Bipartisan leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Friday requesting that he testify before the committee.
The letter 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.”
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.”