Mark Zuckerberg to testify on Capitol Hill
House Energy and Commerce Committee announces Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before the panel on April 11 following allegations that Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of at least 50 million users to target voters in the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify next week on Capitol Hill regarding recent revelations about how the world’s most popular social media site collects and uses people's data, lawmakers said Wednesday.
Zuckerberg has said in recent weeks that he would testify, following allegations that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained data on tens of millions of Facebook users to try to influence elections. He will testify before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on April 10 and before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on April 11, leaders of the committees said.
“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. We appreciate Mr. Zuckerberg’s willingness to testify before the committee, and we look forward to him answering our questions,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the committee’s top Democrat.
“With all of the data exchanged over Facebook and other platforms, users deserve to know how their information is shared and secured. This hearing will explore approaches to privacy that satisfy consumer expectations while encouraging innovation,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said.
“Our joint hearing will be a public conversation with the CEO of this powerful and influential company about his vision for addressing problems that have generated significant concern about Facebook’s role in our democracy, bad actors using the platform, and user privacy,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., added.
Cambridge Analytica worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Facebook purportedly has more than 2 billion active monthly users.
The 33-year-old Zuckerberg, a billionaire who co-founded the company in 2004 while at Harvard, declined a recent request from a United Kingdom parliamentary committee to testify on the matter. But the company reportedly will instead send a top Facebook executive overseas to answer questions.
Fox News' Jason Donner contributed to this report.
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