Second day of U.S. congressional hearings awaits Facebook CEO Zuckerberg

Reuters  |  SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON 

By and Dustin Volz

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chief Executive returns to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for more questioning by lawmakers who have a rare chance to air grievances about the company directly to the of the world's largest

The is scheduled to testify at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) before the and Commerce Committee, a day after he appeared for nearly five hours before a U.S. Senate hearing.

Zuckerberg, wearing a dark suit instead of his usual gray T-shirt, navigated through the first hearing on Tuesday without making any further promises to support new legislation or change how the does business, foiling attempts by senators to pin him down.

Investors were impressed with his initial performance. Shares in Facebook posted their biggest daily gain in nearly two years, closing up 4.5 percent on Tuesday.

Facebook has been consumed by turmoil for nearly a month, since it came to light that millions of users' personal information was wrongly harvested from the website by Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that has counted U.S. Donald Trump's election campaign among its clients. The latest estimate of affected users is up to 87 million.

Patience with the had already worn thin among users, advertisers and investors after the company said last year that used Facebook for years to try to sway U.S. politics, an allegation denies.

Lawmakers have sought assurances that Facebook can effectively police itself, and few came away from Tuesday's hearing expressing confidence in the

"I don't want to vote to have to regulate Facebook, but by God, I will," Republican told Zuckerberg on Tuesday. "A lot of that depends on you."

Zuckerberg deflected requests to support specific legislation. Pressed repeatedly by Democratic to endorse a proposed law that would require companies to get people's permission before sharing personal information, Zuckerberg agreed to further talks.

"In principle, I think that that makes sense, and the details matter, and I look forward to having our team work with you on fleshing that out," Zuckerberg said.

(Reporting by in San Francisco and Dustin in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Wed, April 11 2018. 15:37 IST