Facebook's Zuckerberg Survives 10 Hours of Questioning by Congress

chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday faced a tougher, tenser grilling at his second congressional hearing, as lawmakers unleashed a litany of complaints about the company's privacy practices, its failure to fight the opioid crisis and the lack of diversity within its executive ranks.

For five hours, Democrats and Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee took turns swiping at Zuckerberg, holding him to "yes" and "no" questions and frequently cutting him off - a tactic that at times appeared to frustrate the Facebook co-founder.

Facebook's data practices were the official topic of the hearing, prompted by its entanglement with Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that improperly accessed 87 million Facebook users' names, "likes" and other personal information. At one point in the hearing, Zuckerberg acknowledged that his own data had been accessed by Cambridge Analytica.

Even as he apologised for the mishap and other recent troubles at Facebook, however, lawmakers repeatedly expressed doubt that the social giant could fix its troubles on its own - and threatened to regulate the company and its tech industry peers.
Opening the session, the House panel's leader, Republican Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.), called Facebook an "American success story." But he added: "While Facebook has certainly grown, I worry it has not matured. I think it is time to ask whether Facebook may have moved too fast and broken too many things."

For Facebook, the Cambridge Analytica crisis has triggered unprecedented political scrutiny, prompting Zuckerberg to testify at two hearings in two days, spanning 10 hours of questioning from 91 lawmakers. Meanwhile, the company could soon face major fines from the Federal Trade Commission, which has opened an investigation.

But Facebook's political and legal challenges span more than Cambridge Analytica. In the wake of its review of the firm's activities, Facebook also has acknowledged that malicious actors scraped information from the public profiles of practically its entire base, more than 2 billion users.

For weeks, the revelations have wreaked havoc on Facebook's stock, wiping out billions of dollars in value. On Wednesday, though, it closed up 0.8 percent, continuing its rebound this week.

Zuckerberg started the House hearing by repeating the same apology he gave to the Senate a day earlier. "It was my mistake, and I'm sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens here," he told House lawmakers.