Mark Zuckerberg Congress testimony: 'We (at Facebook) didn’t do enough to keep fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech away; I am sorry'

Facebook could not stop hate speech

• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the US Congress on Capitol Hill in a five-hour hearing. The committee was of the Commerce and Judiciary. This was a highly anticipated debut before the Congress in the data privacy scandal. 
• During this five-hour hearing, Zuckerberg accepted and apologised for the data leaks which affected 87 million users. 
• Throughout the interaction, Zuckerberg seemed to be calm, compose and level-headed and senators too were calm and tried to understand Facebook CEO's view as to how 87 million were used.
• In one of his statements, Zuckerberg said, "We didn't do enough to keep fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech away. We didn’t take a broad view of our responsibility & that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I am sorry. I started Facebook, I run it & I’m responsible for what happens”

2014 was an important year for elections

• On Russian interference, Zuckerberg said that it was one of his biggest regrets.  He accepted that they were slow in identifying Russian interference. He also added that Says 2014 was an important year for elections, especially in India. 
• Talking about Indian elections, he said that the company wants to protect the integrity of the election process and they have deleted thousands of such accounts which could exploit internet systems and affect elections.
• When asked why Facebook did not act on Cambridge Analytica in 2015, to which he said, "Was not working with Cambridge Analytica in 2015. So there was nothing to ban."
• Zuckerberg said it was a mistake as Cambridge Analytica illegally accessed the data. In response to Zuckerberg's accusation, Cambridge Analytica tweeted, We did not hack Facebook or break any laws – SCL Elections licensed data from a research company called GSR which obtained the data via a tool provided by Facebook, a common practice at the time.”

Zuckerberg works with Special Counsel Robert Mueller

• Zuckerberg said that Facebook has been interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, however, he hasn't been interviewed. 
• Zuckerberg assured senators that his company does not look into the encrypted messages of WhatsApp.
• He said that 20,000 people would be hired to work on security review through AI tools by the end of the year.