with a Big Tech Company developing these Digital Products and take action. As i have examined facebooks various problems, i have come to the conclusion that it would be beneficial for all if facebook concentrates on addressing as many existing differeeficiencie before the project. First on diversity and inclusion, facebook has failed. Its executive ranks and workforce continue to be mostly white and male. Sense reverend Jesse Jackson called upon Silicon Valley Companies Including facebook to release its diversity statistics more than five years ago, the representation of africanamericans and hispanics has increased by less than 2 . Facebook also told us that they have 0 managed by diverse firms. On fair housing, facebook has been sued by the National Fair Housing Alliance for enabling advertisers to engage in discrimination on its advertising platforms. The u. S. Department of housing and urban development has also filed an official charge of discrimination against facebook for its advertising practices including the companys own ad delivery algorithms which were found to have a discriminatory impact. I understand that facebook has refused to cooperate with huds fair housing investigation by refusing to provide relative havent data. On competition and fairness, facebook is a subject of an antitrust investigation by the attorney generals of 47 states and the District Of Columbia on protecting consumers, facebook was fined 5 billion by the federal trade commission for deceiving consumers and failing to keep their data private. On elections, facebook enabled the russian government to interfere with our election in 2016 with ads designed to pit americans against each other, suppress the vote and boost trump. Facebook allowed a counterfeit black lives matter web page to operate with the goal of discouraging africanamericans from voting. Three years later, these activities are continuing on facebook. We learned just this week that russia and iran are using the same tactics to meddle in our next election. Last week you announced that facebook would not be doing factchecking on political ads given any one facebook labels a politician, a platform to lie, mislead, and misform the American People which would allow facebook to sell more adds. The impact would be a massive Voter Suppression effort that will move at the speed of a clip. Your claim to promote freedom of speech does not ring true. 2 2. 7 billion people use your products. Thats huge. Perhaps you believe that youre above the law and it appears that you aggressively increasing the size of your company and are willing to step on or over anyone, including your competitors, women, people of color, your own users and our democracy to get what you want. All of these problems ive outlined and given the companys size and reach, it should be clear why we have serious concerns about your plans to establish a global Digital Currency that would challenge the u. S. Dollar. In fact, you have opened up a serious discussion about whether facebook should be broken up. The chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina for five minutes for an opening statement. Thank you for your appearance. Today is a trial on American Innovation. Theres a growing concern about the role that technology plays in our lives. Thats warranted. Thats necessary. Yes, technology has led to greater prosperity, more freedom of expression and the ability to transcend the limits of space and time to connect us with one another. Its a powerful tool. Powerful tool for our society developed here in the United States gone global. But we know theres also a downside to all of this. T the growing inequality to those who have access to the latest technology. Not to mention the anxiety of the age, thats a deep cultural moment for us. Not as politicians but as americans. That nervous feeling that you need to check your phone throughout the day. Thats something that is now a cultural occurrence for all of us, especially members of congress, most of whom in this room are doing that right now. Theres a lot of anger out there and now its been directed at the architects of this system. Thats why youre here mr. Zuckerberg, thats why youre here today. You are one of the titans of what we call the digital age. Its an enormous amount of responsibility and an enormous weight based off the innovation that youve brought. And maybe its not about libra, its not about some housing ads, no, and maybe its not really even about facebook at all. Its that larger question, in fair or not fair, youre here today to answer for the digital age. But of course, youre not americas first innovator and we hope youre not americas last. This is not the first time that americas faced difficult questions about technology. Sadly throughout the history of innovation, a major theme is the exploitation of fear. Politicians enabled by special interests and a lack of understanding of new Technology Use fear to justify what is ultimately a power grab. New laws, new regulation, but ultimately old and tired ways here in washington. Some of this has led to comical results. But just as one example, there was a time when legislators pushed for what was then called red flag laws. Which required vehicles, socalled horseless carriages to stop on the side of the road and disassemble the automobile until livestock was sufficiently pacified. But other times in history, the use of fear was not so funny. Our last year hearing on libra, for example, was a moment when members of congress on this dais actually compared the technology, that technology of libra, to the terrorist attacks of september 11th will the gentleman yield . Youre making reference to my comments the time belongs to the gentleman from North Carolina. Thank you for taking the bait. Look, i have my qualms about facebook and libra. I do. And the shortcomings of big tech. There are many, yes, there are, but if history has taught us anything, its better to be on the side of innovation, competition and the freedom to build a Better Future for all of us, progress is not preordained and american domination of free speech and global rights is not preordained. Let us not forget that the wave of innovation is spreading across the world with or without us. Thats why i believe American Innovation is on trial this day in this hearing. And the question is, are we going to spend our time trying to devise ways for planners to central and control as to who, when and how innovators can innovate or will we spend time contemplating and leading the way on the question of whether or not it will be American Innovation that leads the next century, being led by american values, the notion that we have of rule of law and free speech rights and americandriven jobs and innovation. Are we going to spend our time buildings a Brighter Future for our americans or trying to tear each other apart. I yield back. I would like to welcome todays witnesses actually, we only have one. Mr. Mark zuckerberg. Chairman and chief executive, officer of facebook. This is mr. Zuckerbergs first appearance before this committee, but i believe that mr. Zuckerberg needs no introduction. Mr. Zuckerberg, without objection, your written statement will be made part of the record. You will have five minutes to summarize your testimony. When you have one minute remaining, a yellow light will appear. At that time i would ask you to wrap up your testimony so we can be respectful of the Committee Members time. Mr. Zuckerberg, you are now recognized for five minutes to present your oral testimony. Thank you. Chairwoman waters, Ranking Member mchenry and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. As we sit here, there are more than a billion people around the world who dont have access to a bank account but could through mobile phones if the right system existed and that includes more than 14 Million People right here in the u. S. Being shut out of the Financial System has real consequences for peoples lives and its the most disadvantaged people who pay the highest price. People have to wait far too long to send money to their families aboard. The Current System is failing them. The financial industry is stagnant and theres no Digital Financial architecture to support the innovation that we need. I believe that this problem can be solved and libra can help. The idea behind libra is that sending money should be as easy and secure as sending a message. Libra will be a global Payment System fully backed by a reserve of cash and liquid assets. I believe this is something that needs to get built, but i get that im not the ideal messenger for this right now. We faced a lot of issues over the past few years and im sure there are a lot of people who wish it were anyone but facebook who were helping to propose this. But theres a reason we care about this and thats because facebook is about putting power in peoples hands. Our services give people a voice to express what matters to them. Giving people control of their money is important too in a stable way to transfer money is empowering. Over the long term, this means that more people transact on our platforms that will be good for our business. But even if it doesnt, this could help people everywhere. There are questions about Financial Stability, fighting terrorism and more and im here today to discuss those risks and how we plan to address them. But i also hope that we get a chance to talk about the risks of not innovating. China is moving quickly to launch a similar idea in the coming months, libra is going to be backed mostly by a dollars and i believe it will extend americas Financial Leadership around the world as well as our Democratic Values and oversight. But if america doesnt innovate, our Financial Leadership is not guaranteed. I actually dont know if libra is going to work but i believe that its important to try new things and as long as youre doing so responsibly. Thats what has made america successful and its why our Tech Industry has led the world. We cowrote a white paper to start a conversation and todays hearing is an important part of that process. What were discussing today is too importantly for any Single Company and thats why we helped to found the Libra Association, its a group of nonprofits that are working to give everyone access to financial tools. I want to be clear, facebook will not be a part of launching the libra Payment System anywhere in the world, even outside the u. S. , until the u. S. Regulators approve. Last time i testified before congress, i talked about taking a broader view of our responsibility and that includes making sure our services are used for good and preventing harm and i want to discuss that