Senators give CEO a grilling
BILLIONAIRE Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg underwent close to five hours of questions on Capitol Hill as he sought to hose down controversy over flagrant privacy breaches by the social media giant.
Perched upon a cushion to boost him higher in his seat, a contrite and composed Mr Zuckerberg, 33, who prepared for his first congressional grilling with image consultants, apologised repeatedly for not protecting Facebook users.
“I think we need to step up more,” he said as he admitted “tens of thousands” of apps are being audited by the platform in case they committed breaches similar to that which saw shadowy political firm Cambridge Analytica purchase and exploit the personal details of at least 87 million Facebook users.
“It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm,” he said.
“It was my mistake and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”
Surrounded by his lawyers and senior leadership team, Mr Zuckerberg described letting Russia use the platform to try to influence the 2016 US election as one of his “greatest regrets”.
He said he understood if the victims of the data breach – including more than 300,000 Australians – were angry.
“I think we have a responsibility to protect everyone in our community from anyone in our ecosystem who is going to potentially harm them and I think we haven’t done enough,” he said.
Mr Zuckerberg confirmed Facebook was considering implementing a paid platform that would protect user data from targeted advertising.