Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced more than five hours of questions from the joint Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees over the privacy and the use of citizen's data..
The long-awaited showdown – one of the first times that Mr Zuckerberg has spoken publicly since a data scandal hit – saw nearly half the US Senate, 44 legislators, interrogate Mr about an issue that threatens to permanently damage the site he co-founded.
Mr Zuckerberg agreed to testify in Congress after revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm affiliated with Donald Trump's presidential campaign, was sold access to personal information from 87 million Facebook users. Cambridge Analytica denies any laws were broken
In his testimony, Mr Zuckerberg disclosed that his company is “working with” special counsel Robert Mueller in the federal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign — and working hard to change its own policies.
“We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake," he said. "It was my mistake, and I'm sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens here.”
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Mr Zuckerberg apologised for his company's errors in failing to better protect the personal information of its millions of users, a controversy that has brought a flood of bad publicity and sent the company's stock value plunging. However, as he answered questions, Facebook shares surged and closed up 4.5 per cent for the day, the biggest gain in two years.
Mr Zuckerberg said it had been “clearly a mistake” to believe the data-mining company Cambridge Analytica had deleted user data that it had - although Analytica said on Tuesday that it had deleted all the data. Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook had considered the data collection “a closed case” because it thought the information had been discarded and therefor that is why it did not inform users when it became aware of the data use in 2015.
The Facebook founder said the company is going through “a broader philosophical shift in how we approach our responsibility.” He said the company needs to take a “more proactive role” that includes ensuring the tools it creates are used in “good and healthy” ways.
He denied that Facebook, which has more than two billion monthly users across the world, was a monopoly. “It certainly doesn't feel that way to me,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
The billionaire appeared mostly comfortable with the questioning, with some senators struggling with some aspects of the technology. Although Mr Zuckerberg was at points to point out repeatedly that Facebook "does not sell" advertising and that users "have full control" over the data they provide.
Asked about the prospect of regulation, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mr Zuckerberg said that his company would back "the right regulation".
Mr Graham asked whether the company "would work" with Congress to craft that regulation, to which Mr Zuckerberg replied: “Absolutely.”
Agencies contributed to this report
