Zuck Should Prep for a "Hostile Environment" in DC
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced new policies for political ads Friday in a bid to increase transparency on the platform. Going forward, the social network will require companies that want to run political ads to verify their identities and locations.
In a post on his platform, the CEO said, “One of my top priorities for 2018 is making sure we support positive discourse and prevent interference in...elections.”
This news comes after Facebook spent months downplaying its role in Russia’s interference with the 2016 presidential election and days ahead of Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress, when he will be grilled about the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
It’s one of several announcements the company has made in this week, all of which are just part his preparations for the hearings, according to Axios’ Sara Fischer.
“They’ve been prepping him for the past week so that he can test his messaging [and] get comfortable speaking in front of people who might be willing to criticize him off the bat,” Fischer told Cheddar.
“We’re trying to grapple with so many headlines, that by the time he takes the witness table at the hearing next week, there probably isn’t going to be a lot of news.”
Friday morning, COO Sheryl Sandberg admitted on NBC’s Today Show that it’s “possible” there will be other data abuses on Facebook’s platform. She also said Facebook could never have a full opt-out option for users who do not want their data shared without turning into a paid service.
And earlier this week, Zuckerberg said the number of users impacted by the data scandal may be as high as 87 million, well above the previous estimate of 50 million. He also said it’s likely that most of the company’s 2 billion members have had their information scraped by third-parties.
But these disclosures aren’t likely to mollify legislators going into the hearings. Ken Gude, Senior Fellow at the Center For American Progress, pointed out that congressmen have not yet forgotten how much attention Zuckerberg gave their hearings on Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
“When Facebook was called before the Senate Intelligence Committee last year,” he said, “they sent a relatively low-level official, and that drew the ire of the Senators on the committee and members of both parties.”
Zuckerberg will appear before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on Tuesday and the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/mark-zuckerberg-heads-to-capitol-hill-next-week-can-he-fix-facebooks-image-there).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
