Mark Zuckerberg Denies Claims That Facebook Puts Profits Before People | EWTN News Nightly — Transcript

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1. 0:00facebook ceo mark zuckerberg has denied
2. 0:02claims by a former employee and now
3. 0:04whistleblower that the social media
4. 0:05giant puts profit before people former
5. 0:08facebook data scientist francis francis
6. 0:11hogan told lawmakers yesterday the
7. 0:13company is hiding from the public just
8. 0:15how much their platforms harm children
9. 0:17and promote hate in a statement posted
10. 0:19tuesday evening zuckerberg said quote at
11. 0:22the heart of these accusations is this
12. 0:24idea that we prioritize profit over
13. 0:27safety and well-being that is just not
14. 0:31true joining us now is rachel beaumart
15. 0:33senior policy director at the
16. 0:34conservative partnership institute and
17. 0:36senior tech columnist for the federalist
18. 0:38rachel welcome back great to see you
19. 0:41first off i want to get your takeaways
20. 0:43from that testimony on tuesday
21. 0:46so it was pretty interesting to hear
22. 0:48from francis haugen former facebook
23. 0:50employee you know a couple of key
24. 0:52takeaways and the first is that you know
25. 0:54i'm not sure people should be listening
26. 0:56to her for policy solutions necessarily
27. 0:59she made it very clear she does not want
28. 1:00to break up facebook she wants to fix
29. 1:02facebook and she wants the federal
30. 1:04government to do it by setting up a big
31. 1:05regulatory body to police for
32. 1:07misinformation and for speech and from
33. 1:10where i sit on the right where i would
34. 1:11like more speech online not less
35. 1:14i don't know that that would be entirely
36. 1:15productive but setting aside francis
37. 1:18haugen the information she's provided in
38. 1:20terms of the documents that she released
39. 1:22are pretty startling i mean it shows
40. 1:24that what we know about facebook which
41. 1:27is that instagram and facebook can be
42. 1:28very harmful for the body image and
43. 1:31mental health of teenage girls facebook
44. 1:33knows this too and it really hasn't
45. 1:35stopped its roll out to uh children to
46. 1:38instagram kids there were documents in
47. 1:40there suggesting that facebook wants to
48. 1:42quote leverage the playdates of children
49. 1:45for more engagement on its platform
50. 1:47also some some interesting insights
51. 1:50about the fact that facebook knows that
52. 1:52the government of china is using its
53. 1:54platform to track and harass uighur
54. 1:56muslims in that country hasn't really
55. 1:58done much about it and then some really
56. 2:00interesting insights into uh potentially
57. 2:03illegal conduct by facebook when it
58. 2:04comes to its how it's treating its
59. 2:06advertisers what it's telling its
60. 2:08advertisers and investors about the
61. 2:10reach of its platform and francis haugen
62. 2:12has turned those documents over to the
63. 2:14securities and exchange commission who i
64. 2:16who presumably will investigate so a lot
65. 2:19of interesting information in those
66. 2:20documents um not sure the policy
67. 2:22solutions she's proposing are going to
68. 2:23be effective but again useful
69. 2:25information yeah rachel all that said
70. 2:27you know we heard that statement from
71. 2:28mark zuckerberg uh saying the facebook
72. 2:31doesn't put profit over safety and
73. 2:33well-being so with all that said what do
74. 2:35you make of his statements
75. 2:38you know i think facebook is doing what
76. 2:39it always does which is sort of you know
77. 2:41dodging not actually answering the
78. 2:43questions you know i'd love mark
79. 2:44zuckerberg to make himself available to
80. 2:46congress to say look come and look at
81. 2:48our research come and look at what we're
82. 2:50doing we'll open up our doors you can
83. 2:52peek under the hood but that's not what
84. 2:54he's doing he's obfuscating but again
85. 2:56facebook knows that it's very you know
86. 2:58congress hasn't done much in this space
87. 3:00except hold hearings they've never
88. 3:02actually had a vote on any of these
89. 3:03questions
90. 3:04or put you know bipartisan legislation
91. 3:06forward you know that's actually going
92. 3:08anywhere so in mark zuckerberg's brain
93. 3:10i'm sure he's just thinking i have to
94. 3:11get through another bad news cycle and
95. 3:13then i can move on and do my business
96. 3:14yeah and rachel what do you think is
97. 3:15going to happen you know from that
98. 3:17testimony yesterday if anything
99. 3:20well i think the if anything is is the
100. 3:22big key here i think you saw interest
101. 3:25and anger from a lot of republicans and
102. 3:27democrats but we've been seeing that now
103. 3:29for several years so many of these
104. 3:31republicans and democrats have
105. 3:32legislative proposals but there's again
106. 3:34been no movement on the actual floor of
107. 3:36the senate and the house which is what
108. 3:38would really need to happen in order you
109. 3:40know for that to take effect now you may
110. 3:42see some movement from
111. 3:44the regulatory agencies you may see the
112. 3:46federal trade commission say
113. 3:48what facebook is doing with kids may
114. 3:50violate the law in terms of child
115. 3:51privacy and the sec may again look into
116. 3:54that those disclosures about facebook's
117. 3:56ad business but in the short term that's
118. 3:58really all i expect because again
119. 4:00congress
120. 4:01as much as they'd like to to beat their
121. 4:03chess at these hearings has shown very
122. 4:05little in the way of actual engagement
123. 4:07with policy solutions yeah another thing
124. 4:09i want to talk about is before that
125. 4:11testimony on tuesday on monday uh
126. 4:13facebook and instagram and whatsapp they
127. 4:15all went down worldwide for several
128. 4:17hours you know leaving everything sort
129. 4:19of at a standstill what more do we know
130. 4:22about what actually happened sort of you
131. 4:24know the timing was also very curious as
132. 4:25well
133. 4:27the timing was curious although from
134. 4:29everything that i can tell and
135. 4:30everything that i've read and seen it
136. 4:32almost looks like it was facebook's own
137. 4:34fault that facebook did this to facebook
138. 4:36through a glitch uh by which everything
139. 4:39uh on
140. 4:40it on facebook itself but also the
141. 4:42company's external servers that run the
142. 4:45the company itself everything flows
143. 4:47through facebook and there was one error
144. 4:49that was able to shut down the entire
145. 4:50thing for about seven hours and we saw
146. 4:53sort of the the ramifications of that
147. 4:54you saw advertisers not being able to
148. 4:56get through small businesses that you
149. 4:57know sell their wares on facebook were
150. 4:59blocked off from that you know pretty
151. 5:01key area of commerce for them so you you
152. 5:03begin to actually see the reach of
153. 5:05facebook when facebook was no longer
154. 5:07available
155. 5:08and that tells you something about the
156. 5:09dominance of the platform yeah
157. 5:10absolutely well rachel thank you so much
158. 5:12for your time today and your analysis we
159. 5:13appreciate it rachel bovard senior
160. 5:14policy director at the conservative
161. 5:17partnership institute and senior tech
162. 5:19columnist for the federalist always a
163. 5:21pleasure having you on
164. 5:22thanks so much