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Sarbanes Grills Zuckerberg About Facebook’s Controversial “Campaign Embed” Program and the Company’s Potential Campaign Finance Violations [Video]

April 11, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. – During a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing today, Democracy Reform Task Force Chair Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) questioned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about potential campaign finance violations and conflicts of interest posed by Facebook's "campaign embeds" program for political candidates.

"It could be a serious problem if these kinds of services were provided … because that could result in violation of campaign finance law and could be construed as an in-kind contribution – a corporate contribution from Facebook – beyond what the ad buy opportunity would typically provide."

Sarbanes continued: "I think a lot of Americans are waking up to the fact that Facebook is becoming a self-regulated superstructure for political discourse. And the question is, ‘Are we the people going to regulate our political dialogue, or are you, Mark Zuckerberg, going to end up regulating the political discourse?'"

See here for the full video.

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