#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Rep. Maxine Waters, Rep. Joyce Beatty & AOC Grill Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg On The Hill

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was grilled during his testimony on Capitol Hill. The hearing was about Libra, Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency, but Zuckerberg also commented on the social network's commitment to civil rights and what the company has done to promote diversity after the company's settlement with various civil rights groups related to discrimination tied to advertising and housing. Rep. Maxine Waters, Rep. Joyce Beatty and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took turns questioning the founder of Facebook who claims they will not launch their cryptocurrency until U.S. regulators approve. Watch the 10.24.19 edition of #RolandMartinUnfiltered https://youtu.be/1QhV29lCc2w - #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: Life Luxe Jazz Can't make it to Los Cabos for the Life Luxe Jazz Fest? Get your live stream pass at https://gfntv.com/ Life Luxe Jazz is the experience of a lifetime, delivering top-notch music in an upscale destination. The weekend-long event is held at the Omnia Dayclub Los Cabos, which is nestled on the Sea of Cortez in the celebrity playground of Los Cabos, Mexico. For more information visit the website at lifeluxejazz.com. - 📘 Check out #RolandsBookClub and some of his favorite tech gear http://ow.ly/M5zF50uJPam ✅ NOW AVAILABLE: #RolandMartinUnfiltered Merch - https://bit.ly/2VYdQok ✅ Subscribe to the #RolandMartin YouTube channel https://t.co/uzqJjYOukP ✅ Join the #RolandMartinUnfiltered #BringTheFunk Fan Club to support fact-based independent journalism http://ow.ly/VRyC30nKjpY ✅ Join the Roland Martin and #RolandMartinUnfiltered mailing list http://ow.ly/LCvI30nKjuj - Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You can make this possible. All right, folks. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was grilled yesterday during his testimony on Capitol Hill. The hearing was about Libra, the company's proposed cryptocurrency. But he also commented on the social network's commitment to civil rights and what it has done to promote diversity after the company's settlement

with various civil rights groups related to discrimination tied to advertising and housing. Folks, it was some tough testimony and tough questions, especially when you are facing Congressman and woman Maxine Waters of California. It is no secret that Facebook allowed Russia to undermine and divide our country

through divisive online ads. The Senate's investigation discovered that African Americans were targeted the most by Russia, specifically in places where Black Lives Matter groups were the most active. Despite all of your technological expertise, Russia and Iran are at it again for the upcoming election. Then last week, you announced a new ad policy that gives politicians a license to lie so you can earn more money off this division, I suppose. Facebook changes the rules when it can benefit itself. Last year, Facebook banned all cryptocurrency ads on its platform because, and I quote, they are frequently associated with misleading or

deceptive promotional practices quote-unquote seems fair then earlier this year Facebook rolled back the cryptocurrency ad ban bought a blockchain company and announced its own cryptocurrency so tell us what changed how did cryptocurrency go from being misleading and deceptive last year and then becomes a means for financial inclusion this year. It seems to me that you shifted your stance because you realize that you can use your size and your users' data to dominate the cryptocurrency market.

You changed your policy when it benefits you. You reinstated cryptocurrency ads because you had plans to start your own cryptocurrency. So this brings me back to your new policy on political speech. My question to you is, how does this new policy benefit you? Because it seems that a policy that allows politicians to lie, mislead, and deceive would also allow Facebook to sell more ads to those politicians, thus making the you mentioned in there. On elections, you're right that in 2016 we were on our back foot in terms of preventing Russia from attempting to interfere in our elections. We've spent a lot of the last few years building systems that are more sophisticated than any other company has at this

point, and frankly a lot of governments too, for defending against foreign interference. This Monday we announced that we had proactively identified a network of fake Russian accounts and a few networks of Iranian fake accounts that we proactively took down, which certainly, as you say, signals that these nation states are still attempting to interfere. But I hope it will also give us some confidence

that our systems are now more sophisticated to proactively identify and address these things on your question about political ads Look from a business perspective the Very small percent of our business that is made up of political ads does not come anywhere close to Justifying the controversy that this incurs for our company. So this really is not about money. This is on principle I believe in giving people a voice. I believe that ads

can be an important part of voice. I think especially in the political process for challenger candidates and for local candidates or advocacy groups whose message might not otherwise be covered by the media. Having ads can be an important way to inject your message into the political debate. Let me interrupt you for a minute. Are you telling me, I think as you said to me before, you plan on doing no fact-checking on political ads? Chairwoman, our policy is that we do not fact-check politicians speech and the reason for that is that we believe that in a democracy it is important that

people can see for themselves what politicians are saying political speech is some of the most scrutinized speech already in the world do Do you fact check on any ads at all? Yes. Describe what you fact check on. Well, Chairwoman, actually, thank you for the opportunity to clarify. Facebook itself actually does not fact check. What we do is we have feedback that people in our community don't want to see viral hoaxes or kind of widespread. So let me be clear, you do no fact checking on any ads, I don't know if you have any information on that. I don't know if you have any information on that. I don't know if you have any information on that.

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I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. reviewed by a set of independent fact-checkers. Uh, they can't fact-check everything, but the things that they get to, and-and if they mark something as false, then we surely... All right, my time has expired,

and someone else will continue on this line of questioning. Am I the only one confused as hell? I... Look, I... We... No, Facebook, we don't fact-check.check as an independent group that fact-check who we pay They cut that bullshit out you fact-check Speaking of getting checked. Here's Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio Let's just say every black mama Know what this was like?

In your opening statement you talked a lot about civil rights I think we should probably phrase it a little differently that you work with civil rights work It's because it's a result of the number of lawsuits that you pay an NAACP Even secretary Ben Carson filed a fair housing lawsuit against you for Violations, so let me ask you this this do you know what redlining is yes okay then you should have known better and maybe if you had real diversity or inclusion on your team somebody in that room would have said what you were doing when you looked at what you were doing in the housing,

how you were redlining or using zip codes to eliminate people from getting information. Now, have you read the report that Laura Murphy sent to you? You've talked a lot about diversity, and you introduced her name about this great study in her work. Have you read it? Do you know what the recommendations were do you know when she issued the report yes or no I've seen the report okay tell me what the top three things were cuz I I have it right here what were the top three things in her report somebody talked about lying in this committee I'm only I'm only saying well one of them was around housing ads, which we've talked about.

The other was around setting up a civil rights task force. And who's on the civil rights task force? Sheryl Sandberg is the person who's... What civil rights? Okay, we know Sheryl's not really civil rights, so I'm trying to help you here. She's your COO, and I don't think there's anything and I know sure well about Civil rights in her background so come better than that for me if we're gonna talk civil rights It's an internal task force. You know who the do you know who the firm that you employ for civil rights is

Congressman I don't how could you not know when you have employed the most historical, the largest civil rights firm to deal with issues that are major? And this is what's so frustrating to me. It's almost like you think this is a joke, when you have ruined the lives of many people, discriminated against them. Do you know what percentage of African-Americans are on Facebook in comparison to majority folks? Do you know what the percentages are? People using the Facebook? Yes. Do you know what the percentages are for African-Americans?

I don't because we don't collect the races of people. Well, it came out in a report in the Pew Research Center that was sent to you. So maybe you just don't read a lot of things that deal with civil rights or African-Americans. I have a lot of questions I'm going to send to you that I'm not going to be able to get through. And I would like an answer because this is appalling and disgusting to me. And I yield back. Well, again, fuck it. it's the face you make. Damn!

But, oh, you know the freshmen, they got to ask questions last. And, oh, my Lord, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, let's just say she just walked Mark Zuckerberg's behind down. You announced recently that the official policy of Facebook now allows politicians to pay to spread disinformation in 2020 elections and in the future. So I just want to know how far I can push this in the next year. Under your policy, you know, using census data as well, could I pay to target predominantly black zip codes and advertise them the incorrect election date? No, Congresswoman, you couldn't. We have, even for these policies around the newsworthiness

of content that politicians say and the general principle that I believe that But you said you're not going to fact check my ads. We have if if uh if anyone including a politician is saying things that uh can cause that is calling for violence or could risk imminent physical harm or voter or census suppression when we roll out the census suppression policy um we will take that content down so so you will there is some threshold where you will fact check political advertisements is that what you're telling me well congresswoman yes and for specific things like that where there's imminent risk of harm could i run ads targeting targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal? Sorry, can you repeat that?

