Mark Zuckerberg returns to Capitol Hill for another hearing—this time to reassure Congress about plans for Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency and address other concerns about Facebook by skleb1234
October 23, 2019 I. Introduction
The idea behind Libra is that sending money should be as easy and secure as sending a text message. Libra will be a global payments system, fully backed by a reserve of cash and other highly liquid assets. But I also hope we can talk about the risks of not innovating. 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. Libra will be backed mostly by dollars and I believe it 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.
People shouldn’t be discriminated against on any of our services. We have policies in place to prevent hate speech and remove harmful content. But discrimination can also show up in how ads are targeted and shown. As part of a settlement with civil rights groups, we’ve banned advertisers from using age, gender, or zip codes to target housing, employment, or credit opportunities, and we’ve limited interest-based targeting for these ads.
Libra is one potential approach, and we’re proud to have helped found a 21-member coalition of companies and social impact organizations that have now committed to moving forward with this idea. Establishing this broad-based coalition is a positive step, and I welcome the conversation that Libra has sparked. But by design, we don’t expect to be leading those efforts going forward.
First, we’ve heard that people are concerned that we are moving too fast. As we have said from the beginning, we’re committed to taking the time to get this right. We co-wrote a white paper to begin a dialogue with experts and the regulators and policymakers who oversee the stability and security of our financial systems. It was never intended to be the final word on the project. The goal was to signal the direction we want to go and to start a conversation about how to get there.
Facebook is committed to strong consumer protections for the financial information we receive, and I want to be clear about how we handle that information: • We do not use people’s data to make decisions about lending, or to create credit reports. • We use information about transactions that happen on our products to improve our services, including advertising. However, we do not use people’s payment account information itself for advertising purposes.
Finally, there’s the question of whether Libra is intended to replace sovereign currency, and whether it’s appropriate for private companies to be involved in this kind of innovation. I want to be clear: this is not an attempt to create a sovereign currency. Like existing online payment systems, it’s a way for people to transfer money.
A digital payments system is going to be important in the future. If America doesn’t lead on this, others will. Foreign companies or countries may act without the same regulatory oversight or commitment to transparency that we have. We’re already seeing how companies with very different values are restricting people based on their beliefs. There’s no guarantee that services which support democracy and fundamental rights around expression will win out.
Earlier this year, we announced changes in how we manage housing, employment, and credit ads on our platform. This was part of historic settlement agreements with civil rights organizations like the National Fair Housing Alliance and based on ongoing input from civil rights experts. Advertisers who want to post ads on these subjects now have to go through a special ads purchasing process that does not permit targeting by age, gender, or zip code.
• Combating voter suppression by updating our policies and taking steps to become more proactive. For instance, during the 2018 US midterm elections, our team found and removed more than 45,000 instances of voter suppression content designed to discourage people from voting. We proactively identified more than 90% of this content before it was reported to Facebook. We know that we need a diverse set of perspectives from our workforce. That is why we make diversity a priority in hiring.
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