Zuckerberg reveals Facebook 'working' with Mueller investigation as countering Russian interference is 'an arms race'

Mark Zuckerberg has revealed Facebook has been cooperating with the special prosecutor’s investigation into Moscow’s alleged election meddling, as he claimed countering Russian interference was “an arms race”.

Appearing before politicians on Capitol Hill for the first of two days of testimony, the Facebook CEO said the company he established in 2004 was seeking to undergo a “philosophical change” amid recent controversy over the inappropriate use of people’s data, even as he sought to shape any pending regulation.

Indeed, on a day that bore with it potentially huge implications for a $80bn company and its 33-year-old chief, Mr Zuckerberg seemed largely untroubled by the questions he encountered. Many commentators on social media suggested most of the senators questioning the Harvard drop-out, did no more than confirm how little they knew about the subject.

Senator John Thune, the Republican chairman of the Commerce Committee, told Mr Zuckerberg his company had a 14-year history of apologising for “ill-advised decisions” related to user privacy. He asked: “How is today’s apology different.”

Mr Zuckerberg, whose arrival on Capitol Hill was met by protesters outside the buildings in Washington DC, said: “We have made a lot of mistakes in running the company. I think it’s pretty much impossible, I believe, to start a company in your dorm room and then grow it to be at the scale that we’re at now without making some mistakes.”

The Facebook founder, dressed for once in a suit, white shirt and blue tie, had been reluctant to appear before the members of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees.

Yet, he was obliged to do so as controversy continued to swirl over the inappropriate harvesting of the data of an estimated 87m Facebook users by British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, who were accused of using that information to help Donald Trump’s election campaign. The company has denied that.

On Tuesday, Mr Zuckerberg told senators it had been “clearly a mistake” to believe Cambridge Analytica had discarded data that it had harvested from social media users in an attempt to sway 2016 elections.

According to the Associated Press, he told told senators Facebook considered the data collection “a closed case” because it thought the information had been deleted. Facebook did not alert the Federal Trade Commission, Mr Zuckerberg said, and he assured senators the company would handle the situation differently in the future.

Mr Zuckerberg, who hired outside consultants and a law firm to help him prepare for the session, was also asked if his company had been contacted by the office of the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, who is looking into alleged Russian interference in the election and possible collision with the Trump campaign.

He said he had not personally been questioned by Mr Mueller, but said other people from the company had been. He said he did not want to reveal any confidential information in public, but added: “I know that we are working with them.”

Earlier this year, Mr Mueller charged 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies in a plot to interfere in the presidential election through a social media propaganda effort that included online ad purchases using US aliases and politicking on US soil. Some of the Russian ads were on Facebook.

Mr Zuckerberg said he considered the failure to promptly identify Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election was “one of biggest regrets in running the company”. He said methods to spread political misinformation would keep evolving and that the company was constantly strengthening its use of artificial intelligence and adding new employees to try to identify when the platform was being used maliciously.

“There are people in Russia whose job it is to try to exploit our systems and other internet systems and other systems as well. We need to invest in getting better at this too,” he said.

“This is an arms race. They’re going to keep on getting better at this. And we need to invest in keeping on getting better at this too.”

Mr Zuckerberg, who said he did not believe his platform was a monopoly, claimed Facebook was going through “a broader philosophical shift in how we approach our responsibility as a company”. He said the company needs to take a “more proactive role” that included ensuring the tools it creates are used in “good and healthy” ways.

Going into the hearing, experts had said Mr Zuckerberg’s priority was to ensure it controlled as much as possible any regulation of companies such as this that politicians may seek to bring.

As it was, the politicians made his job easy, with several of them asking if he would work with them on the regulation. Asked by Senator Lindsey Graham if he supported regulation, Mr Zuckeberg replied: “If they are the right regulations, yes.”

The markets clearly liked that they saw. While Mr Zuckerberg was testifying, Facebook stock closed with its best percentage gain since April 2016, an increase of around 4.5 per cent.