Would I be able to run advertisements on Facebook targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal? I mean, if you're not fact-checking political advertisements, I'm just trying to understand the bounds here. What's fair game? Congresswoman, I don't know the answer to that off the top my head I think so you don't know if I'll be able to do that do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements well congresswoman I think lying is bad and I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie that would be bad that's different from it being from

it from in our position the right thing to do to prevent your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you had lied so we can so you won't take down lies or you will take down lies I think it's just a pretty simple yes or no congresswoman in I'm not talking about spin. I'm talking about actual disinformation. Yes, in most cases, in a democracy, I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for

are saying to judge their character for themselves. So you won't take... You may flag that it's wrong, but you won't take it down. Congresswoman, it depends on the context that it shows up. Organic Post adds that the treatment is a little bit different. One more question. In your ongoing dinner parties with far-right figures, some of who advance the conspiracy theory that white supremacy is a hoax,

did you discuss so-called social media bias against conservatives, and do you believe there is a bias? Congresswoman, I don't remember everything that was in the question. That's all right. I'll move on. Can you explain why you've named The Daily Caller, a publication well-documented with ties to white supremacists, as an official fact-checker for Facebook? Congresswoman, sure.

We actually don't appoint the independent fact-checkers. They go through an independent organization called the Independent Fact-Checking Network that has a rigorous standard for who they allow to serve as a fact-checker. So you would say that white supremacist-tied publications meet a rigorous standard for fact-checking? Thank you. Congresswoman, I would say that we're not the one assessing that that standard the international fact-checking network is the one who is setting that standard okay y'all let me why did I play all of that? Because Mark Zuckerberg knows damn well what they're talking about.

Okay? Let's be real clear here. All right? Essentially what he is saying is that if Donald Trump or any other politician has an ad that's flat out false, that is a lie, Facebook is like, all right like are we good we good do you understand that television networks and television stations and newspapers and magazines will not allow such false ads. See, Facebook wants to have it both ways. They are the largest disseminator of news in America. But their deal is, oh, no, no, we're not a news company. We're a tech company. But then another day, we're not a tech company. We're a news company. Then it goes, oh, that's really only a small part of our revenue.

Okay, so if it's a small part of your revenue, correct it. This really isn't hard. But the fact of the matter is, Facebook doesn't want to do it. And do you know why? Because they're scared of conservatives. See, let me just, let me sit my iPad down. So let me just explain to y'all something. This is the game that conservatives have played since the 1960s.

Whoa is me. The liberal media, the liberal media hates us us the liberal media doesn't understand us so what they do is and they love talking about black people why you always playing the victim but they're always playing the victim it's always the media the media the media i begot the media they're all against us you got fox news who goes, the mainstream media. Hell, they're mainstream. But you see the game. Now you have to ask yourself, how is it that you have like the Daily Caller and you've got the National Review

and you've got OANN, you've got Newsmax, you've got all of these conservative websites, the Epoch Times, all these different sites. You know why? Because conservative billionaires are funding them. That's where they're getting their money from. The Rubin Report. Oh, all those YouTube followers.

Used to be with the Young Turks, but now he's a conservative. Funded by the Koch brothers. Because their whole deal is the liberal media, liberal media, liberal media. They hit CNN with that. When I was there, they hit CBS. If CNN had gone out and hired, even today, if CNN goes out and hires 1,000 conservative employees,

you know what the conservatives would say? They're still liberal. That's the game. conservative employees. You know what the conservatives would say? They're still liberal. That's the game. So they attack Facebook. They attack YouTube. I saw some documentary. Dennis Prager. The censorship. Prager University, Prager

