The Senate Banking Committee is firing shots at Facebook executive David Marcus over the tech giant’s plans to launch its Libra Crypto currency.
The main attacks were on the trustworthiness of facebook following its recent issues with privacy.
Facebook had shown “through scandal after scandal that it doesn’t deserve our trust” claimed the Senator, Sherrod Brown.
Facebook has been under fire ever since the company announced its plans to launch a digital currency expected to launch next year. Now if they really want their new digital currency to be a success they have a long list of people to please starting from Washington lawmakers all the way up to US President Donald Trump.
“We’d be crazy to give them a chance to let them experiment with people’s bank accounts.” Mr Brown, a Democrat at the hearing.
Republican senator Martha McSally said. “Instead of cleaning up your house you are launching into a new business model.”
Mr Marcus, who is also known for being the president of PayPal from 2012 to 2014, tried to address the concerns by promising that Facebook will not begin offering Libra until it has solved all its regulatory issues and said “We know we need to take the time to get this right,”
He is also due to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.
The senators at Tuesday’s were keen on knowing how Facebook planned to tackle money laundering through their new payment system and especially the safety of these assets.
The fight to regain trust
Marcus added: “I know we have to earn people’s trust for a very long period of time. The way we’ve built this is to separate social and financial data because we’ve heard loud and clear that they don’t want those two types of data streams connected, so this is the way the system is designed.
Facebook will only have one vote and will not be in a position to control the association, nor will Facebook or the Libra Association position themselves to compete with sovereign currencies or interfere with monetary policy,” .
Now Libra isn’t the only product under fire. Facebook’s new Crypto wallet Calibra is also having a hard time. “you’re not doing this for fun”,said one Senator who is still skeptical about Facebook. Expect to hear more such remarks as Facebook will definitely do everything in its power to push Calibra to the moon.
Most of the hearing was focussed tech giants have too much power over competitors, and what this means for freedom of speech and, maybe in the future, the economy as a whole
Facebook’s Marcus did shoot back saying if these Silicon Valley giants aren’t allowed to innovate, China and other Countries will take over their supremacy in technology industry.
It’s interesting to see how Libra and Calibra deal with the current market as we are slowly approaching its eventual launch.
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