Committees to quiz Zuckerberg

Facebook’s data leak now reported to affect 87 million users

WASHINGTON — Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will testify before Senate and House committees next week over a privacy scandal that has roiled the social media giant, lawmakers said Wednesday.

Facebook faces scrutiny over its data collection after allegations that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained data on tens of millions of Facebook users to try to influence elections.

On Tuesday, Zuckerberg will testify before the Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary committees.

“With all of the data exchanged over Facebook and other platforms, users deserve to know how their information is shared and secured,” said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary committee.

The next day, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing will focus on Facebook’s “use and protection of user data,” according to Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Frank Pallone, D-N.J.

Walden is the House committee’s Republican chairman, and Pallone is the panel’s top Democrat.

“This hearing will be an important opportunity to shed light on critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online,” Walden and Pallone said.

Meantime the Federal Trade Commission is investigating Facebook for privacy violations that could result in fines in the hundreds of millions.

Walden and Pallone said last month that they wanted to hear directly from Zuckerberg after senior Facebook executives failed to answers questions during a private briefing with congressional staff about how Facebook and third-party developers use and protect consumer data.

Zuckerberg said during a March 21 interview on CNN that he would be “happy” to testify before Congress, but only if he was the right person to do that. He said there might be other Facebook officials better positioned to appear, depending on what Congress wanted to know. Walden and Pallone said a day later that as Facebook’s top executive, Zuckerberg is indeed the “right witness to provide answers to the American people.”

Their call represented the first official request from a congressional oversight committee for Zuckerberg’s appearance as lawmakers demanded that Facebook explain reports that Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of millions of Facebook users.

Fa cebook reve a l e d Wednesday that information belonging to as many as 87 million of its users may have been improperly shared with the firm. That number was far higher than originally known.

This followed revelations that Russia used Facebook’s platform, along with other social media companies, to meddle in U.S. elections.

Cambridge Analytica, funded in part by Trump supporter and billionaire financier Robert Mercer, paired its vault of consumer data with voter information. The Trump campaign paid the firm nearly $6 million during the 2016 election, although it has since distanced itself.

The data was gathered through a personality test app called “This Is Your Digital Life” that was downloaded by fewer than 200,000 people. But participants unknowingly gave researchers access to the profiles of their Facebook friends, allowing them to collect data from millions more users.

It’s far from certain what action, if any, the GOP-led Congress and the Trump administration might take against Facebook, but the company will almost certainly oppose any efforts to regulate it or the technology business sector more broadly.

As do most large corporations, Facebook has assembled a potent lobbying operation to advance its interests in Washington. The company spent just over $13 million on lobbying in 2017, according to disclosure records filed with the House and Senate.

“It’s tricky and it’s going to be hard, but there are ways it can be dealt with,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., referring to the task of regulating Facebook. “The idea that we’re going to keep the wild, wild West — I don’t think it’s sustainable.”

Warner is also a former tech executive who, as the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, has led investigations into Russian interference on social media over the past year.

In what lawmakers call “the lightest touch possible,” senators have proposed a bill that would require more transparency in online political ads.

AP file photo Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who agreed to talk with the House Oversight Committee about his company’s use of consumer data, also has received requests for testimony from the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees.