VIDEO: Rep. Hill Talks Facebook's Plan for Digital Currency with MSNBC's Morning Joe

Click HERE or on the picture above to watch the full interview with Congressman Hill on Morning Joe.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Congressman French Hill (AR-02) joined MSNBC's Morning Joe to discuss Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's appearance before the House Financial Services Committee and the company's plans to introduce a new digital currency, Libra.

Key excerpts from Congressman Hill below: 

On Facebook's digital currency "Libra":
“[Zuckerberg] made a commitment yesterday, which I thought was good. He made it after the G7 meeting last week, and to America yesterday, that Facebook would not participate in Libra until it had the full regulatory approval of the United States and he would not implement it anywhere. He answered a question from my friend [Congressman] Bill Huizenga in fact [saying] if we don't approve [Libra] then I guess we might have to pull out of Libra, which I don't think is their intent.”

On regulating Facebook:
“…Fact checking came up on both sides. You saw [Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] on your video clip, but it came up on the Republican side yesterday as well. That's why I think you'll see [Facebook] back before the Energy and Commerce Committee. What kind of company is Facebook? How do you deal with their buying power, their monopoly power in that arena? Is it a media company? Is it a messaging company? Will it be a money transfer company? When you have innovation--which I don't think anybody in Congress wants to block--innovation or America being the leading place to develop technology companies, including that on social media. But there's a clearness on where is transparency and where is the oversight and how does it fit into American business, American society, and American regulatory structure? Those are precisely the questions we were getting at on the idea of a digital currency.”

On data privacy:
"I asked Mark Zuckerberg yesterday about privacy. I believe in a future digital world where we have digital commerce and where we own our data. That we give our data to people for a specific purpose, a health purpose, a financial services purpose. George Gilder has written a great book about this called Life After Google, because it's not just social media, it applies to the internet service providers and [Zuckerberg] did not really answer my question. He dodged that question about your right to control your data as your private data that you then can allocate to people for a specific purpose.”

On election security:
"I think Congress has appropriated money for election security. I think it’s likely as we go through the spending process this fall that we may get more money for our states to make sure they boosted their election security. I think the discussion we're having today about transparency on social media, about the rules governing political speech, we want free speech protected. But I think Americans want to know that when they've just seen an ad, and that the ad is paid for by a group or by a candidate, that they can make up their own mind about it. I do think that in his op-ed, Zuckerberg tried to give voice to that. [Facebook] has a new rating system on their ads and you can see a certified [notification] that slips up when you see an ad appear on your Facebook feed. So, I would say it seems they're making an effort to be in the right direction, to be more transparent. But are they? I think that’s the question voters have."


Background:
Click HERE to watch Congressman Hill's questions for Mark Zuckerberg from Wednesday's House Financial Services Committee hearing.

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