Mark Zuckerberg has decided that he will speak before Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a new report from CNN. Congress has been requesting to speak to Zuckerberg ever since Cambridge Analytica, a data firm connected to President Donald Trump, was found to have accessed information of 50 million users without permission.
Zuckerberg issued a written statement and appeared on CNN to apologize for the “major breach of trust,” but wouldn’t go so far as to say he would appear before Congress. It appears he has now made up his mind though, as Facebook sources tell CNN that the company is currently preparing a strategy for Zuckerberg’s testimony.
British lawmakers asked Zuckerberg to appear for a similar line of questioning this week as well, but the social media CEO declined the invitation. It appears that the long-awaited confrontation will take place on American soil.
Much of Facebook’s business revolves around harvesting and selling data to third parties. Whether or not users are aware of the extend of the collection doesn’t particularly matter to Facebook, as long as users agree to the terms and conditions. But every once in a while, Facebook users get a glimpse into the abyss, which is exactly what happened when Cambridge Analytica used the data it gathered to target ads during the US presidential election.
While Facebook will undoubtedly recover from this mess, the fact that Zuckerberg has reportedly committed to going before a congressional committee could put pressure on other tech CEOs to come forward and answer questions. At least, that’s what CNN’s Facebook sources believe. Both Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have an open invitation to attend the same hearing on data privacy on April 10th.
