WASHINGTON – Congress has released a prepared testimony of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ahead of a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee regarding the Cambridge Analytica-linked data breach of over 50 million American users.
The 33-year-old founder in the testimony accepted responsibility for the social network’s failure to protect data of its users and manipulation of the platform that apparently helped Donald Trump occupy the Oval office in 2016.
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“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg said.
“I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”
Zuckerberg also called Facebook “an idealistic and optimistic company,” adding, “We focused on all the good that connecting people can bring.”
Besides, he acknowledged: “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.”
The social networking giant has faced flak in recent weeks after it was revealed by one of the whistleblowers that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, gained access to the personal data of 50 million Facebook users, though the social network recently confirmed that the victims might be over 87 million.
Facebook said in March it had suspended the accounts of Cambridge Analytica and its parent company claiming that it would investigate all applications that had gotten access to large amounts of data.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/business/facebook-faces-loss-of-70-billion-since-data-breach-news-surfaced/
The 33-year-old founder said last month he would testify before Congress, however, he turned down an invitation by British lawmakers to explain to a parliamentary committee about the privacy fiasco.
The scandal hit the headlines and Facebook on March 17, with the firm facing a loss over $70 billion in the market in just ten days.
Apart from US, several other states including UK and Canada have also launched investigations against Facebook and any possible data breach that could harm their national security and interests.
