Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress next week

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify next week before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the panel announced Wednesday.

Chairman Greg Walden and ranking member Frank Pallone said Mr. Zuckerberg will appear on April 11 at 10 a.m.

“This hearing will be an important opportunity to shed light on critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online,” the leaders said in a joint press release.

The announcement comes after weeks of pressure from lawmakers for Mr. Zuckerberg to answer for the recent data breach involving Facebook and an outside company, Cambridge Analytica, which has ties to Mr. Trump’s campaign.

Since the Cambridge Analytica revelations rocked the scandalized social media giant on March 16, Facebook has scrambled to contain the damage as its share price has plummeted roughly $80 billion in market value.

Last week, Mr. Zuckerberg unveiled a centralized system for users to better control privacy and security settings and allow users to hide personal information, including political preferences.

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SEE ALSO: Facebook to remove over 270 Russia-linked pages, accounts

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On Tuesday, he announced moves to remove “more than 270 pages and accounts” it had found to be operated by the Internet Research Agency, or IRA, a shadowy Kremlin-connected propaganda operation.

Earlier this year, the IRA was charged with waging “information warfare” against the U.S. in an indictment by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, who have been investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

For months, Mr. Zuckerberg dismissed the notion that the world’s largest social media platform had been manipulated by foreign agents to influence the 2016 vote.

But earlier this year, he admitted social media is awash in “sensationalism, misinformation and polarization.”