WASHINGTON (AP) – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will apologize for his company’s role in a data privacy scandal and foreign interference in the 2016 elections when he appears before Congress this week, saying the social network “didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility,” according to prepared remarks released Monday.
Zuckerberg will appear before lawmakers on Tuesday and Wednesday to try to restore public trust in his company and stave off federal regulation that some lawmakers have floated. His company is under fire in the worst privacy crisis in its history after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm affiliated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, gathered personal information from 87 million users to try to influence elections.
In the testimony released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he is expected to deliver Wednesday, Zuckerberg apologizes for fake news, hate speech, a lack of data privacy and foreign interference in the 2016 elections on his platform.
“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake,” he says in the remarks. “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”
Zuckerberg will testify before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on Tuesday and before the House panel on Wednesday. On Monday, he met privately with the leaders of the Senate committees.