ARI MELBER: I think Mark Zuckerberg's statement reflects a pattern we've seen, which is they start with a lot of denial, and then eventually they issue statements, and then the question is always whether the changes actually are implemented. We found they often are not.
This week has been different, because at one point they lost $50 billion in market value.
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Digesting what he is saying, I think it's -- think it's late, I think it still involves minimization, and I think it fundamentally misses the larger point, which is something you and I have been reporting on, which is Facebook is not just in the crosshairs because of one issue with one developer, even one as famous as Cambridge [Analytica].
Facebook is in the crosshairs for the larger context of the abusive fake news, the refusal of Zuckerberg to go face down congressional investigators. He sent his lawyer, he wouldn't go face them.
He did go meet with Medvedev, when he had business in Russia. He did go to China, where the New York Times reported they were developing a censorship app.
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It's a paper statement and this, by the way, in the larger context, is a company that demands all of our personal data, all of our information. all of our privacy, and it says that because that is good for transparency, we should all live with it. This is a company that demands transparency and personal information from its users, and gives up very little when they're under the gun like today.
