Mark Zuckerberg gets grilled by two congressional committees this week over the company's lax protection of users' information, and the Facebook CEO has released his prepared testimony in advance. Zuckerberg will offer a mea culpa similar to the one he's been offering in recent days to various media outlets. The key part, in which Zuckerberg is referring to the tools Facebook uses to connect people:
- "It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well," Zuckerberg will say, per the Washington Post. "That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. 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."
Zuckerberg appears before a Senate panel on Tuesday and a House panel on Wednesday, and he was meeting with some lawmakers in advance on Monday, including Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida. The
New York Times reports that the 33-year-old has a team of experts prepping him for his first-ever congressional testimony. In an interview with the
Atlantic, meanwhile, Zuckerberg says he's not resigning. "I'm very confident that we're gonna be able to work through these issues.” (Steve Wozniak is the latest high-profile person to
ditch his Facebook account.)