Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday appeared before the US Congress in Cambridge Analytica scandal case. Cambridge Analytica is a political consultancy firm that had got unauthorised access to Facebook data of millions of users before using them to influence elections in several countries, including the US and India.
In the testimony, Zuckerberg assured that he will not let the forthcoming elections to be held in India affected by Facebook in any manner.
In response to a question, Zuckerberg said, “2018 is an important year for the whole world. Several countries like India, Pakistan will have elections. We’ll do everything possible to ensure these elections are safe.”
He added, “”I believe their client was Congress. But I know that they have done all kind of projects. I don’t remember any national project, but regionally… India is so big that one state can be the size of Britain. They do have offices there, staff there. I believe I have some documentation on India which I can provide if you’re interested.”
This came nearly a week after Zuckerberg wrote a Facebook post about the elections in 2018. In his post he had written that his company had taken to prevent the misuse of users’ data to unlawfully influence the outcome of elections.
He wrote, “With important elections coming up in the US, Mexico, Brazil, India, Pakistan and more countries in the next year, one of my top priorities for 2018 is making sure we support positive discourse and prevent interference in these elections.”
On Tuesday, Zuckerberg told the US Congress that the misuse of data “was my mistake, and I’m sorry.”
“It will take some time to work through all of the changes we need to make, but I’m committed to getting it right,” Zuckerberg told a Senate hearing the case.
“We didn’t do enough to keep fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech away. We didn’t take a broad view of our responsibility & 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,” he said.
In the beginning of the hearing, Zuckerberg apologised in front of US Congress. he told them that he was sorry for Facebook proving to be slow in responding to the data leak case. “This is my fault. Please forgive me. I started Facebook, I run it and I am responsible for whatever happened”, he said.