Washington (December 5, 2018) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, issued the following statement after the release of new documents that reveal internal discussions regarding the social media platform’s data sharing policies.

“It should not be up to Mark Zuckerberg to decide who has access to information such as what you ‘like,’ your name, your gender, or your city of residence,” said Senator Markey.  “Americans’ data belongs to them, not Facebook. When he testified before Congress, Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly insisted that Facebook does not sell its users’ data. We now know, however, that Facebook executives discussed requiring companies to buy digital advertisements in order to access users’ personal information. Any evidence of a pay-for-data model would fly in the face of the statements Facebook has made to Congress and the public.”

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