Mark Zuckerberg Offers A Choice: The Facebook Way Or The China Way
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. He’s likely to face a broad range of questions about his company’s influence.
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Mark Zuckerberg says it’s Facebook’s way — or China’s way.
Facebook’s founder and CEO will tell Congress that the social network’s controversial digital currency project, Libra, is essential to projecting American leadership around the world.
He will warn that any delay risks losing that leadership to China, according to prepared remarks released ahead of a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Wednesday.
“While we debate these issues, the rest of the world isn’t waiting. China is moving quickly to launch similar ideas in the coming months,” Zuckerberg will say.
“I believe [Libra] will extend America’s financial leadership as well as our democratic values and oversight around the world. If America doesn’t innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed.”
Zuckerberg frequently invokes China as a rival to American technology supremacy, and American values.
Last week in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, he warned that calls for Facebook to exercise more limits on what people can and can’t say on its platform endangered its commitment to free speech — and America’s global influence.
“Until recently, the Internet in almost every country outside China has been defined by American platforms with strong free expression values. There’s no guarantee these values will win out,” he said.
Zuckerberg is back in the Capitol Hill hot seat as Facebook faces immense pressure over how much influence it has over the lives of its more than 2 billion users.
Members of Congress will seize the opportunity to grill him about a whole host of topics.
Here are five questions he could face in the hearing room.
Is Facebook really going to launch a currency?
Facebook says Libra would let users around the world — especially those without traditional bank accounts — send money as easily as sending a text message. And while the project was originally Facebook’s idea, it is meant to come to life with the help of 27 founding partners, including financial services companies.
But Libra hit hurdles as soon as it was announced. Regulators around the world have taken a dim view of the project, sounding fears that it could pose a threat to financial stability and be used to fund terrorism and other illegal activities.
In recent weeks, several of the initial partners backed away — including the credit card companies Visa and MasterCard and the digital payment firms PayPal and Stripe. People close to some of the companies that have dropped out told NPR they were concerned about angering regulators, given that they already operate in highly regulated industries.
Their departures have left some analysts doubting that the project can go forward.
“Libra sounds dead on arrival,” said Michael Pachter, an equities analyst at Wedbush Securities. “I don’t think Facebook can pull it off without the support of all the different banking and credit card processors and payment processors. I just don’t think that they have the wherewithal to actually do it themselves.”
In his prepared remarks, Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook is “not the ideal messenger right now. We’ve faced a lot of issues over the past few years, and I’m sure people wish it was anyone but Facebook putting this idea forward.”
And he said Libra will not be launched “anywhere in the world unless all US regulators approve it.”
Has Facebook done enough to stop discrimination in advertising?
Housing is the other headline subject of Wednesday’s hearing. Facebook has been hit with a federal lawsuit by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for allegedly enabling housing discrimination.
The allegations stem from Facebook’s ad targeting tools. The company lets advertisers select who can and cannot see ads, based on a range of different categories.
“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” in violation of the Fair Housing Act, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said when the suit was filed in March.
The company has also been accused of allowing age and gender discrimination in job ads.
Nicol Turner Lee, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation who studies access to technology, said Facebook may not have intended its advertising tools to be used this way.
But she said Internet platforms need to take more care to consider the consequences of the technologies they build.
“We have to ask ourselves, are companies like Facebook clear about the guardrails that are protecting human and civil rights, and the extent to which they’re building products and services that comply with those laws?” she said.
Facebook has stopped letting advertisers target ads for housing, jobs and credit to people based on their ethnic group, gender, age or zip code.
On Tuesday it pledged $1 billion toward affordable housing in California.
In Zuckerberg’s prepared remarks, he said Facebook is taking “a broader view of our responsibility. That includes making sure our services are used for good and preventing harm. People shouldn’t be discriminated against on any of our services.”
Why won’t Facebook stop politicians from lying?
Facebook’s latest firestorm is also about advertising.
Critics are furious about the social network’s policy of allowing politicians to publish misleading or downright untrue posts and ads on its platform. Zuckerberg will likely be pressed about this topic again on Wednesday.
Facebook says its policy flows from its commitment to free speech. It says it does not want to judge whether political speech is true or not, and that users should be free to hear from politicians and make up their own minds.
Zuckerberg strongly defended this position in his Georgetown speech last week, positioning Facebook as a champion of free expression and reiterating that his company should not be the arbiter of truth.
“While I certainly worry about an erosion of truth, I don’t think most people want to live in a world where you can only post things that tech companies judge to be 100% true,” he said.
But that has not satisfied critics. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts ran her own deliberately false Facebook ad to protest the policy. In it, she incorrectly claimed Facebook and Zuckerberg had endorsed President Trump.
“Once again, we’re seeing Facebook throw its hands up to battling misinformation in the political discourse, because when profit comes up against protecting democracy, Facebook chooses profit,” Warren tweeted in explanation of her ad.
In his Georgetown speech, Zuckerberg said he had considered dropping political advertising altogether — noting that it contributes just a tiny fraction of Facebook’s billions of dollars in annual sales. But he argued that could have the effect of favoring incumbents and candidates favored by the media.