U, has had more than two of their videos. Two billion views. So where is the censorship? This is a part of their strategy and their game. And so Facebook is scared to death. Why? Because Republicans control the Senate,

and they're scared that Donald Trump is going to attack them. Now their problem is that they're getting their ass kicked by the Democrats. And see, all Zuckerberg had to say is, if you want to run ads on Facebook and you're lying, we're not going to run it. Simple as that. Facts are not optional. Facts are not up for debate. But Facebook wants to have it both

ways, and that's why they're going to continue to get their behind kicked. And Greg, this is critically important because we know, and this is what I keep trying to walk people through, these low information voters. He says, you know, the public should be able to,

speech is so important, and the public should be able to uh speech is so important and the public should be able to hear it but when you have people who don't know the truth and then somehow somebody presents it and there's a reason people i see these tweets rolling why you always interrupting people because if you lie on rolling mark unfiltered i'm stopping you and i'ma smack you Because I can't let somebody watching on YouTube or Facebook or Periscope or watching on Twitter or listening to the audio podcast go, well, Roland didn't say anything. Roland didn't interrupt them, so what they said must be true. No. Facebook is normally allowing lies, and that's why Zuckerberg got jacked up and he should have gotten jacked up

Absolutely and his courtesy chairwoman and congresswoman notwithstanding Mark Zuckerberg doesn't give a damn about anything But Mark Zuckerberg and his profit bottom line Mark Zuckerberg went to China and asked Ji Ji Ping to give his daughter a Chinese name, trying to figure out another way to get into the Chinese market. Failing that, and he then says that China is a champion of censorship and they should be ignored, and we have to be careful here in America

and protect free speech, because if we don't, the Chinese will own the internet. These are all scare tactics because he's afraid to lose his market. This man, let me just, let's just connect a few dots. Pete Buttigieg says that he thinks that we should have more Supreme Court justices like Anthony Kennedy. Anthony Kennedy is the author of Citizens United. Citizens United is the terrible Supreme Court decision

that basically said you can say whatever the hell you want if you're a corporation and spend as much money as you want to say it. Who suggested hires for Pete Buttigieg's campaign? Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. Mark Zuckerberg does not care. You've laid all this out. This man is about making money.

And if that means taking dirty money from wherever, then I'm going to do it. And finally, if he says, well, you know, this really isn't a big part of our bottom line, these ads, it isn't about the amount of bottom line the political ads are paying. It's about the brand of Facebook saying this is the Wild West and if you give us our money,

we'll do whatever we want. He talked to those congresswomen with the type of arrogant, white frat boy, Harvard bred, I don't give a damn about y'all arrogance that you see shooting through everybody from Brett Kavanaugh to Donald Trump Jr. This man don't give a damn

as long as he get his money rolling. That's it. That's it. Erica? Listen, and I'm over here amening Greg because this is what's consequential. If people do not believe that this matters for the argument of that, oh, I just go on Facebook to laugh

or it does not have any bearing on me, listen to me, bullshit. Because it is very much so a media firm. It is very much so influential. Facebook also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. It is a communications company, everybody. And when I'm reading reports that are already saying that memes are going to be a factor in this next presidential election,

we have state elections that are going to be happening in the next couple of weeks. In the general election, an election where you already have a person that is occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a freaking terrorist who has sold America and is continuing to sell democracy to the highest bidder. If you do not believe that what you see and what you hear and not having the nuance to be able to understand what is true and what is factual does not have an impact on you or does not have an impact on your audience or the community at large, you are living foul. It absolutely does. And so that is why it is most important not only for us to be able to dissect these hearings, but to also understand that what is being flashed before your eyes

is not all for your good and that there has to be some level of pushback, which is what these members of the House Financial Services Committee were doing, taking Facebook to task, but also letting the audience know that, listen, that they have opened floodgates that really cannot be closed so easily. That's right. That's right. Let me also say this for the people who are watching and again I'm gonna sit my iPad down again okay so let me walk through this and y'all are going to hear a lot more of this over the next year right here on roller mark unfiltered I did a video called black media black owned media being the tip of the spear what that means is that

when you are in a battle you're the tip of the spear that connects with the skin but somebody got to push that thing in in order to take your opponent out black-owned media is the tip of the spear. So everybody is focusing on the lying ads. But it was Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who's a subcommittee chair on diversity and inclusion, who hit him on the issue of pension funds, lawyers, legal, law firms, accounting firms. See, let me explain something y'all. And trust me, I'm gonna unpack this thing because I'm actually working on this thing right now.

