Fox News "The Story with Martha MacCallum" - Transcript: Grassley and Coons on Zuckerberg's congressional testimony

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MACCALLUM: Wow, and it is still going on tonight. Leading that hearing today: Senate Judiciary Chairman, Charles Grassley, he will join us in just a minute. Also, doing the questioning, Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Chris Coons and David Kirkpatrick, who literally wrote the book on the Facebook effect, he has been studying this for over a decade. We begin tonight with the Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley. Senator, good to have you here tonight. Tell me, you know, what really stood out to you today? What was accomplished today, do you think, in this hearing?

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY, R--IOWA, SENATE JUDICIARY CHAIRMAN: Well, I wouldn't say this as accomplishment, what's been accomplished. But I would say that it's pretty clear that Facebook does not have any sort of record or a total amount of information that's been transferred. They don't seem to audit -- have an audit of what's going on or at least it hasn't been audited to this point. And they don't know how much of that information has been shared with third parties, and then the third parties, what they have done with it. And it seems to me that this is pretty essential for not only Facebook, but other platforms to get this under control in order to establish or reduce the skepticism and cynicism people have about these platforms in the privacy and for the protection of privacy.

MACCALLUM: But, I mean, there's some discussion that Facebook knows that some regulation is obviously coming for them. And that it's probably long overdue, that they're already trying to figure ways to work around it. I mean, you know, do you have -- does it -- are you concerned, I guess, that their ability to continue to collect data will outpace the Congress' ability to do anything about it?

GRASSLEY: There's some legislation in on this and I would never try to tell you or anybody else that's passing a bill is going to solve all problems you want to or give the proper protection of the people. And so, there's two things to go in different directions. One is this organization can do the things that they need to do to police it properly and make sure people's privacy is protected, and of course, people are cynical about whether any corporation would do that, but it's possible. And the other one would be whatever laws or regulations we can pass, but we know FTC is operated in this area of regulation and agreement with them back in, I think, 2011 or 2012 and they didn't even follow that.

MACCALLUM: I mean, you know, that's a good question. I mean, the FCC was -- shouldn't they have been protecting America's privacy? I mean, I think that that's their motto. What were they doing about this for the last ten years?

GRASSLEY: Well, that's something we haven't had an oversight hearing on yet and that may be born in the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee under Thune than it is under me, but it's something I'm very interested in because you make laws. And one of the things we have in the legislative branch of government is oversight, constitutional oversight to make sure that the laws are carried out the way Congress intended them.

MACCALLUM: Yes. All right. Chairman Chuck Grassley, great to see you tonight. Thank you very much. I know you have to get back in there. Thanks for making time for us tonight.

GRASSLEY: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: Joining me now, Delaware Democratic Senator Chris Coons, Senate Judiciary Committee Member, who also got to question Mark Zuckerberg tonight. Good to have a with us, Senator Coons. You know, I want to play this sound bite for you on competition because this is another area that Congress perhaps could have some impact on Facebook and social media. Here's Lindsey Graham.

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MACCALLUM: Interesting answer from Mark Zuckerberg. Your take on that, senator. You know, what can really -- what can you take away from today and what can be accomplished?

SEN. CHRIS COONS, D--DELAWARE, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE MEMBER: Well, today was I hope the first of several hearings where we can make sure that average Americans understand the ways in which they're personally identifying data is being collected and gathered, monetized, and used. Because Americans should know how their data is being used and it should be used with their knowledge and with their consent. One of the ways in which I think Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg is getting into some trouble here, is practices which when caught or brought to light, Zuckerberg apologizes for, promises that they will make their best efforts to address, but then several years later, have not yet been resolved. One of the things I question today was a way to add targeting on Facebook makes it possible to be racially exclusionary in how you put out ads about housing availability. One of the other issues that I asked of Mr. Zuckerberg was you make your money by targeting advertising. Would you allow a diet co manufacturer to use your data to target teens anxious about their weight? Or to allow a casino to target those with gambling problems? I think these are questions worth exploring.

MACCALLUM: Here's Ben Sasse and Mark Zuckerberg on a broader issue that relates in some ways to that. Watch.

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MACCALLUM: So, senator, at one point, Mark Zuckerberg said they're going to use A.I., artificial intelligence, to govern and scan for hate speech. Does that concern you? I mean, could that get into some pretty tricky territory here?

COONS: Absolutely. I think that's one of the reasons were going to need to have a robust and debate about what kind of tools and what kind of standards Facebook is going to apply. I applaud the fact that Facebook has been very active in identifying and taking down materials that are posted on Facebook by Jihadists groups that are advocating terrorism or violence, but one person's hate speech in the context that the Senator Sasse was just talking about is another person's firmly held political or personal or religious beliefs.

MACCALLUM: Absolutely.

COONS: And we need to make sure first that we don't infringe on the free- speech rights, and second, that we don't so over regulate social media that we restricted it or constrain it because it is exactly the free and open environment we provide here in the United States that has led to such innovations as the creation of most of big tech leaders in the world.

MACCALLUM: And Ted Cruz pointed out some pretty interesting examples of some of the things that have been combed out of Facebook for just those reasons. And most of them, you know, had to do with conservative political thoughts. So, we'll see. Senator, thank you very much, good to see you tonight.

COONS: Thank you.

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