After 6 Hours of Zuckerberg Testimony, Congress Still Hates Libra

Yesterday, Oct. 23, Cointelegraph reported from the United States House of Representatives as the Financial Services Committee questioned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for over six hours.

While focused on the Libra Association and its planned Libra token, the hearing expanded to touch on a wide range of concerns and controversies surrounding Facebook.

The Facebook CEO's planned opening remarks were published on Oct. 22, in which he committed to Facebook not launching Libra anywhere in the world without approval from all appropriate U.S. regulators.

As Cointelegraph reported from the hearing, Representative Bill Huizenga sought to clarify the relationship between Facebook and the Libra Association.

During his line of questioning, the congressman asked what Facebook's response would be should the Libra Association insist on launching without American regulatory approval.

As Huizenga told Cointelegraph, "That's what I was trying to figure out: Is Libra Facebook?" It's a distinction that both David Marcus and Mark Zuckerberg have taken pains to draw, with mixed results.

As much as Zuckerberg affirmed that Facebook would only be a single vote within the association, it was him sitting before the House Committee in a sea of cameras answering for Libra as a whole.

Representative Warren Davidson had a different perspective, instead seeing Facebook's need to leave the Libra Association as pragmatic.

At the hearing yesterday, Republicans muted their earlier criticism of Libra as a potential threat to customer data safety and, while still eager to maintain the dominance of the U.S. dollar, it did seem that Facebook and the Libra Association had successfully turned Chinese innovation into Republicans' biggest fear.

Representative David Scott was outraged by discriminatory ad targetting and redlining - the practice of segregating housing by race - while Representatives Joyce Beatty and Al Green found diversity in the leadership of the Libra Association as well as in Facebook's hiring to be critically wanting.