What is Facebook doing to prevent the 2020 election from being a repeat of 2016?
With U.S. intelligence agencies warning that foreign governments may try to influence American politics leading up to next year’s election, lawmakers may want to know how Facebook is defending its platform from manipulation.
Zuckerberg gave an update about Facebook’s election security efforts on Monday. That included a number of new features and updates to existing policies to provide more transparency about who is posting on Facebook.
For example, the site will now labeling content from media outlets it considers to be “state-controlled,” which Facebook defines as “wholly or partially under the editorial control of their government.”
But the scope of the problem Facebook must confront was also highlighted on Monday when the company said it had taken down four more networks of fake accounts. Facebook said it has removed more than 50 such networks, which could attempt to manipulate its users, in the past year.
Three of the newly disabled networks were tied to Iran, while the fourth originated in Russia and showed some links to the Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-backed troll farm involved in political interference in 2016, Facebook said.
Zuckerberg told reporters on Monday that election security “is one of my top priorities for the company” and that Facebook is no longer “on our back foot” when it comes to identifying fake accounts.
Is Facebook too powerful?
Congress is not the only branch of government asking tough questions about Facebook. The Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice and a group of 47 state attorneys general are all investigating Facebook for potential antitrust violations.
The state prosecutors are “concerned that Facebook may have put consumer data at risk, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, and increased the price of advertising,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday.
Some critics are calling for the company to be broken up, or for its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to be unwound. Warren has made the breakup of Facebook — along with Google and Amazon — a key part of her campaign platform.
Some tech veterans agree. Marc Benioff, the CEO of software company Salesforce, told CNN that Facebook is “addictive” and has too much control of users’ data — and therefore should be broken up. “They’re having an undue influence as the largest social media platform on the planet,” he said.
And even a Facebook co-founder has turned on the company. Chris Hughes, who was one of Zuckerberg’s roommates at Harvard, launched a $10 million anti-monopoly fund to support policy, academic research and organizing to take on corporate power in tech and other industries.
Zuckerberg bristles at the idea of breaking up his company. In leaked audio from staff meetings this summer, obtained by the website The Verge, the CEO said Facebook would “fight” any effort to do so and expected to win any legal challenge.
At Georgetown last week, Zuckerberg acknowledged criticism of big tech — but deflected the argument.
“I understand the concerns that people have about how tech platforms have centralized power. But I actually believe the much bigger story is how much these platforms have decentralized power by putting it directly into people’s hands,” he said.
Editor’s note: Facebook is among NPR’s financial supporters.
Nationals Beat Astros 5-4 In Game 1 Of World Series
Washington Nationals’ Juan Soto hits a home run during the fourth inning of Game 1 of the World Series against the Houston Astros on Tuesday.
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Updated at 1:35 a.m. ET
The Washington Nationals beat the Houston Astros 5-4 in Game 1 of the 2019 World Series, led by Juan Soto who homered and doubled in his first Series game.
Soto also had a single and a stolen base to go with his 3 RBIs. The young standout turns all of 21 on Friday.
“After the first at-bat, I just said, ‘It’s another baseball game,'” Soto said, according to The Associated Press. “In the first at-bat, I’m not going to lie, I was a little bit shaking in my legs.”
The victory gives the Nationals what they wanted: a win in Houston against one of baseball’s best pitchers, Gerrit Cole. It was Cole’s first loss since May.
Houston Astros’ Yuli Gurriel hits a two-RBI double during the first inning of Game 1 of the World Series against the Washington Nationals Tuesday in Houston.
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The Nats lead the Series 1-0.
The Astros, the American league champions, jumped out to an early lead, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first inning off Nationals ace Max Scherzer. Astros slugger Yuli Gurriel doubled home teammates George Springer and José Altuve.
The Nationals responded in the top of the second inning with a solo home run by Ryan Zimmerman on a two-out, first pitch by Cole.
The 35-year-old Zimmerman was the Nationals’ first player to be drafted by the team after its move from Montreal to Washington, D.C. in 2005.
“It’s been a long ride,” Zimmerman said according to the AP. “First at-bat, to hit a home run and run around the bases, you’re kind of almost floating around the bases.”
“I’ll be honest with you, my eyes got a little watery for him,” manager Dave Martinez said. “He waited a long time to be in this position, and for him to hit that first home run and put us on the board was awesome.”
The Nationals evened the score at 2-2 on Soto’s solo home run off of Cole to open the fourth frame.
Washington, the National League champions, took the lead for good in the top of the fifth inning on a single by third baseman Adam Eaton, scoring Kurt Suzuki who had opened the inning with a walk, making the score 3-2. Two batters later, Soto smacked a two-run double to left field, bringing the score to 5-2.
The Astros narrowed the lead to 5-3 in the bottom of the seventh inning with a solo home run by Springer off of Nats reliever Tanner Rainey. They loaded the bases on two walks and an infield hit, when Daniel Hudson relieved Rainey and closed the inning by striking out Yordan Alvarez.