across other aspects of our work as well. People shouldnt be discriminated against any of our technologies. Its part of a settlement of civil rights groups, weve banned advertisements for using age, zip codes for these ads. Its part of our commitment for civil rights. I also know that we need more diverse perspectives in our company. Diversity leads to better decisions for your community. We made a commitment that within five years, more than 50 of our workforce will be women, people of color and other underrepresented groups. We made some progress here. There are more people of color, women in technical and business roles and underrepresented people at facebook now, and i know we still have a long way to go. Chairwoman waters, Ranking Member mchenry, committee, this has been a challenging few years for facebook. I recognize that we play an Important Role in society and have unique responsibilities because of that and i feel blessed to be in a position where we can make a difference in peoples lives. For as long as im here, im committed to using our position push for big ideas that i believe can help empower people. Thank you and im looking forward to answering your questions. Is recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Zuckerberg, thank you for being here today and i want to thank the chairwoman for having this hearing. Youve said a lot of things today that couldnt have been said during the last hearing. Your responses to questions has been very district and very helpful. Thank you for that and thank you very much for being here. I just had a few quick questions about the Libra Association. On the website, one of the benefits before mr. Marcus appeared before our committee was that those contributing, who joined the association, could derive dividends from libra investment tokens and thats since been taken off. Could you elaborate on that . Sure, congressman, i think that there had been an idea that in order to encourage marketing of the payment service, that there might be some investment that other companies could make into this and some return that they could make, but i think that that idea has either morphed or been abandoned at this point. Im not sure exactly what the current state of it is. But thats what youre referring to. Do you think thats a reason some of these bigger named players pulled out of the association . Do you have a theory on that . I dont think thats related to that, would be my guess. Those companies could have invested if they wanted to under that program, but im not sure that they were planning to. And so i want to close on this line of switzerland. I traveled with the chairwoman to switzerland and we found an environment there that seemed to be very pro bringing the association to switzerland and one of the things that was troubling to me was this idea that weve got a Great American company like facebook and a Great American Success Story like yourself whos pushing this idea on foreign soil n. Your written testimony, one of the things you said is i believe this will extend americas Financial Leadership as well as our Democratic Values around the world. If america doesnt innovate, our Financial Leadership isnt guaranteed. Those are your words. Why not bring this to the United States, even if it means saying, we tried this, we couldnt get our fellow americans couldnt get congress on board, but we think well have more success here at home . Why not give that a shot. Congressman, our subsidy calibra and a lot of the other organizations are american, a lot of the work were doing is happening in america. The platforms that were building, like whatsapp and Facebook Messenger where people might be able to use libra, those are American Products that carry our values and its contemplated that the reserve would be primarily american dollars. We talked at length today about some of the reasons why it might make sense to headquarter an International Association in the place that a lot of other International Associations are headquartered, but i wouldnt take away from that that this isnt still going to be an American Innovation that is extending americas Financial Leadership around the world. So ill just say this, before this hearing, i kind of had two issues, one was some of the issues facebook has had over the last few years, a lot of them have been voiced in this hearing today and the other was the whole issue of moving this to switzerland and i would say that i think youve done a good job answering our questions today. Any company as large as yours is going to have problems and youll continue to have problems. And so im not so much against the idea of facebook pursuing an innovative idea like perhaps i was in the past. Its difficult for me to get on board with something thats so big being in another country and i would implore you to consider bringing this home, perhaps, as things move forward. Youve said that youll pull out of the association if it goes into a direction you dont want to go. I would argue that you have enough influence to bring this home and i would ask that you consider that. And i yield back. The gentlewoman from iowa, ms. Axne is recognized for five minutes. I asked my constituents what they would like to ask you and i would like to enter those into the record. Without objection, such is the order. Im going to talk about privacy in a second. It says your mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. If your goal is to bring the world closer together, i believe that requires you taking your responsibility for our elections very seriously. I know yesterday you revealed new attacks from russia and iran, many of them targeting swing states and i take those very personally because those are my constituents and i would like you to keep that in mind when youre thinking about the people who are being targeted. I dont want to spend too long on this, but facebooks size makes it a target for attacks and if facebook is going to remain essential to how americans communicate, i need you to work harder to prevent these kinds of attacks. Lets start with a couple of basics. How Many American adults have a facebook account . I dont know the exact break down, off the top of my head. I believe u. S. And canada combined is about 240 million or 85 of the adults and the second question would be i know substantially all of facebooks 55 billion in refb last year came from advertising, is that correct . Congresswoman, the vast majority comes from advertising. 50 billion, at least, do you think comes from advertising . Yes. And i believe this year you said you want to make sure that folks have an opportunity to control their data privacy. I believe you said this last year that youre going to make sure that folks have that opportunity even when theyre not logged into facebook, is that correct . Congresswoman, im not sure what youre referring to, but in general, yes, i think people should have control over all of their information in all forms. Do you collect data on people who dont even have an account with facebook . Congresswoman, there are a number of cases where a website or app might send us signals from things that theyre seeing and we might match that to someone whos on our services but someone might send us information about somebody whos not on our services in which case we wouldnt likely use that. You collect data on people who dont have an account, correct . Im not sure thats what i said. If youre able to access that information, thats information about somebody who might not have a facebook account. If youre referring to a person up loading their own contact list and saying that the information on their contact list might include people who are not on facebook, then, sure, yes, in that case so facebook then has a profile of virtually every american and your Business Model is to sell ads based on harvesting as much data as possible from as many people as possible. So you said last year that you believed it was a reasonable principle that consumers should be able to easily place limits on the personal data that Companies Collect and retain. I know facebook users has a setting to opt out of Data Collection and they can download their information but i want to remind you of what you said, facebook is about putting power in peoples hands. If one of my constituents doesnt have a facebook account, how are they supposed to place limits on the information your company has about them when they collect information about them but they dont have the opportunity to opt out because theyre not in facebook . Congresswoman, respectfully, i think i dont agree with the characterization saying that if someone up thats one example. I know theres multiple ways that youre able to collect data for individuals. Im asking you for those folks who dont have a facebook account, what are you doing to help them place limits on the information that your company has about them . Congresswoman, my understanding is not that we build profiles for people who are not on our service. There may be signals that apps and other things send to us that might include people who arent in our community. But i dont think we include those in any kind of understanding of who a person is if the person isnt on our services. I appreciate that. What actions do you know specifically are being taken or are you willing to take to ensure that people who dont have a facebook account, have that power to limit the data that your company is collecting . Congresswoman, what im trying to communicate is that i believe that thats the case today. I can get back to you on all of the Different Things that we do in terms of controls and services that would be great because we absolutely need some specifics around that to make sure that people can protect their data privacy. Mr. Zuckerberg, to conclude, facebook is tracking peoples behavior in numerous ways whether theyre using it or not. Its been used to undermine our elections and of course i know youre aware facebook isnt the most trusted name. Im asking you to think about what needs to be fixed before you bring a currency to market. Thank you. The gentle from virginia is recognized for five minutes. Thank you for appearing today. It seems as though facebook is a regular fixture at the committee these days. My first question is simple, how realist of a trail was the social network . By the way, and the reason i ask that dwe, i think were getting to the begin of social network 2 and i want to be in charge of my own casting. I think your life story is impressive. I think hard work, you can aspire and have the american dream. However, i was part of the r d infrastructure at the secretary of state, i had to do a lot of Quick Reaction and so i know the difficulty of trying to do Something Like this. I have some real questions. And when i was in the dod they played this thing called stump the dummy, i will not do that today. I promise you that. Im going to ask some questions here. The first thing, you talked about the many countries, i think and and i got a question, i looked it up, the power of google, 170 million or so users, 3. 