The federal government should step in, either through enforcement or the Federal Trade Commission, to take action on how Facebook members' information is used, Rep. Chris Collins said Wednesday.
"Otherwise, it's not going to happen," the New York Republican told a Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria" panel. "We have to do either do it through legislation through our committee, Energy and Commerce or through the enforcement actions of the FTC, which is a government agency."
Collins noted that he's a member on the Energy and Commerce telecommunications subcommittee, which would have jurisdiction over the hearings, and there's "no two ways about it" whether hearings will happen.
Ironically, even though the scandal over Cambridge Analytics' use of more than 50 million Facebook members' information to help Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Collins said many Americans do not mind providers such as Facebook or Google having information about them so they can give recommendations for shopping and other activities.
"The problem right now is in many cases no one's asking your permission," said Collins. "You sign some agreement online that says I agreed or whatever the thing says that I didn't read and the next thing you know they're watching what you do, what you're interested in, and taking from that what your propensity would be to vote Republican or vote Democrat ... we do need to have the hearings and decide if there legislation that we should be working on."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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