Mark Warner: ‘Mr. Zuckerberg Needs to Come and Testify Before Congress’

BRENNAN: This week, Facebook revealed that a Russian propaganda group created about 500 fake accounts, running ads around the election, and spent about $100,000 on divisive acts.

Can you possibly legislate a fix to prevent that kind of thing from happening again?

WARNER: Well, first of all, Facebook, unfortunately, and all the social media companies, were really slow to respond.

I called this out in December of 2016. And, at first, they kind of blew me off and others off who are raising these issues.

BRENNAN: Mark Zuckerberg is apologizing in today’s “New York Times.”

WARNER: Well, and the truth is, it’s not just the paid ads. That’s a small piece. It’s the fake accounts that literally touched close to 145 million Americans.

And that’s just with fake accounts. The next wave of technology will be able to have your image with words coming out of your mouth that may not be said or your face put on somebody else’s body in terms of next wave of technology.

So, we have to get our arms around this. And I think Mr. Zuckerberg needs to come and testify before Congress, not just put an advertisement in his paper. He said he would if he was the right guy. He is the right guy. He can’t send a staff.

When I’m called upon on an issue, it’s my name on the door. I mean, you wouldn’t take a staff member on your show representing me. He needs to come, testify before Congress and explain how they’re going to work with us to both protect privacy through 50 million Facebook accounts that were used by this sketchy firm Cambridge Analytica, and how we’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen again in terms of weaponization of these social media platforms.