2 billion worldwide for facebook. If this happens and i know the calibra is a part of facebook and a wallet to hold an independent currency like libra. If youre in all of these separate countries, do you believe its possible to build a rules set, some kind of rules based Machine Learning thing where you can comport or have the antimoneylaundering of each country rolled into the algorithm when you buy libra in that geographic entity. I was wondering if thats something thats thats automat when youre logging in or building your libra account through a wallet that might not be coming through . Tz. Congressman, this is a good question. Were certainly looking at whether there are elements of the aml or kyc regulations that can be encoded at the Network Level and not just at the level of the individual wallets or Payment Companies involved. In terms of how this works in Different Countries around the world, what we find is the mesh standard in regulations tend to be pretty strict. Ask that if we can build similar tools for verifying peoples government i. D. S across the world in different places, you can make a centralized investment in that and then have it apply in a number of places. I think if we comply with americas laws on this, we will largely be in compliance with most of what needs to happen around the world. There may be some specific things that need to be done differently in some places, but the technical complexity would be relatively similar. We have usually prepared questions so now im riffing because you talked about the digitizing and we talked about the digital dollar. So my question is this. When it comes to sort of antiMoney Laundering or trafficking, do you believe, this is a technical question not how far we can go into this. Do you believe the aml side you can tag the attributes of the transaction rather than the entity itself to see if theres any nefarious activity with that specific token. By not going to the privacy portions of this, can we track whats happening with that token. And at that point if its doing something wrong without identifying the user for that transaction. I think we likely will explore security measures like that. Just to analogize to another area of our work and preventing nation states from trying to interfere in the democrat you can process. That type of thing of just looking at patterns of activity that kind of clusters of accounts are making so we can build these ai systems that can can find amongst the billions of people using our services when a group isnt behaving in a way that a human would and pass that along to the fbi or the relevant Law Enforcement to help figure out what the right action to take is. Thats certainly been one of the the effective enforcement measures that you would be able to take. So i would imagine we will explore that here as well. It possible to tag a portion of the attributes rather than the people that bought the libra currency token itself . I have 15 seconds left so next week well be talking about location. But i really am excited about seeing how this goes along that we are concerned based on aml and bsa. Where youre going to go with this you want to end with tom cruze. He will be play iing me in soci network 2. The gentleman from illinois is recognized for five minutes. Its always a privilege had to follow you mr. Cruise. Thank you, madame chair. I understand about a month ago you had a meeting in the oval office with the president and several senators in both parties. Is that correct . Thats correct. Was there a note taker present at that meeting . Tz. Congressman, i dont think there were note takers in any of these meetings. Youre not aware of any record of what was discuss ed . Im not aware of any r formal record. Did you or the president at that meeting raise or discuss the antitrust investigations that are underway at the department of justice, federal trade commission . Congressman, i dont think so, but the meeting was private overall. I understand there was no record. Im asking whether the subject came up. Congressman, those subjects didnt come up, but in general, i dont feel like its appropriate for me to comment on too much detail on private conversations. Were in a public office. Did anyone discuss the policy change alone in the kpems of political figures from misinformation on facebook at the course of the meeting . Congressman, no, that did not come up. I want to dive into that a little more detail. Not in the context of your meeting. If i understand your testimony here today, you have an aggressive posture against essentially allowing free speech, but blocking the speaker. So for example, if Jenny Mccarthy were to post dont get your kids vaccinated, would you take that down . Congressman, i think we would probably not take that down, but its hard to comment on a hypothetical without looking at the post. Someone with a large platform spreading misinformation on your platform, youre saying you wouldnt take it down or you would . Congressman, in general, our policy is not to ban people from posting things that are false. It is to you can Say Something on r your page if you want if an independent fact checker mark it is as false, well put a label on it that says an independent fact checker marked it as false. We will reduce the distribution and spread of it through the network. So the let me follow my colleagues comment. You said you were trying to police and block hate crimes and hate speech. If a member of the American Nazi Party posted antisemitic messaging, would you block that . Congressman, our policies against hate speech do lead to us taking down completely. Misinformation so now let me follow. In the last election art jones ran against dan live pin skit in illinois. Would he be allowed to speak on your platform in a different fashion . Congressman, im not familiar with who this person is. Im asking whether you can spread hate speech if youre an elected official or try iing toe an elected official that you would not be allowed to if you were not in that capacity . I think that depends on a bunch of specifics that im not familiar with this case and cant answer to. Thats rather shocking. I can follow up. I dont think thats a hard question, but fair enough. Let me ask you some hypothetical questions. You dont have to answer any of these and frankly probably dont want to answer any of them. Whether or not the First Amendment allows you to scream fire in a crowded theater is an open question that we struggle with all. How you define that. Whether or not the libra is is a bank or a credit card or a Credit Rating system and what Regulatory Environment it sits under you have the luxury and the privilege not to have to ask those questions or answer those questions. We have to figure that out. Kwour a smart i guy. Youre a wellmeaning guy. I have admiration for what you have built. I would remind you of the wisdom of one of our Supreme Court justices who said the greatest danger to liberty, the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in enapproachment us by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. Just as he also described, one of my colleagues likes to ask everybody if they are a capitalist or a socialist. He pointed out when we have tremendous concentration of power, we only have three choices. To embrace fascism, we can allow government to take over that concentration of power, which is to embrace communism, or embrace competition. Your luxury, sir is, your privilege comes from the tact as a country those of us on this side have always chosen door three. And i hope you have the wisdom to appreciate that. Thank you, i yield back. The gentleman from minnesota is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madame chair. Thank you mr. Zuckerberg for being here and staying here throughout this entire process. Since i have the opportunity to help close out this hearing, i this i can safely say this is at least the second time you have testified before congress where members end up looking like they have invested no time learning about new technologies in order to responsibly question Tech Companies. I think thats a fair takeaway from this hearing. Congress has nowhere close to catching up with some of the most base you can changes happening in our society. Id like to thank the republican leader of the Financial Services committee r for the recent opportunity to serve as the Ranking Member of the Financial Technology task force. In this new role, i look forward to working with my colleagues to foster competitive environment in which American Innovation can flourish. This includes crypto currency, block Chain Networks and every area. I have serious concerns about the structure of libra and its establishment outside the u. S. I also think its important to distinguish libra from crypto currency and decentralize open Public Networks. What im most concerned about is congress. And american regulators. Unfortunately, my colleagues have offered several proposals in conjunction with the hearing that could have a harmful impact on innovation in the United States. A few of these provisions appear to apply securities regulation beyond actual securities. As cochair of the block chain caucus, i frequently meet with entrepreneurs who try to follow the rules and never receive a clear answer from regulator what is they are doing is legal. It is not been clear whether innovators who play by the rules will ever receive the assurances that the u. S. Government would not come after them. Clarity is necessary in securities law. We can support open Public Networks and do so in a nonpartisan fashion. Thats why i intend to introduce a bill to make it clear as long as you register as a security or comply with an exemption under existing law you will not continue to have prosecution from a regulator hang over your head when that asset is publicly distributed, in fact, a commodity. As lawmakers, its our responsibility to explore all assets of the platform. It has the potential to impact so many and determine what, if any, laws should be passed to protect consumers while enabling businesses in the American Economy to grow. If we dont lead in this area, others most certainly will. Im encouraged by new opportunities to address this issue and approach these types of