 I want you to know, I want to start by giving you a lot of reassurance, that I know that I'm in Europe and you are a totally anonymous audience here today. Because when we called and we asked, you know, can you tell us who's going to be in the audience just so that we can connect and kind of make a connection, they said no for privacy reasons. We cannot give you the names of the people in the audience. So you are totally anonymous to me, you can feel safe and rest assured here. So I'm really excited to be in Dublin, it really truly is one of my most favorite cities and I love our offices here. It's a real treat and we have several people from Facebook here today with us scattered around and I hope you'll have an opportunity to meet with them because they are an extraordinary bunch and I feel quite honored to be able to work with them. And Dublin as you probably know is Facebook's international headquarters so it plays a very important role in terms of our company. So and today what I wanted to do is share some thoughts about this distinguished group about technology and what it means for society today and I wanted to start with a few stories. The first story is about Mason Merrigan, a little boy from County Wexford. Mason is 18 months old. Just after he was born he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and he spent about the first four months of his life in the hospital. And today he goes through a daily routine of physiotherapy and other treatments. Mason's condition is tough on him and it's also tough on his parents Claire and Stephen. Managing Mason's care is hard enough but because there's also a constant risk of cross infection for people with cystic fibrosis, this also prevents patients from meeting face to face. So the condition doesn't just create medical challenges. It means families dealing with it can be isolated and cut off from opportunities for social support and interaction. But that's where social media comes in. After Claire and Stephen came across the cystic fibrosis Ireland on Facebook page they found a community where they could find instant support and advice in dealing with Mason's condition. Soon they were participating in other groups too which could offer everything from advice on feeding issues to a welcoming air from somebody living with cystic fibrosis and someone who's familiar with the challenges of growing up with it. So then Mason's parents went on to share his story through cystic fibrosis Ireland and by sharing the videos and the photos of their little boy they hoped to raise awareness and funds for other people living with cystic fibrosis. So online they didn't just tap into the well of support they added to it. The next story is from Japan a couple of years ago. In March 2011 the earthquake tsunami hit Japan one of the worst natural disasters in the country's history. Immediately after the earthquake authorities scrambled to respond and something really extraordinary happened. From around the world donations, messages of support, offers of help just poured into Japan across the Internet. Outside the Apple stores in Japan long lines of people formed as they came to recharge their phones and access emergency updates on their phones and the staff worked through the night and millions of people took to Facebook and to Twitter to tell their loved ones that they were safe and to find information about missing friends and family. And here's the last story, a story that's taking place right now. In India potato farmers have increased their incomes by 19% by using mobile apps to run their businesses. In Niger grain traders grew their incomes by 29% and in Uganda banana farmers by 36%. With three different stories from three different places. But together I think they tell a common story. Today connectivity is changing the world in ways that are big and small. The Internet, social networks and mobile phones are empowering individuals in new and amazing ways. We're closer than ever to the people and the things that we care about. Everything today is dissolving, absolutely dissolving geographic and other boundaries. People are broadcasters as well as receivers. And what this means is that every person can broadcast and distribute information easily to many people at once. And what was only possible for the rich and the powerful is now available to ordinary people. So we've gone from a world where access to information was a privilege to a few and to one where it's an opportunity for many. And at the heart of all these changes is a fundamental shift in the way that we consume and harness information in our lives. Think about it this way. When information primarily flowed from broadcasting books and newspapers we mostly relied on the wisdom of experts. Later when the web arrived we could make use of search engines, blogs and chat rooms and then we would rely on the wisdom of crowds. But today technology has evolved again and now we have social networks based on people using their real identities online. Now for the first time we can rely on the wisdom of friends. With people who know us best and can offer the most meaningful and relevant information for us personally. Every time you share a funny message on Facebook, read an interesting tweet or see a beautiful photo from someone you know on Instagram, you are experiencing the power of friends. But you're also participating in a profound technological transition. Today technology isn't something that's cold and impersonal and the internet is more than a network of machines. It's really a network of the minds. And at scale all these things are driving incredible change for communities around the world. By giving voice to the voice list connectivity is making governance more open and accountable to ordinary citizens. By bringing people closer to businesses and providing a global platform for businesses and entrepreneurship the internet has become a global engine of growth. And the data is very unambiguous about this. A recent McKinsey study shows that the 13 leading internet economies, the internet already accounts for 3.4% of GDP. And right here in Ireland the research by Deloitte shows Facebook has contributed nearly 400 million euros to the Irish economy and supported 4,500 jobs and a fifth of those small businesses. And the most important effect is that connectivity isn't a luxury or novelty anymore. It's becoming ubiquitous. 