Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly admitted that a tool is used to keep track of user behaviour online during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on November 17. Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley confronted Zuckerberg where he questioned him about two internal tools, brought to his attention by a Facebook whistleblower.
The tools that came into questions were Tasks and Centra. They are used to coordinate censorship wit Twitter and Google and monitor Facebook user activity across the internet, respectively.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley on Twitter wrote, “”Zuckerberg admits @Facebook DOES have ‘tools’ to track its users across the internet, across platforms, across accounts – all without user knowledge. I ask how many times this tool has been used domestically against Americans. Zuck won’t say.” He then attached a screenshot of the internal tool.
Rush gets it: Zuckerberg admitted under oath today that Facebook DOES have the ability to coordinate censorship with @Twitter and @Google, and a FB whistleblower has explained how they do it https://t.co/p3qSK2NtKB
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 17, 2020
Zuckerberg, however, did not confirm “whether Facebook ever uses Centra to track and monitor American citizens.” Hawley further noted, “Mark Zuckerberg under oath to me today: I don’t know, I can’t recall, I don’t remember, I’ll follow up later, let me get back to you.”
According to the whistleblower that Hawley mentioned, the tool Centra is used to track user behaviour across the internet without their knowledge. It tracks different profiles that a user visits, their message recipients, their linked accounts, the pages they visit around the web that have Facebook buttons.
Senator Hawley also spoke about internal platform tasks that Facebook uses for co-ordinated content moderation with other companies. However Zuckerberg denied the claim.
Zuckerberg said that there were coordination and sharing signals on security-related topics about terrorism, images of child exploitation and foreign election inference.
Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey were testified about their platforms, misinformation and the 2020 election before the members of the Senate Judiciary committee on November 17.
