Zuckerberg refuses to split Facebook during Trump visit in Washington

Facebook's executive director, Mark Zuckerberg, met Thursday with the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and members of Congress, as part of a reconnaissance mission in Washington during which he rejected the claims asking to divide the social network the world's largest in several companies.

Zuckerberg's visit occurs while Facebook faces endless questions about issues such as digital privacy, competition, censorship and transparency about political propaganda. A Facebook spokesman said the discussions were focusing in part on future internet regulations. Democratic Senator Mark Warner, one of the parliamentarians who has taken the lead in Washington on the issue of digital security, said they received Zuckerberg with a cataract of claims. Zuckerberg had private dinner with Warner and other parliamentarians on Wednesday night. Zuckerberg's visit comes after a stormy appearance in front of Congress in 2018, in which he was heavily questioned about the failures Facebook incurred in the handling of privacy and data protection.

Josh Hawley, Republican senator, and openly critical of the social network, said he had a "frank conversation" with Zuckerberg, but that he remains concerned. "I challenged him to do two things to show that (Facebook) is serious about bias, privacy & competition. 1) Sell WhatsApp & Instagram 2) Undergo an independent censorship audit conducted by a third party," Hawley wrote in a Tweet. "He said no to both," he said. Last Thursday, President Trump posted an image on Facebook and Twitter where he is seen shaking hands with Zuckerberg, but did not share details of his conversation. "Nice meeting with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook at Oval Office today," Trump wrote. Federal and state authorities have Facebook under the magnifying glass for potential anti-competitive practices, and members of Congress debate a new national privacy legislation.

Warner, meanwhile, said he was not prepared to request a dismantling of Facebook. "It worries me. These are global companies, and I don't want to transfer the leadership to Chinese companies," he told the Fox Business Network. "But I do believe that we need much more transparency. We need to protect the right to privacy. We need to increase competition with things such as data portability and interoperability." In July, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) punished Facebook with a record fine of $ 5 billion for privacy violations in an agreement that also requires the social network to submit to new restrictions on decisions that affect the privacy of the users.

all right Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues his tour of Washington this morning Zuckerberg is set to speak with more lawmakers today after meeting with the president and Senators behind closed doors yesterday Jessica Smith is it live in Washington with all of the details so do you have any idea what they talked about Jess well facebook says these conversations are about the future of internet regulation I talked to Senator

Mark Warner yesterday who had dinner with Zuckerberg and several other senators on Wednesday night and he says the conversation was wide-ranging that Zuckerberg got an earful from senators and they covered topics like privacy competition Libre some other issues there we also heard from Senator Josh Hawley who Zuckerberg met with yesterday and Holly says they focused on perceived bias at Facebook that has been an issue that Holly has been raising throughout the past few months and they also talked about competition Holly says he asked

Zuckerberg to just spin off whatsapp and Instagram he put it pretty simply he says he thinks that they need to spend those off improve Facebook's core product he said needless to say that huge ask did not go over so well with Zuckerberg he's not going to be receptive to that idea I don't think we also know as you mentioned that he did meet with President Trump yesterday it was not on the president's schedule but he ended up meeting with him yesterday at the White House Facebook says that the meeting was constructive but did not release any further details about that meeting in Zuckerberg tour of Washington will continue today he is reportedly set to meet with members of the House Judiciary Committee including David Cicilline he is the leader of the houses antitrust investigation and I talked to him earlier this summer and he had said that he thinks Facebook is the company he is most concerned about when it comes to this investigation so we'll be looking for any details that come out of that conversation today Heidi thanks Jess have a good weekend you too.