2.4 billion people are online. Five billion people in the world have mobile phones. One billion have smartphones. And the average smartphone today is 100,000 times faster than the computer that sent the man to the moon in 1969. So everyone in this room literally has a supercomputer in their pocket. Over a billion people are on Facebook with over 2 million people here in Ireland. Technology has become a part of our daily lives more than ever before. Check their phones at all hours of the day and in every place. 54% of people use their phones while lying in bed. And 39% of people, sorry to say it, use their phones while in the bathroom. The average smartphone user in the US spends over two hours on their phone every day connecting with friends and family. And get this, one in five minutes spent on the web is spent on Facebook and one in four minutes on mobile. If you're using your phone while I'm speaking, you should know that I'm totally fine with that as long as you're on Facebook. In the end, as technology becomes ubiquitous, it also becomes invisible. It fades into the background of our lives. And that's transformative for all of us because it allows us to focus on what's really important and that is what it means for people. And you know what? The best is yet to come. Imagine a world where not just 2 billion people are online but 5 billion. Imagine a world where everyone has access to a smartphone and data access is fast, cheap, and reliable for everyone. Imagine a world where the benefits of connectivity belong to all peoples and communities and we can see innovation not just for what's new and shiny or another hilarious cat video but a chance to solve the most fundamental challenges facing humanity. So today, technology isn't about who has the fastest machines or the most complex algorithms anymore. And it's not about hardware or software. It's about what connectivity means for people's lives now and in the future. And what all those billions of individual connections mean at scale for society and that's why I personally am so excited to be a part of this industry. But as technology becomes ubiquitous and fades into the background of our lives, for many people the internet, social networks, and mobile phones have become things that we start to take for granted. Facebook is nine years old this year and the iPhone has been around for barely five years. But can any of you really remember a time before those inventions? Okay, okay. But maybe you need to ask your teenage kids or somebody who's in their teenage years that question and you'll get a different answer. But as we come to take connected technologies for granted, we end up paying attention to when things go wrong. And it's easy to only focus on the challenges of new technology. How do we empower people while preserving faith in traditional organizations and institutions? How do we make sure that more information creates greater understanding and not just noise? How do we make the world more open while still respecting privacy? Today it's questions about privacy or privacy, however you want to say it. And keeping people safe online that individuals, governments, and regulators are asking the most about. Because today the world is experiencing the greatest expansion of human knowledge in history and in the shortest space of time. And as we think about the effects that technology has in our lives and our communities, sometimes trivial, often profound, but always, always steadily growing by the day. It's natural that we would question how all the information that we're sharing is handled by companies we entrusted to. We also need to be sensitive to local, historical, and cultural concerns too. They're perfectly good reasons why people in Europe are questioning how large organizations make use of personal information. Let me say this bluntly, we get it, we do, we get it. These are important issues and there's nothing we take more seriously. And we're glad to be working closely with the Irish Data Protection Commission, Commissioner, National Regulatory Agencies, and other bodies around the world to make sure that we're implementing and leading the development of best practices in the field. The mantra of Silicon Valley is constant innovation. But constant innovation must also apply to areas of our product, not just to all areas of our product, not just to what's glamorous. That's why over the last few years, we've continued to innovate in the area of privacy. We've added privacy tools to Facebook, like shortcuts to privacy controls throughout the site, clear requests for app permissions, and new tools to manage your content like a photo request and removal tool. But as all of us consider the privacy implications of new technologies, we need to remember something. This isn't the first time, as a society, we face these kinds of challenges. And it's not the first time that we found a way forward. When the printing press was first developed in the 15th century, some people worried that it would undermine the need for actual learning. If you're printing it, why would anybody need to actually learn things? When the telephone was first invented, critics said that it would make communication less meaningful and destroy your privacy. You might be overheard speaking in public, or the operator might eavesdrop on you. And those same concerns arose when caller ID technology was launched 30 years ago. Can do, does anybody here ever answer their phone without knowing who it is first? These fears were understandable because innovation is disruptive. But as technology advanced, most of these problems simply became irrelevant, or were solved by new innovations. For example, automatic switchboards remove the need for telephone operators. But more importantly, society adapted, and many would argue, benefited. Faced with new technology, historic fears gave way to new opportunities. And people ultimately embraced the new innovations. Not everything new is automatically good. All that glitters is not gold. But society changes, it adapts, we make progress. And technology can be an important part of that, and be used in a way that respects the legacy of the past as well as our hopes for the future. But in many cases, the time it took for fear and skepticism to turn to understanding was many, many years. And during that time, the benefits of connectivity were delayed or denied. I want to share a story from history. 