Mark Zuckerberg Is ‘Happy to’ Testify to Congress About Data Leak ‘If It’s the Right Thing to Do’

“This was a major breach of trust, and I’m really sorry that this happened,” Facebook CEO says of Cambridge Analytica scandal

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the Cambridge Analytica data leak in several media interviews on Wednesday, adding that he’d be “happy to” testify before Congress about the scandal if deemed appropriate.

“The short answer is I’m happy to if it’s the right thing to do,” Zuckerberg told CNN Wednesday night. “What we try to do is send the person at Facebook who will have the most knowledge. If that’s me, then I am happy to go.”

A number of Congress members have called on Zuckerberg to appear before various committees after it was revealed that 50 million users unknowingly had their information lifted by the data firm Cambridge Analytica.

However, the Facebook CEO has suggested that he might not be the best person to testify, telling Wired magazine that the reason is because “there are people at the company whose full [time] jobs are to deal with legal compliance or some of these different things.”

Zuckerberg’s comments follow a Facebook post on Wednesday in which he outlined several new measures that the social network will adopt to protect its users, including audits of “suspicious activity” from apps and tighter restrictions on the kinds of user data apps can access.

“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We also made mistakes,” he added, saying: “There’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it.”

The lengthy post did not include an apology for Facebook’s role in the breach, simply acknowledging the “most important actions to prevent this from happening again” had already taken place “years ago.” However, Zuckerberg did apologize to users whose data was compromised in the CNN interview.

“This was a major breach of trust, and I’m really sorry that this happened,” he said.

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