October 9, 2019 ~ Congresswoman Maxine Waters,  Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, announced that Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before the Committee at an October 23 hearing.

Zuckerberg will be the sole witness at the hearing, which is entitled, “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors.”

In July, Chairwoman Waters and other Committee Democrats sent a letter to Facebook requesting an immediate moratorium on the implementation of Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency, Libra, and digital wallet, Calibra.

Also in July, Waters convened a hearing entitled, “Examining Facebook’s Proposed Cryptocurrency and Its Impact on Consumers, Investors, and the American Financial System,” with testimony from Calibra CEO David Marcus. At the hearing Committee Members discussed a draft bill, the “Keep Big Tech Out of Finance Act.” The draft legislation prohibits large platform utilities, like Facebook, from becoming chartered, licensed or registered as a U.S. financial institution (e.g. like taxpayer-backed banks, investment funds, and stock exchanges) or otherwise becoming affiliated with such financial institutions. The bill also prohibits large platform utilities from establishing, maintaining, or operating a digital asset that is intended to be widely used as medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value, or any other similar function as defined by the Federal Reserve.

Related Article:

Senator Compares Facebook’s Libra Association to Spectre in James Bond Movie