FACEBOOK founder Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that his personal data was handed over to Cambridge Analytica – the firm accused of helping politicians to manipulate elections.
The 33-year-old founder and CEO of Facebook, which is at the centre of a number of overlapping private information sharing scandals, was in Washington to face a second day of questioning from politicians.
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, reading her constituent’s questions at a hearing of the House energy and commerce committee, asked Zuckerberg whether his data was “included in the data sold to the malicious third parties”.
With a slight hesitation, the CEO replied: “Yes.”
Representatives grilled Zuckerberg on a wide range of issues around privacy, surveillance, censorship and politics, regularly asking for yes or no answers which Zuckerberg struggled to provide.
Eshoo called Facebook’s terms and conditions around privacy a “minefield” and repeatedly asked Zuckerberg whether he was “aware of other data mishandlings which have not been disclosed”.
The CEO initially said no, but reiterated Facebook’s new probe into third-party apps was looking for any other cases of misuse.
On Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, Zuckerberg admitted it would be difficult to completely eradicate such behaviour for “as long as Russia employs people for the activity”.
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