innovations with an open mind. It presents an exciting opportunity for commerce and remittances here in the United States and globally. We always understand any new innovation presents risks. The Financial Stability board last week issued a detailed report of the risks that should be considered when we look at Something Like libra. These are serious risks that we as lawmakers and as a committee need to work through. But let me repeat that. We need to work through them. We should look at these issues, these opportunities and these risks intelligently with input from experts in each of these areas. What we should not do is assume we need to ban them. The legislation identified for discussion during todays hearing would do just that. In your testimony, you present serious concerns with chinas actions. I share this concern, but it should not come at the cost of one single right of americans, especially freedom of speech, assembly and the right to due process we can excel. A part from closeddoor meetings and being called to testify, what has facebook done to engage the Crypto Community to help regulators understand all the innovations in this space and why it should be supported domestically . Thank you, congressman, you raise a money of number important in here. Part of the reason why were organizing why we helped start the independent Libra Association. This is clearly an area where it cant just be one Company Operating by itself and trying to stand up a system like this. And a number of the other companies and organizations part of the association are companies that have been involve d in the Crypto Community and products for many years before we got into the space. So some of them have colt up here and talked to all of you about the work they are doing. Representing my views on how i think this can advance our economy and help to help lead to more Financial Inclusion and build Good Services for people. I think over time, well want more members of the Libra Association to be involved in educating more focus as well. Thank you, i look forward to continuing the discussion. The gentlewoman from massachusetts is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madame chair. I have always maintained that those closest to the pain should be closest to the power. Driving and inform iing the policymaking. One thing is abundantly clear to me. You are very close to the power. Power is only growing. Although theres disagreement about who really created facebook, you ultimately secured near unilateral control of the company. Because of your control of 90 of facebooks class b shares, even if all other shareholders were to vote the same way, any proposal you dont support would still fail. Libra is facebook and facebook is you. I know you understand the technological and Business Case for libra. You have the stats, but im not certain you know the stories. You understand the source of the pain that millions are experiencing that are experiencing under banking and credit invisibility. So mr. Zuckerberg, in your adult life, have you ever been under banked . Yes or no . Im going to go with no. When i asked the head about why people lack Bank Accounts he said that, identity is a big problem. Yes or no, do you agree that authentication is the major hurdle to accessing the Financial System . Congresswoman, im not sure. I think its probably different in different places around the world. The same bank report cited finds that almost twothirds of 1. 7 billion people who dont have Bank Accounts say its because they lack enough money to open one. So this is not about authentication. This is not about banking costs. This is about a tsunami of hurt that millions are experiencing because of a 1. 6 trillion student debt crisis, Rising Health care costs and people having to use gofundme to pay medical bills. This is because of the racial and gender wealth gap. So again, you represent the power, but i dont think you understand the pain. Theres underbanking because people are are broke. And so let me just ask you this question. Yes or no, is it free to use the wallet . Congresswoman, it isnt a service that is available today. Assuming we were able to launch it, it will be free. So theres no fee . Thats the goal. To make it so that so theres no fee . The goal moving on. If it costs money to buy libra and costs money to use the wallet, i fail to see how this helps people with virtually no money. You are attempting to use technology to solve what is is inherently an issue of wealth. At the end of the day, you are a business. So what is in the business interest for you here . And do you believe in what you are building . Do you believe in what youre building . Congresswoman, yes. So yes or no, would you leave behind your childrens inheritance in libra . Congresswoman, yes, i do. Would you leave behind your childrens inheritance in libra . I i think its a fair question. You have prooumpb we cannot trust you with our emails, with our phone numbers. So why should we trust you with our hardearning money . If you cant answer yes or no, would you leave behind r inheritan inheritance . I would because it will be backed one to one by other currencies. Im running out of time. Your recent speech at georgetown touched upon how you were affected by the start of the iraq war when you were in college and how if more people had a voice to share their experiences maybe things would have gone differently. Earlier this year you announced that general council. She was the chief deputy in legal policy at the department of justice. In the fall of 2001 it was the daytoday manager of the patriot act in congress. She helped Sell Congress on masseur surveillance once already and now shes advising you how to do it again. So yes or no, is the patriot act reflective of your views on privacy and free speech . Ten seconds left. Its a straight forward question. Is it reflective of your views on private is sit and free speech . Theres a lot in there. I do not agree with all of it. Thats not what your hiring choices indicate. Mya angelou told us a long time ago. When people reveal who they are, believe them. I yield. The gentleman from indiana is recognized for five minutes. Good afternoon, mr. Zuckerberg. I appreciate you being here and your thoughtful answers to many of the questions that have been posed. I do think you are really sympathetic to a lot of the plights around the world including access to the Financial System ask some of the transaction costs with remitting money to individuals who may be far flung around the world. And i really do think that you care a lot about that. I think your zeal and passion for mobilizing technology to deliver Better Outcomes for a vast number of people is truly inspirational and i appreciate the effort that you and manypeople at facebook and other technologies undertake every single day to empower people to live better lives. So i wanted to ask in concert with that, i assume you and the others with you and with facebook in the Libra Association have made conscious choices about architecture to reflect what youre trying to do and lower the transaction costs and help across Financial Services. I wonder if you might talk about the technology and talk about the choices that you have made and how that reflects your genuine desire for this to be a tool of empowerment and connection ask not a security or Something Like that. Thank you, congressman. Youre right, i think theres an opportunity to build a new financial infrastructure. Maybe not completely from the ground up, but rebuild a lot of the the gruff thats been build up over the years. Not that thats bad what exist ed today, but it arose in an environment far different than what we had today. Thats right. I agree with that. And this is the way all systems work. You build something up and more requirements get placed and you build more things. Technology advancements enable us to jump over that. Right. I just think were in a different state of technology today. Some of the advancements and block chain and some of the things that can be done decentralized and in some cases the combination of systems, which were able to try to help facilitate here with part of the lowe bra association. I think just a lot of the costs and inefficiency to be taken out of the system. I just think if you look at it today, you have your mobile phone. You can text someone around the world. It gets there in less than b a second. Its easy to use. I just dont see why you shouldnt be able to send money in the same way. It should be able to get there qui quickly. It shouldnt take days. It should be free or extremely affordable. It may not be able to be completely free because well have to comply with a lot of the leglations. But just like the cost of Text Messages used to be very high before there was competition in that space. I think that the cost of Money Transfer should come down too. And enabling that kind of competition and a new way of thinking about the spaces is fundamentally what were trying to go for. At least what i have read about the choices made in the architecture it are reflects that desire, as you have articulated, to be stable. Not to be volatile. Its not truly a decentralized technology. It requires a central purpose. And i think that you have built that architecture so you can empower these individuals. I think its really easy to talk about perhaps some of the demons that have been unleashed by t h technology and its easy to forget the amazing advancements that we have been able to make as people, as humans because of this technology. I want this to reach more people around the world. You already have a tremendous network with 2. 