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th ei fp .c a Th e IF P -H al to n H ill s | T hu rs da y, A pr il 19 ,2 01 8 | 6 The Georgetown Independent & Free Press, published every Thursday, is a division of the Metroland Media Group Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Torstar Corpora- tion. The Metroland family of newspapers is comprised of more than 80 community publications across Ontario. The Independent & Free Press is a member of the National NewsMedia Council. Complainants are urged to bring their concerns to the attention of the newspaper and, if not satisfied, write The National NewsMedia Council, Suite 200, 890 Yonge St., Toronto, ON M4W 2H2. Phone: 416-340-1981 Web: www.mediacouncil.ca newsroom@theifp.ca IndependentAndFreePress @IFP_11 ABOUT US The Independent & Free Press 280 Guelph Street, Unit 77 Georgetown, ON L7G 4B1 Phone: 905-873-0301 Classifieds: 905-234-1016 Fax: 905-873-0398 Letters to the editor All letters must be fewer than 200 words and include your name and telephone number for verification purposes. We reserve the right to edit, condense or reject letters. Delivery For all delivery inquiries, please e-mail lpolar@miltoncanadiancham- pion.com or call 905-234-1019. CONTACT US VP, Regional Publisher Kelly Montague General Manager Steve Foreman Retail Advertising Manager Cindi Campbell Regional Managing Editor Chris Vernon Regional Managing Digital Editor Robyn Wilkinson Distribution Representative Iouliana Polar Classified/Real Estate Kristie Pells Regional Production Manager Manuel Garcia Production Shelli Harrison WHO WE ARE OPINION • EDITORIAL • • LETTERS & COMMENTARY • Does it offer some comfort to know that Mark Zucker- berg is one of the 80 million or so Facebook users whose data was harvested and used to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election? Zuckerberg, who is not only Facebook's CEO, but also the chair of its board and its majority voting sharehold- er, offered up that revelation in testimony Wednesday before American lawmakers. He was called to testify in response to the ongoing and growing controversy about the social media giant in the wake of unethical use of user data and a host of oth- er problems. Zuckerberg didn't hesitate to acknowledge his compa- ny's failures, but troubling questions remain. The com- pany has faced years of questioning on many of these issues. Whey didn't it act sooner to mitigate the damage done by fake news? Why have terror groups and extremists of all sorts been able to thrive in the Facebook environment? Why didn't it know, especially since it was warned, that some of the apps it welcomed into the Facebook world could be harvesting data for use by third parties? (That's how Cambridge Analytica received data it later used to help the Trump campaign.) Why did take the Cambridge Analytica debacle for Facebook to acknowledge user privacy settings weren't adequately intuitive and easy to use and un- derstand? Why was it taken by surprise by news that during the 2016 election campaign Russian propaganda ac- counts attacking Hillary Clinton and promoting Donald Trump were shared hundreds of millions of times? Zuckerberg has said part of the problem was his per- sonal misunderstanding of just how many people would try to use his company for nefarious purposes. To put it mildly, that strains credulity. This man and his company - whose motto is "Move fast and break things" - have enjoyed astounding success through corporate aggression, playing hardball and taking on all competitive threats like they were high combat. Zuckerberg's portrayal of himself as wide-eyed and naive sounds and feels bogus. This much is clear: Governments, including in Cana- da, need to start taking consumer and citizen protection in the digital world more seriously. Europe has set the new standard with its General Data Protection Regulation. Canada should begin to move down this road without delay. Consumer protection, accountability and transparen- cy mustn't be left to companies like Facebook. It's not at all clear they can be trusted going forward. Don't look to Facebook for transparency At least support an opinion with facts Re: Letter Make an In- formed Election choice. Can an opinion piece get more unreasonable than this? An attack on Wynne with no supporting rea- sons and an accusation of childishness against any- one who supports her pol- icies? Why do you publish such tripe? You don't do your read- ers any favours by publish- ing politically polarized, one-sided letters that pan- der to a narrow and com- mitted audience. That's not debate. If someone wants to crit- icize Wynne, please in- clude reasons. Those not in a closed echo chamber of cherry- picked information don't see anti-Wynne conclu- sions as a given. I encourage the writer to step back and look at the progress Wynne has made on medicare, minimum wage legislation or her de- fence against "Buy Ameri- can" policies. Why not crit- icize her for an expansion of the deficit or selling off parts of Hydro? Even one reason would make this let- ter reasonable! Of course, there are no reasons to criticize Ford because he has no policy, though I suspect he would be good at marijuana mar- keting. On that note, I wonder if he paid taxes on his hash- ish profits, profits he made while the rest of us were working hard and living ethically and legally with- in our means. Rick Hall Politicians' salaries a 'no-win' situation: Mayor RE: Council pay increase consultant report. If we had staff look at this issue they would be ac- cused of serving their mas- ters (council). In the past years, citi- zens were appointed to a remuneration committee and they got accused of be- ing buddies with the coun- cil. It is a no-win situation. To be objective we had an external company review and make recommenda- tions comparing wages to other communities. Council approved a re- view at the end of each term and that the town council would be the 50th percentile to our comparators. We did not pay our- selves an increase but looked at the pay increase for the position. The pay in- crease does not come into effect until the new term of council. We do not know who is seeking re-election at this time. You should have read the Independent Free Press sto- ry where the consultant rec- ommended $114,000 for the mayor's position. I put a motion that the increase be equal to coun- cil and was supported by council. The mayor's posi- tion is a full-time job. The councillors are al- most full time as there is so much demand in their time. The comparator com- munities are Caledon, Cla- rington, Ajax, Aurora, Guelph, Milton, New Mar- ket and Waterloo. Mayor Rick Bonnette