Top Democrats Press Mark Zuckerberg for More Information about Facebook’s Role in American Democracy

Top Democrats Press Mark Zuckerberg for More Information about Facebook's Role in

American Democracy

Lawmakers Call for Regulatory Action; Ask Facebook to Pull Back the Curtain on Its Advertising Programs, Campaign Embed Operations and Content-Control Protocols

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Democracy Reform Task Force Chair Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) today joined House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) in asking Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer a series of lingering and critical questions following Zuckerberg's appearance on Capitol Hill earlier this month.

"The extent to which your company has become intertwined with the health and functioning of our democracy calls for significantly enhanced regulatory oversight," the Members wrote. "As policymakers, we must understand Facebook's relationship to the robust exchange of competing views in a diverse marketplace of ideas."

The Members continued, "We need your cooperation in this effort. To that end, we ask for your responses to the questions and document requests below. It is our hope this dialogue will inform potential federal legislative and regulatory responses to the challenges we face."

A full copy of the letter is below.

* * *

April 25, 2018

Mark Zuckerberg

CEO

Facebook

1 Hacker Way

Menlo Park, CA 94025

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:

We are writing to request your cooperation in better understanding Facebook's unprecedented role in the American political system. While we appreciate your willingness to testify before Congress earlier this month, many questions remain.

Americans of all political stripes rely on Facebook for their political information, democratic engagement, and grassroots organizing. Candidates and elected representatives—including the undersigned—use the powerful Facebook platform to connect with constituents and voters. Outside advocacy organizations use Facebook and tools you have created to engage in our great democratic experiment. This centrality to American political life is an awesome responsibility for Facebook.

As the 2016 election demonstrated, foreign and domestic actors can abuse your social networking tools to disrupt our democracy. Russian agents sowed seeds of dissension in the American body politic through paid and non-paid engagement with the Facebook platform.[1] These same actors used Facebook to engage in political activity to directly aid political candidates—an express violation of federal election law.[2] These abuses may not have been confined to nation-state actors. Massive tranches of stolen data on American voters may have been deployed systematically on Facebook by campaign vendors and operatives working on behalf of an American political candidate.[3]

All the while, a rash of fake content masquerading as "news"—too often elevated and promoted by Facebook's own "News Feed" algorithm—perverted the public debate.[4] This fake content continues to have a negative impact on the public discourse, fueling conspiratorial thinking and degrading the American public's trust in our democratic institutions, including the U.S. electoral system itself.[5] Research has shown that the use of Facebook as a vector for fake content fueled the public consumption of objectively false information.[6] In other words, Facebook—and the content it serves to its users, both legitimate and fake—influenced the American election and our democracy.

To aid the use of Facebook's tools, your company deployed sophisticated teams of sales representatives and customer support teams to provide direct support for candidates using the Facebook platform.[7] This assistance raises new, thorny questions about the services Facebook provides and your company's relationship to our nation's campaign finance laws.[8]

The extent to which your company has become intertwined with the health and functioning of our democracy calls for significantly enhanced regulatory oversight. As policymakers, we must understand Facebook's relationship to the robust exchange of competing views in a diverse marketplace of ideas.

We need your cooperation in this effort. To that end, we ask for your responses to the questions and document requests below. It is our hope this dialogue will inform potential federal legislative and regulatory responses to the challenges we face.

Political and Issue Ad Disclosure

In October 2017, Facebook announced that political ads placed on Facebook would soon be subject to heightened transparency requirements.[9] In addition to implementing a more stringent verification process for purchasers, your team announced that political ads would soon carry disclaimers stating who paid for them and making it easier for viewers to see the ads that a given account is running. This new policy was to be beta tested in Canadian markets before being implemented in the United States "ahead of the US midterm elections."[10]

• Given that U.S. midterm campaigns are already underway, with two states already having had their primary elections and twelve more set for their primaries in the month of May, when will this new policy go into effect? Please provide internal documents that describe the policy and the planned roll-out in the United States.

• On April 6, 2018, Facebook announced that this new verification and disclosure regime will also include so-called "issue ads" and, in doing so, endorsed the Honest Ads Act.[11] In your view, should Congress pass the Honest Ads Act as is? If not, why?

Facebook officials admit that this new political and issue ad regime will not be perfect, recognizing that some ads that violate its policy—whether due to verification concerns or content violations—may evade initial detection. Your legislative affairs team has said Facebook plans to have a "reactive" policy of pulling down content after it is determined to violate its terms of service.

• Under the new ad regime, if an ad is taken down, will Facebook notify users who engaged with content that was later removed from the platform?

• Technologically, could you notify users who engaged with content that was later taken down? If so, will you provide such notification? If not, please explain.

Trending Topics

Facebook's Trending Topics section "helps people discover timely and relevant conversations about the news that they care about." For years, this section relied on human editors to curate content by filtering out inappropriate content or content that offends Facebook's community standards.

In 2016, after reported lobbying by conservative political leaders, Congressional Republicans, and supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump who accused Facebook's Trending Topics editors of "anti-conservative political bias," Facebook removed the human editors from their Trending Topics section and replaced them with an algorithm in the run-up to the 2016 election.[12]

• Please explain, in detail, the process by which Facebook decided to remove human editors from the Trending Topics section and provide any documents, meeting notes, or memoranda relating to the decision.

