No, I would not share my information publicly is what Zuckerberg had said during his Congress testimony. (Image source: AP)
Um…uuhh…No. This was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s reply to a question regarding whether he would share his own personal, private information in public. The question was posed to Zuckerberg by Senator Richard Durbin, during the Facebook CEO’s Congress testimony appearance. In light of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, the Facebook CEO is appearing in two testimonies in front of US Senate committees. The second hearing will take place today at 10 AM ET, which is 7.30 pm IST. for India.
Watch video of Mark Zuckerberg on when questioned on his privacy below
During the course of the hearing, Senator Durbin asked Zuckerberg, “Would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night.” To this Zuckerberg, who looked a bit taken aback replied, “um…uhh..no.” The Senator pressed the Facebook CEO further asking him whether he would share the names of people he has messaged this week.
“If you messaged anybody this week, would you share with us the names of the people you’ve messaged,” he asked. Zuckerberg replied, “Senator, no. I would probably not choose to do that publicly, here.”
Read more: Facebook not listening to users’ mobile conversations, confirms Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on privacy, user control
The Senator then, went on to point that the the right to privacy was the key question in discussion at the hearing. He said, “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 ever asked me, in advance, my permission to do that. Is that a fair thing for the user of Facebook to expect?”
Read more: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a paid, ad-free site: Here’s what he said in testimony
Also read: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony to US Congress: The key points he made
The Facebook CEO replied that everyone should have control over how the information is used. He also pointed out that the social network already lets users control who they share their information with, from photos to messages, etc. Durbin did however, press on the point that as the “sometimes that information is going way beyond there friends,” and people have made money off of sharing that information. In response, Zuckerberg referred to the app developer platform and the background on how it was set up.