169 years ago, next week, the first telegraph message in history was sent by Professor Samuel Morse. The message was sent from the basement of the US Capitol building in Washington DC to a station in Baltimore, Maryland. And dramatically read, what hath God brought? Raw, sorry, what hath God brought? The drama was entirely justified. This was the first message sent by electricity in history and at a stroke, Morse had annihilated time and distance. Every generation of connectivity that has followed scent, telephone, radio, the internet, all these things followed in the footsteps of Morse. But some people weren't impressed by his remarkable invention. After the tests, Morse offered to sell the patent for his invention to the US government for the sum of $100,000, about 2.5 million in today's money. It was a paltry sum for government, but Morse wanted the nation to own it. If the government owned the telegraph, it could connect the entire nation quickly and cheaply, and the benefits were obvious. Unfortunately, Morse hadn't reckoned with the US Congress. Congress refused to authorize the funds to buy Morse patent, swayed by the testimony of the US Postmaster General, who feared that the postal service would be made obsolete by the telegraph. His report to Congress had this damning conclusion, and I quote, the operation of the telegraph between Washington and Baltimore has not satisfied me that under any rate of postage that can be adopted, its revenues can be made equal to the expenditures. So the telegraph never became a public utility. It stayed in private hands, and a few years later, a little-known company built the first national telegraph service. That's a company called Western Union. So eventually, we progressed as a society. But how much time was spent fearing the coming change? Instead of embracing it and owning it as a society, what kind of benefits did we lose as a nation? The future belongs to those who recognize technology as a tool. As a tool, it's there to serve if we choose to pick it up. And today as a society, we have a chance to use these tools to create an amazing new era of prosperity and opportunity and communities in our society. So let's talk about how Europe can pick these tools up. This is a very timely conversation that we all need to be participating in, because right now, Europe is on the verge of some very significant regulatory steps that will determine just what kind of future Europe will have as an innovation economy. The U.S. and the EU are considering a free trade agreement that we hope will address digital services. In addition, today, as we meet, debate is taking place over the revisions to the EU data protection directive. This might not seem newsworthy to those who aren't data protection commissioners, privacy advocates, or regulated companies, but it should be. This is a regulatory framework that will determine how all information-based services must operate across EU member states, and it has a direct impact on the kinds of services that consumers will be provided and how businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers will be able to innovate. It could also be a barrier to a meaningful free trade agreement. This is a great opportunity for Europe to define its vision of what kind of economy it wants to be and what kind of role it wants to play as an innovation leader in the world. By harmonizing laws across 27, soon to be 28 member states, it will make it easier for all companies to do business in Europe and present a model for the world to follow as all societies around the world look to define their own standards for how information services should be regulated. But of course, as with any other big regulatory initiatives, this is also an exercise that will have a lasting and decisive effect on entire industries. And if the full and complex implications of these regulations aren't fully thought out, this could set back all the amazing opportunities and benefits that technology has to offer Europe today. I'm certainly not in a position to lecture on how things should be done. There are many points of use to be considered and many complex dimensions of the debate over the reform of regulation. But I want to briefly offer some thoughts on three principles that I think we ought to follow as we all engage in this debate. And the first is about empowering people. Some people think technology is inherently dangerous because it involves a greater sharing of information. Sharing information isn't the problem. The problem arises when information is shared in the wrong ways with the wrong people. So as we respond to the challenges of privacy, as organizations and as society, we need to ask ourselves these questions at all times. Whose data and for what purpose? If data is being used to genuinely add value to people's lives and is being handled by a responsible organization with the consent and agreement of the people whom it serves, then consumers should be given a choice over the services they want to receive and not have government make the choice for them. For that same reason, policymakers need to avoid conflating privacy by design with privacy by default. Of course, this only works if consumers are genuinely able to make smart informed choices about privacy and that requires organizations like ours to operate in a fair and transparent manner about how they're using people's data. That's something we care a lot about at Facebook and why all of our privacy programs at Facebook are based on the principles of transparency, accountability, and control. We want people to have clear information about how we're using their data and have meaningful control over what they share. And we have to be accountable, first and foremost, to all our users and to regulators for our practice. And here's what's really important to understand. All of this is common sense for us because trust is at the cornerstone of our business. If we don't keep innovating in the tools that we offer, then our users will vote with their feet and find another community to call their home. Critics like to suggest that we're playing fast and loose with people's information and that it's an easy way for us to profit. But that couldn't be further from the truth because good privacy practice is good business. One thing, though, that's clear from the history of innovation and our experience at Facebook is that we often innovate faster than laws will change. So, again, it's important that legislation not be overly prescriptive for that reason. And here's an example of why, and it's in the United States, under COPPA, which is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, companies needed to gather written consent from parents before letting children under the age of 13 use