April 9 (UPI) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will apologize to House lawmakers this week for the company’s data scandal on Wednesday, according to prepared remarks.
Zuckerberg, who’s set to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday, will be asked about the personal data of nearly 87 million Facebook users that were used by analytics company Cambridge Analytica to post political advertisements for President Donald Trump.
On Monday, the committee released Zuckerberg’s prepared statement for his testimony, in which the CEO apologized and took responsibility for the scandal.
“We didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy,” Zuckerberg’s statement read.
“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”
The Facebook founder goes on to say his company has a responsibility to make sure what happened with Cambridge Analytica “doesn’t happen again.”
“My top priority has always been our social mission of connecting people, building community and bringing the world closer together. Advertisers and developers will never take priority over that as long as I’m running Facebook.”
Despite some calls to step down as head of the company, Zuckerberg has said he has no plans to.
Reps. Greg Walden of Oregon and Frank Pallone of New Jersey said the hearing Wednesday is an opportunity to “shed light on critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online.”
“We appreciate Mr. Zuckerberg’s willingness to testify before the committee, and we look forward to him answering our questions.”
Zuckerberg will first testify Tuesday before at a joint meeting of the Senate judiciary and commerce committees.
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