• It has been reported that conservative activists visited Facebook's headquarters to lobby for the removal of human editors.[13] Who within Facebook or its board advocated for their visit? Please provide any documents, meeting notes, or memoranda relating to the deliberation.

• Was there a comparable effort to bring liberal or non-partisan activists to Facebook headquarters to hear their concerns about fake news and propaganda being spread on Facebook's platform?

• Was the Trending Topics algorithm, at any time, effectively gamed by organizations intent on spreading fake news and propaganda? Would the human editors have been vulnerable in this way? If so, how?

• Do you draw any connection between the decision to remove the editors and the subsequent spread of Russian-originated and other fake news intended to influence the outcome of the election? If not, why?

• Given that the decision to remove the editors seems to have contributed to the ease with which fake news could influence the election, are you considering any steps to reinstate human editors? If not, why?

Political Sales Support, Campaign Finance Law, and the Influence Economy

Facebook provides so-called "sales support" teams for their clients, including political clients. However, federal campaign finance law is clear that providing staff or assistance to a political campaign in a manner outside the normal course of business or on better terms than offered to commercial clients can constitute an illegal contribution to the campaign, violating so-called "in-kind" contribution limits designed to prevent quid pro quo corruption.

• What parameters are used to determine when a political client is offered "sales support" to assist with advertising on Facebook, as both the Trump and Clinton campaigns were reported to have been offered? Please provide documents and communications referring or relating to how "sales support" representatives are offered to political campaigns.

• When were these offers made to the Trump and Clinton campaigns? What specific assistance was offered? What, if any, limitations were put on the offer? What was accepted by each campaign? Please provide any documents or communications regarding assistance offered to or accepted by the campaigns, including but not limited to written offer terms and any subsequent written offer terms provided by Facebook to the political campaigns detailing the services that would—or could—be rendered.

• Did the offers differ in any way? Did either the Trump or Clinton campaign negotiate the terms of the offer, including requesting or refusing specific employees?

• Were any "sales support" teams "embedded"—or domiciled—in a given campaign's operation? How frequently did the "sales support" teams visit either campaign's physical operation?

• Did the campaigns pay for this assistance beyond the cost of the ad buys? If so, did it cover Facebook's full cost in providing the services?

It has been reported that the Trump campaign accepted the paid Facebook employees to serve as "campaign embeds." Reporting indicates these individuals played a central role in the Trump campaign, supporting the Trump communication operation in ways that extended far beyond helping the campaign use Facebook's tools to target ads, including by "actively shaping campaign communications through their close collaboration with political staffers."[14] It was reported that the "sales support" officers were enmeshed with the Trump campaign and helped "to tee up responses to likely lines of attack during debates."[15] In contrast, the Clinton campaign was reported to have "viewed [Facebook] as vendors rather than consultants."[16]

• Did the services rendered to the respective campaigns differ in any way? If so, how and why? Please provide any documents, meeting notes, or memoranda relating to how "sales support" supported each given campaign, with an enumerated list of known services rendered.

• Were the "sales support" officers instructed to assist in developing media strategy for the candidates? What did Facebook expect these employees to do for the campaigns? Did Facebook make any other special services available to the campaign that extended beyond helping the campaign target its ads?

• Who at Facebook determined the work "sales support" officers would do? Were the "sales support" officers for either campaign overseen by Facebook executives in any way?

• How do you, as CEO, know what work they did for the campaigns? Did they report to Facebook on the work they were doing? If so, how frequent was said reporting? Please provide any documents, meeting notes, or memoranda relating to executive-level oversight of the political "sales support" teams.

• What safeguards, if any, did Facebook implement to ensure that the services and staff it provided were not illegal corporate contributions? What steps, if any, does Facebook have planned to institute additional safeguards? Does Facebook plan to continue to provide "campaign embeds" to political campaigns? Please provide any training documents, service agreements, meeting notes, or memoranda relating to how political "sales support" teams are training.

• Did Facebook or any Facebook employees working as "sales support" officers grant any special approval rights or services to either campaign? What safeguards or monitoring are in place to avoid such illicit behavior?

Facebook's Expectations for the 2018 Election Cycle

A grand jury has indicted 13 Russian nationals for activities that relied upon Facebook as both an advertising platform and social network. Some have raised concerns that the News Feed reforms that you announced recently—including the idea that Facebook will put a renewed premium on content from family, friends, and network contacts over legitimate news—may exacerbate the effectiveness of the tactics deployed by Russian operatives during the 2016 election cycle, given their use of organic Facebook groups and content generation.

• How is Facebook working to mitigate such a scenario? Please provide documents, meeting notes, or memoranda relating to how Facebook is ensuring the News Feed reforms do not inadvertently amplify illicit foreign campaign content.

• What is your greatest concern as it relates to Facebook's vulnerabilities to malicious use in our political system as we enter the 2018 midterm election season?

• How can Congress support your efforts to harden our defenses against future malicious political activity occurring on Facebook?

Facebook's meteoric growth and subsequent centrality to our collective political life has been extraordinary. We are just beginning to grapple with the radical changes in our political life that Facebook has forged. We are confident that if we work together, we can respond responsibly and nimbly to the significant challenges we face. But to do so, we need more information. We appreciate your attention and continued cooperation, and look forward to your responses.

Sincerely,