Veasey Asks Ousted FTC Commissioner How Her Removal Weakens Agency’s Ability To Protect Users Online

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During a House Energy Committee hearing on examining harms online last week, Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) questioned Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, former commissioner to the Federal Trade Commission, about her removal by President Trump.   Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Thank you. I thank the general lady. Now we have Mr. Vesey. You're recognized, sir,

00:06for your five minutes of questioning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to

00:09thank the witnesses for being here today. I think that we've learned a lot today

00:12that blocking bills like COPPA and other things that protect our kids is

00:17bad, and that we shouldn't be doing that, and so I appreciate your comments today

00:22and you sharing some of those things. I also wanted to talk very briefly about

00:28the attempted removal of two minority commissioners from the FTC and how I

00:33think that that is really bad for the things that we're trying to accomplish

00:36here today to protect our children and other consumers, as this agency has a

00:41very long history of doing. It's unconstitutional, it's wrong, and that

00:48is the type of thing that could really further wreck our kids and our

00:52teenagers' lives, and that's not what we want. I think that that's the one thing

00:56that we've heard from the panel is that we don't want things that are going to

00:59make it harder for our young people. We want to protect them, and we can't do

01:03that if we're going to try to undermine the Constitution. Commissioner Slaughter,

01:09I wanted to ask you, you have a very strong record for advocating for

01:13consumer protections, and with ongoing supply chain disruptions and

01:18shifting tariff policies, I really worry that unfair and deceptive business

01:23practices are going to be on the horizon. How does President Trump's

01:28attempt to remove you and the other commissioner from the minority impact

01:33the Federal Trade Commission's ability to hold corporations and people that

01:39want to hurt our kids and other consumers through things like price

01:43gouging accountable? Thank you. Congress designed the FTC over a hundred years

01:50ago, 111 years ago, and set it up to be a bipartisan agency made up of members

01:58from both parties who serve staggered terms because Congress understood that

02:03that was a really important way to insulate the work of the FTC from

02:09corrupting influences, from partisanship, and from political interference. Over the

02:16time I've served at the FTC, our staff have gone up against some of the most

02:20powerful companies in court. They've done that, supported by commissioners from

02:25both parties, because we understand that our obligation is to enforce the law

02:32without fear or favor. That is based in the design of the FTC that Congress set

02:40up, and I'm very concerned that my attempted removal not only eliminates

02:45the bipartisan voices that Congress intended, but it also sends a message to

02:51the majority commissioners that they too could be removed at a whim if they're

02:55not willing to take action that may be a favor to some of these big big companies,

03:02the most powerful companies in the world, and and that's really concerning if what

03:07we want, what we all want, I think is for the focus of the administration of the

03:13law to be on the American people, the children, the consumers, the workers, and

03:17honest businesses. That's scary because it's almost the type of thing that you

03:21hear of in a communist country. Commissioner Slaughter also, I know as

03:26the nation's top privacy enforcer, that you guys want to protect Americans' data,

03:33their personal data, and data, again, that could be key, and I think everybody on

03:38this panel seems to express an interest in helping kids especially, and that kids

03:44can have data, all of us can, and I wanted to ask you with data breaches on the

03:49rise and targeted advertisements constantly testing the limits of

03:54consumer privacy, how does your attempted removal and the other commissioners

04:00attempted removal weaken the FTC's ability to protect users online, and do

04:05you see this as part of a broader effort to undermine the agency's

04:09independence? Yeah, I'm very worried about it. The FTC has conducted a study on

04:17social media and video streaming services data collection and use

04:20practices. I mentioned it a little bit earlier. It started under the first

04:23Trump administration. It was the product of a bipartisan effort by myself, former

04:27Commissioner Wilson, former Commissioner Chopra. We finally released the report

04:32last year, and what I didn't get a chance to say is that report talks not

04:35only about the way data is collected, but also how it's used. We've heard a little

04:40bit about some of the really disturbing challenges that kids are set up with

04:45online. We heard about the choking challenge. There's been the Tide Pod

04:48challenge. The report that we issued talked about the ways in which companies

04:52use data to fuel engagement and interest, including around things like this that

04:59create real material harms for kids that cannot be undone. Once it happens,

05:04it's too late. So our job, as all of the parents in this audience know, is to get

05:10ahead of those problems, to send clear signals to the market on a bipartisan

05:16basis about what conduct is prohibited by the law, and how companies bear the

05:21burden of following the law, and that that needs to be done without fear or

05:25favor. Thank you. Thank you so much.

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