Facebook CEO Congressional testimony LIVE UPDATES: The controversy has rocked the American social network company. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going to testify before a United States Congressional Committee to answer questions pertaining to the social network’s data privacy practices, following the revelations that the company had released data of nearly 87 million users to a third party, Cambridge Analytica. The data was allegedly used to influence voters in a bid to sway the US Presidential elections.
Zuckerberg will testify in the Senate on Tuesday and in the House on Wednesday. The Senate Committee on the Judiciary and Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, as well as the Committee on Energy and Commerce, are holding two separate hearings on Facebook’s data privacy scandal.
Highlights
Mark Zuckerberg says as many as 146 million people may have received information from a Russian agency that’s accused of orchestrating much of the cyber-meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Facebook CEO says his company found about 470 accounts and pages linked to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which generated around 80,000 Facebook posts over roughly a two-year period. (AP)
Facebook will likely have to explain why it did not alert users back in 2015 when the Cambridge Analytica leak was first reported. The issue is Facebook’s privacy practices, and Zuckerberg will have to convince committee members that the company has not compromised on this aspect.