Mark Zuckerberg dines with critical US politicians in rare visit to Washington DC
Mark Zuckerberg faced sceptical US politicians at a private dinner in Washington DC this week as the Facebook chief seeks to ward off a mounting series of investigations and hearings into his company.
The 35-year-old paid a rare visit to the US capital, the first since April last year when he faced consecutive days of public grillings from members of Congress and senators following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
On Wednesday evening Mr Zuckerberg chaired a dinner with Democrat party politicians, many of whom had proposed further regulation of Facebook.
They included Mark Warner, an influential critic of the company who has proposed that data companies better inform people about how they use data, and whose intelligence committee has investigated how Russia used social media to interfere in the 2016 US election.
Richard Blumenthal, a senator who has criticised the US Federal Trade Commission’s $5bn (£4bn) settlement with Facebook over data lapses, also attended.
Mr Zuckerberg is understood to have been challenged on election meddling and data privacy, as well as Facebook’s plans to launch its own cryptocurrency, Libra.
“The participants had a discussion touching on multiple issues, including the role and responsibility of social media platforms in protecting our democracy, and what steps Congress should take to defend our elections, protect consumer data, and encourage competition in the social media space,” a spokesperson for Mr Warner said.
Mr Blumenthal said that they had had a “serious, substantive conversation even when we may have differed”.
Mr Zuckerberg was due to have further meetings with US politicians on Thursday including with Republican senator Josh Hawley. He was expected to push his own proposals for regulation, which includes standards for political advertising and the ability to move data between services.
Facebook faces multiple investigations in the US, from both state-level and national authorities. This month nine US attorney generals said they would launch a competition probe into the company to see if it had stifled rivals.