5 Million People connected to that network. The question is what else can we connect to that network to make it not only more valuable for facebook, not only more valuable for the association, but r more valuable for each of those people. And each of those people that have fell for a long people facility disempowered i believe whin what you were trying to do. The goal is to get to the right outcome. Facebook has already done that. And that it renekts some of societys ills not necessarily facebooks fault. I think we should reflect really carefully on ensuring we have the right crucible for developing this technology over time. I appreciate the effort. Thank you for being here. Thank you. The gentleman from utah is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madame chair. Mr. Zuckerberg, in addition to my job as a member of congress, i hold the title of dad. I have four children ages 8, 11, and 14yearold twins. And keeping them safe not just for them but the thousands of kids in my district is what i want to talk to you about today. Because the role Online Social Networks play in the lives of our teens causes me much stress and keeps me up at night. Its a question such as who are my kids talking to online. Are they being groomed or exposed to elicit content. What does the exposure to what they see online mean for their physical and Mental Health development and well being. Im sure these are questions and concerns that most parents have. So i want to discuss the role of facebook and other Online Social Networks can play in keeping it sa safe. I echo the points made by my colleagues. The New York Times published a troubling article on child sexual exploitation. The times reported that Technology Companies reported a record 45 million online fphoto and videos of child sexual abuse content last year. Facebook was responsible for the vast majority of reports of online sexual bouz materials. Thank you for your efforts to crack down on that. Facebook messenger alone was responsible for 65 of the reports with roughly 12 million out of 18. 4 Million Worldwide reports. I know youre us aware of that report. The report also noted that only halfway through the year a specialized Law Enforcement team have conducted 150 raids across my state of utah in response to internet crimes against children. And they expect to arrest twice as many people this year compared to last year for crimes related to child sexual abuse material. So this is clearly a problem in utah. A problem across our nation and its getting worse. So yes or no, do you believe that online social media platforms such as facebook have a role to play, even an obligation to ensure that their platforms are safe for our vulnerable populations, especially our children . Congressman, absolutely. We do a lot of work on this. As you pointed out, i think the reason why the vast majority i saw r your comments. Thats good to hear. Lets dig into the challenges. According to reports, whatsapp has more users than Facebook Messenger. But according to the New York Times report its 65 of assauall sexual abuse reports. The data shows that whatsapp the companys ebb crypted messaging app submits a small fraction of the reports that messenger does. Im curious as to why it reports only a fraction of the incidents that Facebook Messenger does . Yes or no, is it in part because its encrypted whereas Facebook Messenger is not . Congressman, thats right. When the content is encrypted, we cant see the content itself so we have to do other measures to prevent connections between adults and minors. So earlier this year, you announced plans to move the app in the direction of whatsapp by encrypting Communications End to end. I know theres a delicate balance between privacy and child safety, but i dont think this is an either or proposition. Other Tech Companies were founded with innovation at their core. I think we can have enb kripgs and r more secure missageing while still ensuring we protect our children. That technology can play a role in keeping our children safe even if the app is is encrypted. I see great value in the technology and more skaur data transmission, but i know it comes with the risks. Im concerned about the move with the crypto currency rocket fuel. If we done get it right and the repercussions it may have on our ability to stop predators who take vascular of our children. So seeing my time is short, while i know that youre using some of your technologies to detect and delete explicit content like ai, facebook needs to be doing much more to protect our children. A mustve move to encryption will only proliferate the danger if not done correctly. All while giving you plausible deniability on what goes on. You can and should prioritize child safety as you move forward with safeguards and us urge you to work with experts before taking any steps to put our children in danger. 45 million photos and videos last year of child sexual abuse material, we must do better. Our children deserve nothing less. Thank you. The gentlewoman from new york is recognized for five minutes. Its good to see you, mr. Zuckerberg. I think you of all people can appreciate using a persons past behavior in order to determine, predict or make decisions about future behavior. In order for us to make decisions about libra, we need to kind of dig into your past behavior and facebooks past behavior with respect to our democracy. What year and month did you personally first become aware of Cambridge Analytica . Im not sure of the exact time. But it was probably around the time when it became public. I think it was around march of 2018. I could be wrong. When did facebooks coo become aware of Kamala Harris Cambridge Analytica . I dont know. Did anyone on your leadership know about it prior to the initial report by the guardian on december 11, 2015 . Congresswoman, i believe so. As youre asking this, i do think i was aware of cambridge as an entity. When was the issue discussed with your board member . Congresswoman, i dont know that. This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company that had catastrophic impacts on the 2016 election. You dont know . Im sure we discussed it after we were aware of what happened. You announce d recently that the official policy of facebook now allows politicians to pay to spread disinformation. In 2020 election asks in the future. So i just want to know how far i can push this in the next year. Under your policy using census data as well, could i pay to target black zip codes and advertise them the incorrect election date . No, congresswoman, you couldnt. We have even for these policies around the news worthiness of content that politicians say and the general principle that i believe but you said youre not going to fact check my ads . If anyone including a politician is saying things that can cause violence or could risk eminent physical harm or voter or census suppression, we roll out the census suppression policy. We will take that content down. So you will there is some threshold you will fact check political advertisements. Is that what youre telling me . Congresswoman, yes, for specific things like that whether where theres risk of harm. Could i run ads targeting republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal . Can you repeat that . Would i be able to run advertisements on facebook targeting republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal . If youre not Fact Checking political advertisements im trying to understand the bounds here of whats fair game. I dont know the answer to that off the top of my head. You dont know if ill be able to do that. Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of Fact Checking on political advertisements . Congresswoman, i think lying is bad. I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie that would be bad. Thats different from it being in our position, the right thinged to to prevent your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you had lied. So you wont take down lois or you will take down lies . Its a Pretty Simple yes or no. Congresswoman, in most cases, i believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for for themselves. You wont take them down . You may flag that its wrong, but you wont take it down. Congresswoman, it depends on the context that it shows up, organic post, ads. One question. In your ongoing dinner parties with far right figures, some who advanced the theory that white sprem sit is a hoax, did you discuss social media bias against conservatives and do you believe theres a bias . Congresswoman. Ill move on. Can us explain why you named the daily collar a welldocumented with with ties to white supremacist as a fact checker for facebook . Sure. We dont appoint the independent fact checkers. They go through an independent Organization Called the independent Fact Checking network that has a rigorous standard for who they allow to use as a fact checker. So you would say that White Supremacists tied publications meet a rigorous standard for Fact Checking . Thank you. I would say were not the one assessing that standard. The international Fact Checking network is the one who is setting that standard. Thank you. The gentlewoman from virginia is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madame chair. Thank you, mr. Zuckerberg for sticking around and answering our questions. I know its been a long day. Just so im clear on the difference between libra and calibra. Libra is a global coin or currency r a global Payment System, as you called it in your earlier testimony. Is that correct . Thats correct. Its going to be tied to a bs ket of commodities or currencies and its going to be backed by assets of the member of the Libra Association. Is that correct . Congresswoman, that is the current thinking, although as we discussed in testimony there are other ways. Its still a fluid thing. Its going to be monitored and handled by the Libra Association, which is a not for profit entity, correct . The reserve for the libra Payment System will be handled by the independent Libra Association. Thats a not for profit . Thats correct. Calibra is the digital wallet. Correct . Yes, congresswoman. Thats a whole subsidiary of facebook. Thats correct. Thats a for profit entity . Thats correct. So im just kind of curious how youre going to make your money, what the Business Model is. Do you anticipate youre going to collect fees from vendors, much like a credit card processer . Or are you going to mine data and use that to monetize the data that you get from peoples purchases . Or all of the above . Kacongresswoman, were not going to share Payment Information from calibra to the rest of facebook for personalizing services. So thr just a small number of limited cases we might have to share data if for overall security or tax law requires it. So how are you going to make money . The basic method here is through advertising overall. And the way that this is going to work youll still use the data for advertising purposes. No, sorry, if youll give me a moment. Im going to reclaim my time because its about halfway up. A couple days ago facebook released its plan to protect the 2020 elections. I assume youre familiar with this document. Helping to protect the 2020 u. S. Elections. Yes. The plan doesnt mention deep fakes, but it does talk about misinformation. So i assume would deep fakes fall under this umbrella of misinformation according to your plan here . Congresswoman, they could and were also working on a separate deep fakes policy as well. You talked about that rlier. So do you understand theres a difference between misinformation and disinformation . Are you atwar of that . Theres a difference between those