The Astros opened the bottom of the eighth inning with a single by pinch-hitter Kyle Tucker, who advanced to second on a fly-out and then scored on a double by Springer, cutting the lead to 5-4.
Nats ace reliever Sean Doolittle, the fifth pitcher put in play by the team, retired the Astros in the bottom of the ninth inning without incident. The Astros left 11 runners on base, the Nationals only four.
At a sober post-game news conference, Astros manager AJ Hinch acknowledged it was not the opener he had expected.
“[Cole’s] been so good for so long that there builds this thought of invincibility and that it’s impossible to beat him,” Hinch said according to the AP. “So when it happens it is a surprise to all of us.”
“I didn’t have my A-game tonight,” Cole said. “Outside of a few pitches that tacked on a few runs, we worked pretty well with what we had. These are the two best teams in the world right now so you try not to beat yourself up too much, especially if you’ve got to grind in those situations.”
43,339 watched the Series opener in Houston’s Minute Maid Park. Game 2 is Wednesday night.
CDC Studying Tissue To Try And Track Down Root Cause Of Vaping-Related Lung Damage
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is starting to study lung tissue and chemicals from electronic cigarette vapor to track down the root cause of lung damage caused by vaping.
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Mysterious lung injuries have killed at least 33 e-cigarette users and sickened nearly 1,500. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is digging deeper to find the exact cause. NPR science correspondent Richard Harris traveled to Atlanta to learn about the latest twists in their investigation.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: The calming sound of a fountain echoes between two laboratories on the CDC’s Chamblee campus, but it’s fair to say that for many scientists working on vaping injuries at the federal health agency, the mood is not so serene. I’m told that in one of these laboratory buildings, they’ve actually started testing fluid that had been taken from the lungs of people who had been exposed to vaping products and ended up with severe lung disease. That’s a new step in the investigation, which has now swollen to include more than 140 CDC scientists and staff. The lab buildings are off-limits to most visitors, so on a visit Friday, I am guided instead into an adjoining building to meet the man who’s overseeing the labs.
Hey. Richard Harris.
JIM PIRKLE: Jim Pirkle. Nice to meet you.
HARRIS: Nice to meet you.
PIRKLE: Yeah. Come on in. Have a seat.
HARRIS: Dr. Pirkle has seen many investigations in his time. Best case, there’s a straight line from a health problem to the cause. Vaping lung disease, well, that’s a different story.
PIRKLE: There wasn’t something that just stood out in everything that closed the case and said, we know exactly what it is.
HARRIS: Pirkle realized early on that his labs, which started out studying the toxic chemicals in cigarettes, could be brought to bear for this mystery.
PIRKLE: We have 13 smoking machines, and we’re smoking cigarettes and e-cigarettes all the time – maybe not what you’re classically thinking CDC is doing.
HARRIS: Elsewhere, the Food and Drug Administration labs have been studying the vaping fluid from suspicious products, but people don’t just breathe that stuff in. E-cigarettes vaporize those components by heating them up.
PIRKLE: So after you’ve heated the fluid, it’s possible you’ve made something else that’s dangerous.
HARRIS: Pirkle shows me some components of the testing equipment.
PIRKLE: We have a pad here that’ll collect the aerosol and all the lipid-like substances, and then the stuff that goes through as gases – that is trapped on another trap. And so it’s just – it’s like a super filter right there.
HARRIS: Pirkle says they’ll compare what they find from the devices to what’s in the lungs of patients who fell ill. The first fluid samples from vapers’ lungs are just now being analyzed at the CDC.
PIRKLE: So that gives us kind of a sampling of what’s on the inside surface of the lung, and that’s actually very important because we think that’s where the problem is. It’s when things go in and get in contact with that inside surface of the lung.
HARRIS: One item on that list is to look for oils which have been observed in some samples. They’re also measuring natural compounds called terpenes that, among other things, contribute to the pungent flavor of THC extracted from marijuana – yes, terpenes as in turpentine. In all, they’re planning to run about a dozen tests on each vape and lung fluid sample, Pirkle says.
PIRKLE: It took a while to get all those methods developed, all that interpretation stuff figured out. But it started this morning, so we’re chugging on it. We’re out at 60 miles an hour.
HARRIS: Discoveries in this lab will get relayed back to Dr. Rom Koppaka, a lung specialist who got tapped to join the CDC’s vaping investigation team.
ROM KOPPAKA: From the beginning, the approach has been to entertain all potential theories.
HARRIS: And it’s often tricky to sort out cause and effect. For example, is oily material seen in some lung samples causing the problem or part of the body’s reaction? What about the signs of direct chemical damage in victim’s lungs? Koppaka is hoping the labs will provide answers. That can help guide treatment, but it is also urgently needed so doctors can know exactly what to look for to diagnose this condition.
KOPPAKA: We don’t have that yet. Certainly, if the cause or causes of the lung injury are identified, that would advance that effort a great deal because there might be a way to detect them in the lungs or in the blood or in the tissues or whatever. But we’re not there yet.
HARRIS: The consensus around the CDC team, though, is that they are heading in the right direction.
Richard Harris, NPR News.
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