Facebook hearing is underway

The first of two congressional hearings with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has begun.
Zuckerberg is testifying in the Senate on Tuesday and the House on Wednesday. He agreed to testify after revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm affiliated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, gathered personal information from 87 million users to try to influence elections.
Senators are expected to also ask him about Russian interference on his company’s platform in the 2016 election.
In testimony released Monday, Zuckerberg apologizes for the privacy scandal and for not recognizing Russian interference sooner.
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Twitter says it is endorsing the Honest Ads Act, a bipartisan bill designed to make online political advertisements more transparent by revealing who paid for them, among other information.
Facebook recently came out in support of the bill. The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is testifying before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday on users’ data privacy and other issues, including foreign elections interference.
Google, Facebook and Twitter were questioned last fall about Russian elections meddling through their platforms and all three were asked whether they’d support the bill. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday afternoon.

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