Mark Zuckerberg once again appeared before Congress, this time taking questions from members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Facebook chief executive told House members that he was part of the data breach.
Zuckerberg appeared for a second time before Congress to talk about protecting private data, fake news, and foreign interference.
Zuckerberg's Personal Data Hacked
During his testimony to the House on Wednesday, April 11, Zuckerberg acknowledged that his personal data had been stolen by Cambridge Analytica.
Rep. Anna Eshoo from California asked Zuckerberg if he thinks that Facebook has a moral obligation to run the company in a way that protects democracy, to which he answered yes. Eshoo then asked Zuckerberg if his own personal data was included in the Cambridge Analytica data breach, and he said yes.
.@RepAnnaEshoo: "Was your data included in the data sold to the malicious third parties? Your personal data?"
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: "Yes."
Full video here: https://t.co/LNljvR9nIO pic.twitter.com/TFRsY1V9hs — CSPAN (@cspan) April 11, 2018
She then asked if he was willing to change Facebook's business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy, to which he said that he's not sure what it means.
Cambridge Analytica reportedly accessed Facebook data of 87 million users. It was able to get the information through a Facebook-connected app along with the users' friends' data, even without their consent.
Another Zuckerberg Data Leak
Zuckerberg admitting that Cambridge Analytica had accessed his private information isn't the only recent revelation about the Facebook co-founder. During his testimony on April 10, Zuckerberg's notes for his testimony before the Senators were photographed. It was then posted on Twitter and went viral.
Photo of Zuck's notes, by AP's @andyharnik pic.twitter.com/wF0WAkDdI4 — Stefan Becket (@becket) April 10, 2018
His notes show that Zuckerberg was well-prepared for the questions that were going to be asked by the 44 Senators who grilled him. The notes also include what not to say during the testimony.
One of the questions that weren't asked but he was prepared to answer was about his resignation. His notes told him to put down the question while acknowledging that he had made mistakes but they were being corrected.
His notes also urged him to keep talking away from breaking up Facebook. Zuckerberg's notes also say that if asked if the company should be broken up, he should say that a breakup of Facebook would benefit Chinese companies.
The notes also told Zuckerberg how to deal with Apple chief Tim Cook's comments regarding the social media platform. According to the notes, Zuckerberg should deflect by saying that Apple never notified users despite stories of apps misusing Apple data.
Zuckerberg previously took a long time to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica data breach.
