Facebook in ‘arms race’ with Russia

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told US senators the social media platform is locked in an ongoing battle with Russian users seeking to exploit the site for political purposes.

Appearing before a joint meeting of the US senate judiciary and commerce committees, Zuckerberg said: “This is an arms race. They’re going to keep getting better.”

The Guardian reports that Zuckerberg acknowledged Facebook had been “slow to uncover and act against disinformation campaigns by Russian trolls during the election”.

“It’s clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy,” he said

Zuckerberg also came under fire from Republican senator John Kennedy over the site’s complicated user agreement, CNN says.

“Your user agreement sucks. It’s not to inform your users about their rights. I’m going to suggest to you that you go back home and rewrite it,” Kennedy said.