Dem Sen Warner: Facebook’s Zuckerberg ‘Needs to Come and Testify’

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told show moderator Chuck Todd that Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg needed to come before the U.S. Congress and give testimony about his social media network.

Warner cited the ways Facebook can be “manipulated,” which he called a “dark underbelly.”

“Mark Zuckerberg created, in many ways, the whole notion of social media. It’s a great American success story, as is Twitter, Google, a series of other companies,” Warner said. “But I think the whole industry has been reluctant to accept the fact that we’re seeing the dark underbelly of social media. How it can be manipulated. We’re still dealing right now with kind of fake posts and fake accounts.”

“Think about the next generation of technology, where they can put somebody else’s face on somebody’s body, or totally real-time misrepresent words that come out of somebody’s mouth,” he added. “This is an area where we have to get our arms around it. And frankly, Mr. Zuckerberg needs to come and testify. He says he will do it if he’s the right person. Well, listen … I’ve got experts on my staff. But you don’t want my staff here. You want me here. He is the face of Facebook.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor