Congress Hates Libra Even After 6 Hours Of Zuckerberg Testimony

The official testimony and hearing of the Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, took place yesterday – when the Financial Services Committee questioned the head of the social media giant for over six hours. However, after this has passed, it seems like the Congress hates Libra and its planned token. We could conclude this by seeing how the hearing expanded to touch on a wide range of concerns and controversies that are surrounding Facebook.

The hearing was also contentious and several members of the Congress used their allotted five minutes of questioning to rail against Zuckerberg – rather than asking him a single question. Warren Davidson was one of the Congressmen who was featured in the Libra coin news today for stating:

“I don’t think day-to-day at his company he gets treated that way very often. There are people who have frankly been pretty rude.”

As we can see, the hearing saw little change from the Head of Calibra David Marcus and his appearances before the House and the Senate in July. If anything, this hearing was distinct in the way through which the committee members felt freer to take Zuckerberg to task for Facebook and its historic transgressions than they had with Marcus who is relatively new to the organization.

The Congress hates Libra even after the announcement which came from Zuckerberg himself. The Facebook CEO and his opening remarks were published on October 22, when he committed to Facebook not launching Libra anywhere in the world without all the appropriate US regulators.

The Representative Bill Huizenga (R-MI) sought to clarify the relationship between Facebook and the Libra Association. During his line of questions, the congressman asked what Facebook response would be if the Libra Association insists on launching without American regulatory approach. Zuckerberg was confident and said “Then I believe that we would be forced to leave the association.”

The answer was very striking knowing that Facebook has a central role in forming the Libra Association. However, many said that the Congress hates Libra. This was proved when Representative Warren Davidson said:

“Frankly, $10 million to Facebook is a rounding error.Think about it as a fiduciary responsibility to the value of Facebook. If Facebook is domiciled in the U.S. and they are going to be involved in something that is going to be illicit in the U.S., it would be hard to be a part of that. So I don’t think it is as big of a commitment as a lot of people think. It’s just like, ‘Well, I’ve got to take care of Facebook first and foremost.’”

The question about the proposed Libra launch remains. For all parties involved, it seems that a delay in Libra is preferable to losing Facebook and the US market in perpetuity.