concepts. Misinformation is false information spread. Disinformation is deliberately misleading information, manipulated narrative or propaganda. Are you aware theres a difference . Yes. But do you believe its not your position to get into what the intent of any kind of post is in putting that information out there . Congresswoman, its not that its not our responsibility or that its not good to satake th into effect. Its harder to determine intent. I gave this example. So i have an example actually. So we all saw the manipulated video of speaker pelosi. That was posted on facebook and reposted by a number of other folks. That was obviously digitally manipulated content. That came out before this policy started. So did it have a Third Party Independent review to determine whether it was manipulated or n not . Congresswoman, it did have a Third Party Fact checker. How long did it take . I think dish dont know how long the review took, but there was an operational mistake on our side that took too long for us to flag it for a fact checker to look at. So once the information came out that that was an altered video and it was essentially a fake video, who made the decision to leave it up . Congresswoman our policy is that misinformation i understand thats the policy. Was there a recommendation it be taken down in that process . Congresswoman, the policy is fairly clear on how we should act with that. Were you involved in making a decision about whether that video came down or remained up . Congresswoman, yes, and part of this was this is what our policy is now. And recognizing that this example, among others, highlighted for us we need a separate deep fake policy that may be different from who yhow street ordinary misinformation. Thats what were working on now. We started by implementing this deep fake challenge to work on Technical Solutions for identifying deep fakes and figuring out what they are and thats how were proceeding. You had me at yes. Thanks. The gentlewoman from pennsylvania is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you, mr. Zuckerberg for being here. Does facebook do any business with Trump International hotel here in washington, d. C. . Congresswoman, i do not know the answer to that. There have been public reports of enterprises and even governments doing business with trump hotels to curry favor with the administration. Do you think you could get us the answer to whether or not you have been doing any business with the hotel . Congresswoman, i will look into it with my team. Youll be able to get us data and information . My team will follow up with you. Is there any chance that facebook actually bookeds blocks of rooms at Trump International hotel and does not use them . Congresswoman, i would be very surprised to hear if that was the case. Who would be in charge of the people who would do such bookings . Congresswoman, im not even sure because i would be very surprised if it that were a thing we would do. Im not sure what team would be in charge of a thing i dont think were doing. But you dont know . You have no idea . Congresswoman, i have cert n certainly never heard of anything like that happening. I will confirm it after this. Us you dont know if facebook has booked for any occasion a room or block of rooms at Trump International hotel . Congresswoman, what im saying is im not aware of that. Its hard for me to sit here and know all of the things our organization hasnt done. You dont have any knowledge of that . That is correct. Even though what youre proposing here libra will most likely be regulated by congress and by this trump administration. Is that correct . Congresswoman, thats correct. We know that enterprises at even foreign governments have booked rooms at trump hotel and theres a real concern about b currying favor with the money strags by doing business there. Do you worry about that too . Congresswoman, i have seen the stories. Do you worry about that to . I understand the concern. Do you share the concern . Congresswoman, yes, if someone is trying to inappropriately curry favor, that is bad. I look forward to your sharing that information with this committee. Lets move on to the role of trust. Federal reserve Board Chairman powell said libra faces many serious concerns regarding privacy, Money Laundering, c Consumer Protection and financial security. Trust. So before we move forward to libra, why dont we look back on the issue of trust and you and facebook. As you know are from 2009 to 2011, there were many complaints against facebook. In 2011, facebook agreed to settle with the ftc regarding deceptive practices, at least eight counts of wrong doing, breaches of privacy. In 2012 the ftc accepted a settlement because facebook said you could keep the Information Private and you would agree to accept or require their expressed consent before sharing information. Is that correct . That was your 2012 proeagreemen . Congresswoman, that sounds roughly correct. Pz. Did you live up to that . Congresswoman, i think thats up to our regulator to decide. We have certainly made are you aware of your july settlement . For a fine of 5 billion . Of course. You are aware. Over the course from 2009 until this very year while under a Consent Decree to clean up your credibility, your credibility with your customers, to protect their privacy, to protect them from deceptive practices, you failed to do that for ten years. Am i correct . Congresswoman, i wouldnt agree with that characteri characterization. You settled for 5 billion in recognition of that failure. Ill move on. Given your history, why should congress, regulators and the public trust you to create what amounts to the Worlds Largest bank, a shadowed sovereign government . Why would we. You to do that . Congresswoman, were not creating a bank. Were helping an organization create a Payment System. A payment sl of shadow currency that would operate more like a government. I want to quote you. In a lot of ways facebook is more like a government than a traditional government. We have a Large Community of people and more than other Technology Companies were really setting policies. Were like a government. Thats facebook. I see i have little time left. Im going to end with an expression my son taught me recently. We earn credibility drop by drop. But we pour it away in buckets. I suggest and my hope is that facebook will go back to earning credibility drop by drop from those very customers you profit from. Thank you very much. The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for five minutes. Thank you very much. Today my colleagues and i have asked a lot about trust. You just heard one. Facebook is playing a game of catch up to build user trust, especially among the Africanamerican Community in the United States. According to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence committee, the Russian Influence Campaign in 2016 and that election made an extraordinary effort to target africanamericans that use ab array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among democratic voters and unleash activity on instagram, which you also own, that exceeded the post on facebook. So the report states that no single group of americans was targeted but our information operatives more than africanamerica africanamericans. As a black woman who has fought against Voter Suppression efforts and tactics, i implore you to ensure it does not become a dark place for fringe elements to amply us if i hate and bigotry or otherwise allow those that would wish to do harm to exploit the very real racial tensions that still exist in america today. My question is specifically how will facebook work to monitor the current platforms and lee br to ensure that youre not creating yet another avenue for bad actors and cyber terrorists current lu using facebooks platform to up end our National Security to exploit our Cultural Division or interfere in our democratic systems . Thank you, congresswoman. Ill first address the elections point. And then ill talk about the approach were taking with libra, if thats okay. So on elections, we were certainly on our back toot in 2016. While we were looking for certain types of security threats like hacking and when we found that the russian government was engaged in that, we identified folks like the fbi and dnc when we found that. But we werent locking for these coordinated information operations. Since then, we have built sophisticated systems to identify this kind of behavior that we believe are more sophisticated than what any other company is doing and a lot of governments. This monday we proactively identified on our own a new and sophisticated set of attacks coming from russia and iran, while that shows these governments are still trying to engage in this kind of election interference, it also i hope will give us confidence that we can now more proactively identify threats and nip them in the the bud. On libra, do you want me to address libra . Quickly. I think that were aware over the last few years where we have had a number of challenges that we are now a lot of what we do is too central to the democrat you can process and to society for us to go off on our own and come us up with the skpans launch it. Thats why with libra what were doing is we launched a white paper in order to invite this conversation. Because we knew this was sebstive. I want to ask you another question. With the the recent settlement on the employment discrimination charges, the current lawsuit for international discrimination and evidence indicate iing facebookd its various algorithms are still diskrcriminating based on race. Why should members of congress or the public trust that facebook would not intentionally discriminate in offerings with libra . How can we trust that . Congresswoman, on principle, thats not something that we would ever want to do or be in our interest to do. Thats why theres regulation. Part of the challenge right now that Internet Companies and us face is that theres not sufficient regulation in a number of areas we operate. We need federal private us is legislation. We need data portability. Clearer rules on electionsrelated content would be helpful. Its not clear to me that we want private Companies Making so many decisions on these important areas by themselves. So on the algorithm bias. How have you addressed that . Part of the settlement that we made with the fha and civil rights groups, we have agreed to study this in depth. We need to figure out the right way to study it. We dont know the race and ethnic background of people in our community. Its not clear that people want us to track that. We need to figure out the right way to do this research is