[Narrator] Today, Mark Zuckerberg finally appeared
before the European Parliament
to testify about Facebook's impact on society,
from data privacy to elections.
But the format was different from
what most American viewers are probably used to.
Instead of a back and forth between Zuckerberg
and the politicians, all the members
of the Parliament asked their questions first.
Zuckerberg took notes, and at the end of the meeting,
he picked out the questions he wanted to respond to,
then he promised he'd get back to the group with the rest.
The entire thing was a little frustrating,
even to the legislators,
and eventually dissolved into a mess.
- I asked you six yes or no questions.
I got not a single answer.
- So, thank you again for inviting me, for having me
- Mr. Zuckerberg, I think there was one question
raised by Guy Verhofstadt that's linked to
my question.
- The problem is the timing.
- I'll make sure we follow up and get you answers to those.
- [Narrator] Despite that, the European legislators
asked some pretty good questions
and weren't afraid to be a little aggressive.
- You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered
as one of the three big internet giants
together with Steve Jobs, I should say,
and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world
and our societies or, on the other hand,
the fact that the genius will create a digital monster
that is destroying our democracies
and our societies for the moment?
- I'm asking you today, very, very clearly,
would you accept that today Facebook is not
a platform for all ideas that is operated impartially?
- [Narrator] The most pressing question Zuckerberg faced
was whether Facebook was a monopoly.
During last month's Congressional hearings,
Senator Lindsey Graham, asked whether Zuckerberg
could name a competitor to Facebook
and a couple of European legislators brought that issue
up again but with a more pointed threat attached.
- Would you consider your company as a monopoly?
I think it is time to discuss breaking Facebook
monopoly because it's already too much power
in only one hand. Can you convince me not to do so?
- You cannot convince him because it's nonsense,
naturally. You have given the example of Twitter,
you have given the example, I think, also of Google
as some of your competitors, but it's like
somebody has a monopoly in making cars
and saying, 'Look, I have a monopoly making cars
but there is no problem, you can take a plane.
You can take a train.'
- [Narrator] When it came time to answer,
Zuckerberg said that he didn't think that was true at all
and generally dismissed the concern.
- We exist in a very competitive space where people
use a lot of different tools for communication.
Where the average person uses about eight different tools
for communication ranging from all sorts of
private messaging up to more broadcast mediums,
to things where they're communicating with groups
of people and all their friends at once.
So, from where I sit, it feels like there are new
competitors coming up everyday.
There are competitors that reach tens and hundreds
of millions of people and we're constantly needing
to evolve our service in order to stay relevant
and serve people well. So, that feels like it's
a competitive environment where there are
many choices that people have.
- [Narrator] A number of politicians suggested
that even if it isn't time to break up a monopoly,
Facebook needs to be aggressively regulated.
- Are you ready to completely comply with the
new regulation in Europe within the next three days?
- When you said that the regulation would be
implemented in spirit, what does that mean exactly?
- [Narrator] In response, Zuckerberg
offered what's become a canned reply.
- I don't think the question here is whether or not
there should be regulation. I think the question
is, what is the right regulation?
- [Narrator] But so far, these right regulations
remain illusive and, as one legislator pointed out
early in the hearing, self-regulation has
not worked well in the past.
- It's a little bit like with the banks
in the 2006, 2007, 2008.
They said, 'Oh, we are going to do self-regulation.
Don't bother, we are going to do it ourself.'
Reality is, that they didn't do them themselves
and it was needed to have tough regulation.
- [Narrator] Then, there was the question of how Facebook
stores data, especially of people who aren't even
on Facebook otherwise known as their shadow profiles.
- How can non-users stop Facebook collecting
their data and what do you do with
the non-Facebook's data? Do you commercialize it
and, if you do that, is it morally acceptable
do you think, in your opinion, to collect
non-Facebook users' data without
them knowing what you do with it?
- [Narrator] And Zuckerberg nearly concluded
without even mentioning these.
- Is there anything else here that-
- Shadow profiles. -Shadow profiles.
- [Narrator] He didn't seem to want to talk about shadow
profiles at all and changed the subject pretty quickly.
- If you're not a Facebook user,
how do you stop that data being transferred?
- On a security side, we think it's important
to keep it to protect people in our community.
Were there any other themes that we want
to get through? I mean, there's what's-
- [Narrator] These hearings are happening
largely because people are worried about
election meddling on Facebook, whether through
fake news propaganda or through
Cambridge Analytica's data siphoning.
This wasn't lost on legislators.
- Will Facebook commit to 1) eradicate all
remaining fake accounts by the end of the quarter,
and b) systematically prevent the creation
of new ones moving forward?
- [Narrator] Zuckerberg continued to say
there's no quick fix to this problem.
- We'll never be perfect on this, our adversaries,
especially on the election side, people who are
trying to interfere, will have access to some
of the same AI tools that we will.
- [Narrator] But that's a pretty obvious statement.
The details are what matter and Facebook is still just
talking up its two favorite weapons, moderators and AI.
- The game plan is a combination of building more
AI tools to identify fake accounts that are trying
to interfere and take them down, like we did
in the French presidential election,
but our vision for how we should manage the system
is going to move from one of reactive management,
as people in our community flag things,
to one where we're more proactively having systems
look at the content, flag things for
tens of thousands of people to review
and we're already making significant progress in doing that.
- [Narrator] And there were a lot of other questions
which were never answered. These included broad
questions about whether Facebook can really keep
people's data safe after Cambridge Analytica.
- Is Cambridge Analytica an isolated case
or would you say it's the top of the iceberg?
- [Narrator] But also extremely specific ones
about how quickly Facebook scrubs data that
the user asks to be deleted.
- If people want to come off Facebook,
how quickly and under what conditions
will their data be fully removed?
- [Narrator] Or whether Facebook would work with
antitrust regulators to prove it's not a monopoly.
- Could you or would you cooperate with
the European Antitrust authorities to examine it
and to open your books so that we can see,
if yes or no, there is a monopoly.
- [Narrator] Zuckerberg promised to give
written answers to all these questions,
but that's the same line he used during the
US Congressional hearings. We don't know when
the answers will come, how thorough they'll be,
or if Zuckerberg will give a straight
answer to the toughest demands.
- Can you guarantee that to the Europeans that another
scandal will not happen in three, six, or nine months time?
- Is the only way of preventing Facebook collecting
my data to avoid the internet all together?
- [Narrator] And after watching legislators ask
good, difficult questions about Facebook,
that feels like a huge, wasted opportunity.
Is Facebook really taking its responsibilities
more seriously? Will lawmakers start trying to
regulate it? Or will we just keep hearing
the same speech over and over?
- So the fact that maybe you have less control
or no control about your own company,
for the moment, because you have to
apologize now, I think in total, you apologized
now 15 or 16 times the last decade.
In 2003 you started, every year you have one
or other wrongdoing or problem with Facebook
and you have to face the reality, and to say
sorry, and to say your going to fix it.
Are you capable to fix it?