Durbin Confronts Zuckerberg on Privacy Concerns: Will You Share Which ‘Hotel You Stayed In Last Night?’
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois grilled Mark Zuckerberg over his social media site’s privacy issues by asking if the Facebook founder would be willing to share “the name of the hotel you stayed in last night” and who he’s “messaged” in recent days.
While many of the questions asked during Zuckerberg’s big day on Capitol Hill were pointless ramblings from tech illiterate lawmakers, Durbin appeared to hit the tech superstar in a way he did not predict, as he fumbled to answer the confrontational line of questioning that many users of the site are now concerned with amid Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica voter data scandal.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night?” questioned Durbin, to which Zuckerberg replied with an awkward, “Um… no.”
While the crowd watching the spectacle laughed at the lawmaker’s questions, he continued by asking Zuckerberg to share “the names of the people you’ve messaged.”
“Senator, no,” responded Zuckerberg, with a puzzled smirk on his face. “I would probably not choose to do that publicly here.”
Durbin then used the tense moment to get the point of Zuckerberg’s testimony:
“I think that may be what this is all about — your right to privacy, the limits of your right to privacy, and how much you give away in modern America in the name of, quote, connecting people around the world. A question basically of what information Facebook’s collecting, who they’re sending it to and whether they were asked in advance, my permission to do that. Is that a fair thing for a user of Facebook to expect?”
Watch the exchange above, via CSPAN.
[images via screengrab]
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