Bipartisan leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee have requested that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify before their committees.
The letter from the House Energy and Commerce Committee came from chairman Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican, the committee’s top Democrat Frank Pallone Jr., Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection subcommittee chairman Bob Latta, ranking Democrat Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Communications and Technology subcommittee chairman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and ranking member Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
“The Committee intends to hold a hearing in the near future,” they wrote. “The hearing will examine the harvesting and sale of personal information from more than 50 million Facebook users, potentially without their notice or consent and in violation of Facebook policy.”
And from the Senate, Sens. John Thune and Bill Nelson, the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, also called on Zuckerberg to testify.
“On a bipartisan basis, we believe Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony is necessary to gain a better understanding of how the company plans to restore lost trust, safeguard users’ data, and end a troubling series of belated responses to serious problems,” they said in a joint statement. “We appreciate the efforts Facebook and its employees have already made to assist our committee and will work with them to find a suitable date for Mr. Zuckerberg to testify in the coming weeks.”
Their request comes after Zuckerberg broke his silence five days after the news was reported this weekend that Cambridge Analytica, a data firm with ties to President Donald Trump’s campaign, reportedly accessed information from about 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge.
Zuckerberg told CNN in an interview Wednesday that he’d be “happy” to testify.
“The short answer is I’m happy to if it’s the right thing to do,” he told CNN’s Laurie Segall in an interview airing on “Anderson Cooper 360.”
“What we try to do is send the person at Facebook who will have the most knowledge,” Zuckerberg said. “If that’s me, then I am happy to go.”