New Delhi/Washington: During the scheduled Senate Testimony in the US Congress on Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg told that he took personal responsibility for the privacy data leak of tens of millions of its users and gave assurance that the Senate that his company will do “everything” to ensure about the upcoming elections in India and other countries are safe.
“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,” Mr Zuckerberg said during his congressional hearing today.
The Facebook chief was under immense pressure due to the hijacking of its user data by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultant firm.
As per the report, Cambridge Analytica is alleged to have been involved in “all kind of projects” in India and had major political parties like Congress as it clients. Christopher Wylie who was the former Cambridge Analytica employee, had told a British parliamentary committee that the UK based firm even have an office in India.
“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,” the 28-year-old said.
During his first foram congressional appearance, the Facebook chief sought to quell the storm over all the privacy and security lapses at the social media giant that have created waves of anger among the lawmakers and also the two billion users of Facebook.
“It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg said. “I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”
“It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm,” he said. “That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy.”
The CEO of Facebook spoke of the constant struggle to guard against Russian manipulation of the Facebook to influence elections in the US and elsewhere.
“There are people in Russia whose job it is to try to exploit our systems and other internet systems and other systems as well,” he said.
“So this is an arms race. They’re going to keep getting better and we need to invest in getting better at this too.”
During his previous statement, Mr Zuckerberg acknowledged that the social network failed to do enough to prevent the spread of disinformation during the last US presidential race.
He also disclosed that Facebook is fully cooperating with the US special prosecutor who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 vote.
The social media network has published full-page apology ads in several major US and UK newspapers which includes the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
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