Extract from ABC News
Updated
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has begun a two-day
congressional inquisition declaring his company is facing an "arms race"
with Russia as foreign actors seek to interfere in elections.
Key points:
- Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook hasn't taken a broad enough view of its responsibility
- He says his company is attempting to change
- Facebook shares make biggest daily gain in two years
Mr Zuckerberg told members of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees his company was trying to change in light of recent criticism.
"We've deployed new AI tools that do a better job of identifying fake accounts that may be trying to interfere in elections or spread misinformation," he said.
"There are people in Russia whose job it is to try to exploit our systems and other internet systems … so this is an arms race."They're going to keep on getting better at this and we need to invest in keeping on getting better at this too."
Amid concern from US politicians that Russia and other foreign powers will try to meddle in upcoming midterm elections, Mr Zuckerberg said security was being stepped up.
"We're going to have more than 20,000 people by the end of this year working on security and content review across the company," he said.
Mr Zuckerberg opened his appearance by taking responsibility for failing to prevent Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm affiliated with Donald Trump's presidential campaign, from gathering personal information from 87 million users to try to influence elections.
The Facebook founder had apologised many times already, to users and the public, but this was the first time in his career that he had gone before Congress.
"We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake," he said."It was my mistake, and I'm sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens here."
The 33-year-old internet mogul was grilled on a range of issues from Facebook's handling of alleged Russian attempts at election interference to consumer privacy and hate speech.
"We are going through a broad philosophical shift at the company," said Mr Zuckerberg, wearing a dark suit and tie instead of his typical T-shirt and jeans.
John Thune, chairman of the US Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee, struck an adversarial tone in his opening remarks.
"In the past, many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been willing to defer to tech companies' efforts to regulate themselves. But this may be changing," he said.
What else Zuckerberg had to say:
- Facebook does not mine phone audio for data to target ads, calls idea "conspiracy theory"
- His company is "working with" Robert Mueller in the federal probe of Russian interference
- Facebook's slow reaction to Russian interference in 2016 is "one of my greatest regrets"
- There will always be a version of Facebook that is free
- "It certainly doesn't feel" like Facebook has a monopoly
- Facebook won't "proactively" cooperate with Trump administration in extreme vetting of immigrants
- Chinese internet companies are a strategic and competitive threat to US
- Facebook's system to connect with other apps was designed "in a way that wasn't good"
- Has concern about possible political bias at Facebook and is trying to root it out
Facebook shares soar
Outside the Capitol building, which houses Congress, online protest group Avaaz set up 100 life-sized cut-outs of Mr Zuckerberg wearing T-shirts with the words 'Fix Facebook'.Facebook faces a growing crisis of confidence among users, advertisers, employees and investors after acknowledging that up to 87 million people, mostly in the United States, had personal information harvested from the site by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that has counted US President Donald Trump's election campaign among its clients.
Photo:
Life-sized cut-outs of Mark Zuckerberg outside Congress ahead of the hearing. (AP: Carolyn Kaster)
It is also struggling to deal with fake news and alleged foreign interference in elections, disclosing in September that Russians under fake names used the social network to try to influence US voters in the months before and after the 2016 election, writing about inflammatory subjects, setting up events and buying ads.
In February, US Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russians and three Russian companies with interfering in the election by sowing discord on social media.
Mr Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room in 2004, is fighting to prove to critics that he is the right person to go on leading what has grown into one of the world's largest companies.
On Friday, Mr Zuckerberg threw his support behind proposed legislation requiring social media sites to disclose the identities of buyers of online political campaign ads.
Facebook shares closed with their biggest daily percentage gain in two years.
The shares, which had dropped sharply since the scandal emerged in March, finished up 4.5 per cent to their highest point in almost three weeks.
Photo:
Mark Zuckerberg faced a grilling on topics from election interference to consumer privacy. (AP: Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Reuters/AP
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