to understand the impact. Im out of time. Thank you. M. Garcia is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you, mr. Suction ereberg for being here today. When your representative was here a bit over a month ago, i heard three really positive things about libra. One that its a nonprofit organization. That the aim of creating this project included banking the unbanked or the underbanked one and creating a more stable system for transferring money as an immigration i appreciate all of those things. You have said that lowe bra will follow federal laws and regulations. However, you have not been clear on which regulations apply to your project. You said earlier today you were not seeking a bank charter. So libra should be regulated as a bank . Congressman, i dont believe so. In addition questions have been raised whether security laws apply to a stable coin. Another yes or no question. Should libra be regulated by the securities and exchange commission. My understanding is its currently discussing this. Do you think you ought to be regulated . Yosh . They get to decide. So youre unable to give clear answers about which laws should apply to your project which is concerning to me given b your corporate power. Whenever we blur the lines between commerce and banking in this count us try, we have run into problems. Thats why im introducing the keep big tech out of finance act today. I dont think we can trust you. In 2012 the ftc caught you breaking the law, told you not to do it again ask thn you did it again. You did not give a deposition to the ftc. As part of that investigation. The associate director of enforcement has said you testified under oath if you had testified under oath it would have opened up to a huge amount of litigation outside of ftc, maybe that helps us understand the 5 billion payment. Its kshing as part of the settlement you and other facebook executives were ab solved of personal responsibility for all the wrok doing during the covered period. You have unilateral control over facebook with nearly 60 of the voting shares. As other colleagues have mentioned, facebook acts as a defacto government with you at the helm. Youre not accountable even to your share hold urs on your board. We have heard how you evaded accountability, even when the government attempted to hold facebook accountable for its violations. Facebooks reach and power is now so significant that former u. N. Ambassador pointed out that facebook is worth more than 137 countries in the united nations. How much wealth and power is too much for a private corporation and how much wealth and power is too much for you. I think you may my understand my motive. Im committed im going to give 99 of the facebook shares away during my life. Through the initiative with my wife. So making money is certainly not my main motive here i am trying to use the position that i have to do things that are going to make the world better and improve peoples lives. And i would hope thats what you would want me to use. Thank you for your answer. Let me just say this. From all that i have heard in the last month coming into the hearing and your testimony this morning, this afternoon, i think that facebook has acquired too much power. It has become too big and we should seriously consider breaking it up. Thank you, i yield back. The gentlewoman from texas is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Zuckerburg for sticking with us. We are coming close to the the end. I had a lot of the questions object my list that others have asked so i will do follow up on several of those. You want to pick up on something my colleague asked. Do you agree that libra is a stable coin . Congresswoman, you could characterize it as a stable coin. I think so. We can agree on that. So following up on who asked about anonymous wallets. Do you think they should be allowed to exist on the Libra Network . Congresswoman, i think there are some competing equities h e here. I think allowing some amount of that to exist could facilitate the goal of Financial Inclusion, but i also understand that that increases some risk. The risks are high. I think that you were asked that question from one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in terms of compliance with antiMoney Laundering laws and its a real huge concern. I, too, traveled with the chairman abroad and did talk to germa germany. We talked to qatar. They all shared the same concerns. And suggested they, too, bar you from their countries. France has already decided to do that. So you may be right. This may not work. And im concerned that i dont hear a commitment from you to work on some of these issues this is a National Security risk. We cannot afford to have terrorists. We cannot afford to have Money Laundering made easier by the act that you have or the lowe bra network to make it easier for them to access. While us think your goal of the unbanked is laudable, i just think it will not be i agree. So moving on. Do you think that you will be able or the association will be able to really work a ratio thats one to one that will ensure it will always be stable . Congresswoman, i think so. Thats certainly will be the default if someone this is not the fool faith and credit of the u. S. Were talking about. Were talking about a mix in a basket of potentially euros and yens and dollars and those fluctuate. So the impact is not only to this country, but to many other countries. Do you have countries. Do you have any idea how they actually plan to manage that . Congresswoman, that will be up to the Libra Association to manage. Thats not under my control but that will be regulated by mr. Marcus is under your control. Im not sure id say that, but he works for me. Hes a member of the board . Sorry, can you repeat that . He works for you . And then he, in turn, is part of the association on the board, so thats a big voice that you have on the board . Even though youre very careful to not call an independent association. Both things can be true. David runs the kalibra sub s subsidia subsidiary. The board of association, not mr. Marcus . Congresswoman, im not actually sure if the Libra Association board has a chair. Most boards are governed by an executive committee or a chair, otherwise its just a bunch of people in a room having coffee and reading a board agenda. Congresswoman, i dont lets move on. You responded with the number of lawyers. 60 that was mentioned, are those lobbyists here in dc working for you . Congresswoman, im not sure what youre referring to. Miss porter, my colleague who sits right behind me, she asked you about the lawyers and she referred to some litigation youre involved with in terms of the liability issues. How many lobbyists you have here working for you . Congresswoman, i dont know the answer off the top off my head. You dont know how many lawyers you have here in dc . No, congresswoman. I do not know the breakdown of our exact office here. Have you ever worked to try to get the Federal Reserve to have a digital dollar . Congresswoman, my understanding is that weve certainly talked to the Federal Reserve about a number of things. Theyre one of the key stake holders here. It seems to me that if you want to help the young bank and do all these things to work in an approach that would include the u. S. Government, what better partner could you have t the gentleman from minnesota. When you get to me, youre almost at the end. So congratulations and im one who helps celebrate and i wish we had more of both here in the congress. Have you read the book i have a copy but have not read it yet. He defines future shock as too much change in too short period of a time. And i think its fair to say that regulation certainly has to play catchup our Tech Revolution and in no small part why we are here today. A number of questions for you. In 2017, congress received a trove of political ads by agents acting on behalf of russian government. You acknowledged some were paid for with russian rubles, is that correct . Thats correct. In 2016 in general, we were on our back foot and behind what we needed to be doing to prevent election interference and since then, weve built sophisticated tools and played a role in defending against foreign election interference and more than 200 elections around the world. I have some confidence our systems are in a better state. At that time, aware the federal law prohibited foreign nationals to the sorry, could you repeat that . Spending money to influence the United States election. Im sure our legal team was aware of that, but we didnt at the time vet the government id of every person buying an ad. Today, one of the measures weve taken to strengthen our protections against election interference is to require a government id and for an advertiser to prove their location if they want to run political ads or issue ads across our system. Which i celebrate, by the way. In fact, were about to vote on something called the shield act here in the house. One of my bills is in it. The firewall act to make sure foreign money would not be allowed to buy online political ads in our country. So lets move the conversation to libra. Will facebook accept libra as payment for advertisements on its site . Congresswoman, i imagine if the project proceeds to that stage, that we would do that, but we havent developed our full set of policies around where exactly its going to hook into different parts of our system. The priority right now is to help the Libra Association and make sure that kalibra as a subsidiary can comply with regulations and secure regulatory approval. You understand what will be kind of a collective concern is if you can use libra to buy ads on facebook and you can be anonymous, essentially in so doing, the potential challenge that we face relative to our electoral law. Congressman, i can assure you youre not going to allow any we weakness to enter into the system that requires verification of peoples government ids for buying political ads. On the subject of verification, as twitter has verified accounts, i would love to hear your thoughts on facebook would consider verifying its users so that in transactions, especially as we consider what will be a revolutionary initiative in the form of kalibra and libra to ensure that accounts are verifiable and if not, why not . This is an area where i think well do a lot more in the years to come. We started with political ads and political discourse running large pages because thats some of the most sensitive content but i do think what youre talking about is going to be a trend in the development of our systems over the coming years, where for anything that people are doing that has