And in fact, my speech tonight to the Minneapolis, the Twin Cities Urban League, they want me to talk about unity. But I'm gonna get y'all preview of my speech. We can't talk about unity until we deal with money. Come on. Come on. Come on.

See, when she hit him on that, what y'all got to understand is that black folks have been locked out of getting those dollars. She had a whole bunch of y'all out there, always trashing Reverend Jackson. But Reverend Jackson was the one who was talking about pension funds or black folks being able to manage those dollars. Yeah, so was I. When he was going after Silicon Valley companies,

Verizon and others, he talked about the billions in bond offerings they were putting up. And he was asking, where are the black law firms? Where are the black accounting firms? Where are the black bond firms? Do y'all know that right now the federal government has a $1 trillion plus pension fund?

And do y'all know that BlackRock controls more than half of the total pension fund in America? Matter of fact, let me further unpack this. In fact, BlackRock wrote the regulations where they were really the only firm eligible to be able to control the dollars. And let me unpack a little bit more. If you had to determine what is the greatest collection of black wealth, I say collection, the greatest collection of black wealth in America are black public workers. I need y'all to hear what I'm saying. government who work for state governments, county governments, city governments, school districts, water districts. That's public pension funds. So the greatest collection of black wealth in America

resides with public workers. Do y'all know of the $1 trillion in federal public pension funds that black people only manage $100 million? That's right. $100 million of $1 trillion. That's the federal government. We ain't even talking about each one of the states and the billions in pension funds.

That's that industry. Same thing when you talk about the advertising industry. Who are the black creative directors? Who are the black ad agencies? Are they getting a piece of this pie? No, they're being controlled by these international conglomerates. What I'm laying out to you is that those questions by Congresswoman Joyce Beatty was getting to the heart of the issue of how do you break down the barriers when it comes to income inequality and wealth building

when we're being locked out? I can tell y'all for a fact, I know it because I was sitting in the lunchroom and the Department of Treasury in 2010 when I was told that black and other minority firms outperform white firms on the management of TARP funds. And I said, I think you'll'll get more money and everybody went quiet. So when everybody is focusing on the ads which are critically important, we're going to be focused on what Congresswoman Joyce Beatty said and we're going to have on this show and we're going to talk about this because folks I keep telling y'all there's only one federal agency that shares along with the White House.

It's the White House and the Department of Treasury. They can play flag football or kickball on the lawn. I'm saying all of this, folks, because you better follow the money. And they're trying to hold Facebook accountable by saying, where the money? Why is it Facebook is funding all of these news shows and not one of them black oh yes Jada has red table talk

that's not a new show I'm talking about they funding a CNN show, a Fox News show, a Univision show, they're funding a whole bunch of shows, none on black. And when he said we don't collect data, Facebook knows that black people over index on their platform. We over index on Twitter. We over index on Instagram. Yet we don't own any of these platforms.

And are those platforms and those companies making sure that black firms are getting dollars? I'll be unpacking this further on days ahead. Don't think for a second that we're done. All right folks, back to that road mark unfiltered video in just one moment. All right, folks, in a few weeks, we're going to be in Cabo for the second annual Life Luxe Jazz Experience.

Gerald Albright's going to be one of the performers there. 14 different acts performing over three days. If you want to attend, go to lifeluxjazz.com, L-I-F-E-L-U-X-E-J-A-Z-Z.com. But if you cannot make it, but you want to check it all out, there's a live streaming pass courtesy of GFNTV.com. That's GFNTV. guys. Let's put the website below me and that is of course Concerts over three days 14 acts of course mark curry The comedian is one of the folks who is confirmed for this event in addition to mark curry It's gonna be great concerts by again Gerald Albright Alex Boone young Raul Madan incognito pieces of a dream Kirk Whalum Average white band down in McClure. Kali Shalaya, Roy Ayers, Tom Brown, Ronnie Laws, and Ernest Quarles.

I'll be doing Roland Martin Unfiltered that Thursday and Friday from Cabo. Looking forward to it. But again, if you want to watch the live stream, go to gfntv.com. That's gfntv.com. Now back to your Roland Martin Unproven video. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them.

Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes.

We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.