their websites. And one of the ways that regulators said that consent could be obtained was by facts. Raise your hand if you've used a fax machine in the last year. Raise your hand. Okay, one person, maybe two. I can see somebody's being shy or not admitting it. Thankfully, the regulations just changed to support more innovative ways for parents to provide consent. But for over a decade, most website operators have opted for another route, simply banning children from their sites or choosing not to develop services for young people. We can empower people by cutting red tape and adopting technology neutral approaches that stand the test of time. The second thing that we need is smart regulations that focus on delivering strong data protection standards, but also safeguarding growth and innovation. Often when I travel around the world, I'm asked, what makes Silicon Valley so unique? And whether I think that the Valley could be replicated in other parts of the world. Yes, of course it can be. It can be replicated. There are pockets of innovation and entrepreneurship arising in many different countries. And right here in Ireland, we're blessed to be part of a vibrant community, I guess I'm here, of amazing talent, many of whom are in the room. And I think the future of Irish innovation is very bright indeed. In spite of the economic challenges over the last few years, Ireland's IT sector has strengthened a great testament to Ireland's resilience and ingenuity. But what made Silicon Valley become America's laboratory in the last half century wasn't just having amazing people or abundant capital or great infrastructure. It was having a regulatory system and a national and local policy agenda that embraced innovation at every level. The human systems that we establish in our society have as much of an impact on innovation as the technical systems. And we cannot achieve one without the other. So here in Europe, as you decide how to reform the data protection directive, it's important to remember this and to start by asking some fundamental questions with any proposed legislation. Does the legislation support a single digital, single European digital market? Does it make it easier for companies to do business in Europe by allowing companies to be subject to one regulator with harmonized standards across Europe? Is the legislation based on principles or on prescriptions? Will the legislation create the necessary legal certainty and stand the test of time as well as the current directive has? For Europe to achieve its potential as a leader in the economy of the future, it's essential that any proposed regulations answer these questions and ensure that consumers and innovators don't face unnecessary burdens. This regulation is an opportunity to advance the digital single market and to add value to citizens and growth creators throughout Europe. We're supportive of many aspects of the draft regulation. I think that people have a gross misconception about how companies like ours feel about this regulation. We really do support many elements of this. The one-stop-shop single regulator, which is essentially, if it's done in the right way, would function the way we have with the Irish DPC here, depending on how it's constructed. It's something that we think is sensible, making it easier, more efficient and faster for consumers to have their complaints dealt with and reducing confusion and costly administrative burdens that affect all companies, large and small. The European Commission estimates savings up to 2.3 billion a year after taking into account this step. Not an insignificant amount of money, particularly at a time of economic challenges. Legislation that's too prescriptive or burdensome risks achieving these positive outcomes. And the valuable and productive relationship that we have here in Ireland with Billy Hawks is something that our organization has spent a lot of time investing in. And we think it works well. The constructive and ongoing dialogue with the DPC has certainly pushed us to improve our practices. And I want to congratulate Ireland for its great leadership in shepherding the legislation so far in the European Council. I know there's somebody here from the Prime Minister's office. There are a number of other articles in the draft regulation that are less effective with regards to this goal. And we're concerned that some of the steps could undermine the power of the lead DPA and lead to inconsistencies and ad hoc decisions over the application of regulation. It's important to avoid creating legal uncertainty for businesses and make it harder to provide consumers with accountability. So as reform continues on the proposed EU regulation, Facebook remains very committed to engaging with policymakers and of course our lead supervisor DPA in Ireland over the direction of the reforms. And we'll be looking to take part in the constructive conversations in the coming weeks and months with all regulators and stakeholders. Finally, we need to celebrate technology. Innovation needs something more and it needs all of us to play a part. Together we need to make the case for why technology matters and why we need to make technology work. It's tempting to have that knee-jerk reaction to new innovations and to allow our fears to dictate our responses. But if we do that in this decade, then we have a lot to lose. We lose the tools and the services which are helping to bring people together and strengthen human relationships every single day. We lose the entrepreneurship and innovation that is helping to create the next era of growth and opportunity for this continent. We lose the value of having Europe as a strong global leader in innovation that can contribute the values and history and talent of this continent to shaping the new century. The way that regulations are built and debated in Europe will do more than determine the success of companies like Facebook. It will shape the future. If we find the right approach, then we can create the future. If we adopt the wrong approach, then we can delay or deny the future. But in the end, the future will come. You can choose to lead it or to follow it and that choice is yours. But when I think about the history of this country and the amazing challenges you've overcome right up to the present day, I'm certain and also hopeful that you'll make the right choice and that Ireland will help write the new story for Europe and the world. And all of us at Facebook, looking forward to being a part of this history. Thanks.