Facebook faced a widening scandal when a British political consultancy firm, Cambridge Analytica improperly gathered detailed information on 87 million of its users.
About the incident, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "What we know now is that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed information by buying it. When we first contacted Cambridge Analytica, they told us they had deleted the data."
During a five-hour marathon session at the US Congress, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vowed that the company will ensure that no one interferes in the upcoming elections globally. "The most important thing I care about right now is making sure no one interferes in the various 2018 elections around the world," he testified before a 44-Senator panel. "As long as there are people sitting in Russia whose job it is to try and interfere with elections around the world, this is going to be an ongoing conflict," he added.
Zuckerberg accepted that the company did not do enough to prevent the platform from being used to harm others. "It's not enough to just connect people. We have to make sure those connections are positive. It's not enough to give people a voice. We have to make sure people aren't using it to harm people or spread disinformation," Zuckerberg told senators.
In his opening remarks, he said: Facebook is an idealistic and optimistic company. For most of our existence, we focused on all of the good that connecting people can do.
Zuckerberg confirmed that his company is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.