sensitivitse were likely going to increasingly require verification, either by government id or other things so we can have a clearer sense of peoples authentic id. I think theres a balance in terms of whether people broadly want facebook to be verifying that many peoples identities but i think in general to balance the safety and security questions going in that direction for more use cases likely is the right thing to do. Would it be a competitive advantage or disadvantage for facebook to ensure all of its users are verified . Congressman, i doubt well ever get to the place where every Single Person is verified, but i think it could cut both ways strategically. Certainly, if people have verified identities, that creates a culture of authenticity and helps us with security across the platform. On the flip side, thats imposing a lot of constraints and friction on people on a service theyre trying to use on a daytoday basis. I yield back. Mr. Gonzalez recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Zuckerberg for being here and if youre lucky, may be the last person to ask you a few questions. You mentioned facebook is working harder to protect the 2020 elections. However, we have a major event in our country which is the 2020 census thats coming up and the 2020 census is particularly important to our country. Its important to my district which has been undercounted historically. We had a Supreme Court case where the court reads to not allow the Citizenship Question to be asked in 2020 census. My question is, if an ad were to be run on facebook that were stating if immigrants participate in the census, their information will be turned over to ice, which is a false statement, would you allow such information to remain on the platform if offered by a politician or ordinary citizen . Congressman, im not sure i caught the specific example but let me answer the principle level. The ad says, if immigrants who participate in the census, their information will be shared with ice, which is a false statement, would you take this ad down or would you allow it to stay on the platform, if an ordinary or politician posted this . Okay, so congressman, where we are right now is we have in place a Voter Suppression policy and were working on finalizing that to extend that this isnt Voter Suppression. I agree. Sorry, im trying to answer your question. Where were extending the current set of policies we have around Voter Suppression to a new census suppression policy too. We recognize this is important and rises to a level above normal hoaxes or misinformation where we would allow someone to post it but just mark it as potentially marked false by independent fact checkers. For Voter Suppression information, we actually take it down and well do the same thing for census suppression information. Were currently working on finalizing the specifics around what that policy will be and i would expect well roll it out in the coming weeks. So before that, it is somewhat hard for me to answer any specific questions or hypotheticals about whether content would or would not be included in that. But this policy is coming. We take it seriously. I agree this is extremely important. Its egregious and were really concerned and well be watching out for this. Are you saying that this is something that you guys are searching for or would it have to be reported to you that, hey, this might be something improper, take it down or a system in place where you work on a system in place to not only take it down when reported but search and destroy this type of negative and improper information thats been disseminated out . In general for our content moderation, its a combination of ai and technical processes to do proactive scanning and then a combination of that and human review. What we found is for the stateoftheart, you want both. You want to use computers and ai to do what computers are best for, basically looking at a lot of things and making quick judgments and you want to use people for what people can uniquely do, make nuanced judgments and often judging l linguistic variations. For the importance of National Security to have a proper count of the people in our country, we would expect for you to be more proactive, i think. Facebook has been a major success, as you know, and i think its continued success will depend on what happens in 2020 because well be watching. I enjoy your platform. I think youve done Amazing Things for this country and around the world but we want you to be responsible and especially when it comes to National Politics and National Issues like the census and we think facebook has a responsibility to do so and i hope that you can follow through on this. Well be watching. Thank you very much. Thank you, i certainly care about this a lot. Now that weve exhausted our members present, i recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes for a closing statement. Thank you for your testimony, mr. Zuckerberg. Clocking at just over six hours, its not a brief hearing. Weve covered, i think, the full range of topics for the fullness of your cooperation, and so, frankly, im not sure that weve learned anything new here as policy makers on capitol hill. Weve covered a lot of topics, but my fear is that we still dont have a deeper understanding of how libra will work, how it might further Financial Inclusion, this question of Cross Border Movement of value and money. Or how it makes access to Financial Services for americans who need it most. We dont have clarity about that. And as i said earlier, have no real concerns about facebook and quite frankly, many of the big Tech Companies and thats why i said that at the beginning of the hearing, youre here to represent not just your company but Silicon Valley in the biggest of Technology Companies. Weve had an opportunity for our members to express many of what i view as valid concerns about the pitfalls emerging from new technologies, particularly on the privacy front and youve heard it on both sides of the aisle in terms of privacy and the work you acknowledge that facebook needs to continue to do to regain that trust that your users expect. And members to express their anger. The commonalities of the digital age. Some of that fear is rightly directed at facebook, sure, but not all of it and again, there are real concerns about the digital age and about big tech. But make no mistake, for those of us here as policy makers, i think we should have a common understanding that innovation is coming. With us here in washington, dc, or in the United States or without us because there is a very competitive environment we have around the globe with enormous competition. You can just look at a couple of examples dealing with the chinese repression of free speech that gives us great pause as americans and that regime using technology, Sophisticated Technology to repress peoples freedoms as a disturbing sign of what Big Technology could do and could bring to bear on unwitting people. So i think its important we encourage responsible innovation in the United States and important we create regulatory certainty so that we can have innovation occur here, especially when it comes to Digital Currencies and new ways of transmitting moneys. But i think we need to ensure as policy makers on both sides of the aisle that we embrace that next wave of innovation and embrace it in a more fulsome way. And in closing, id like to insert for the records, mr. Chair, a letter dated from just a few days ago from senator rounds, the Senior Center from south dakota to Anchorage Trust expressing concern that innovation in the country is falling behind the rest of the world. And the key outlines, in a very solid way that we need to have some regulatory certainty in order to foster this innovation and so with that, mr. Zuckerberg, thank you for your testimony and i yield back the balance of my time. Thank you, mr. Ranking member, without objections, include that in the record of todays proceedings. Mr. Zuckerberg, i want to thank you on behalf of the committee for making the time to be here today. Id like to thank your shareholders. I think your time is incredibly valuable. I dont quite know how many millions of dollars your shareholders had to lose today for you to be able to spend the six plus hours here with us but thank you and them for making the effort to be here today. It is a heroic effort. Its been a very long hearing, but as weve commonly heard with the great power comes great responsibility and as the head of perhaps the largest Communications Network globally when you talk about interactions and likes and comments and shares and photos and all the different ways that your platform touches people, thats a tremendous amount of power that also comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility and one of the Amazing Things about this congress, we have 441 members to include our territories and that brings to the table the perspectives throughout the country from the great state of North Carolina all the way to the territory of guam in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and when you have some common themes of concern and hesitation and questions that kind of sound similar across this country, that is a responsibility that you have, given the power that you wield with the awesome enterprise that you run in this country. And so on behalf of the American People, i think its important that we factor in the concerns of basing this libra operation in switzerland outside of the legal ability of the United States to be able to so exercise and so regulate. I think its important for us to firmly consider that our concerns arent just limited to the United States of america but our responsibility as the reserve currency of the world to make sure were looking out for the overall currency impacts that a third Party Currency might so present and with that, i think that its very important for us to be able to reflect on those thing, not just as a body but the Libra Association in general and facebook and yourself in particular. And with that, id like to yield the remainder of our time to my. Thank you for coming today. When we talked about the possibility of this meeting, i indicated it may be uncomfortable for you but i also indicated im sure that you know how to handle. I hope you have learned today just how many concerns and questions members of congress and the public have, not just with the libra project. Facebooks diversity failures include an abysmal record of hiring and promoting people of color and women, contracting with diverse suppliers and investing in diverse managers. The Board Diversity numbers following facebooks example