By Abigail Royle 4/11/2018
“My position is not that there should be no regulation...I think the real question, as the internet becomes more important in people’s lives, is what is the right regulation, not whether there should be or not.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to lawmakers on Tuesday for his company’s mishandling of data in testimony before the Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees. Also during the joint hearing, expected to continue through Wednesday, Zuckerberg defended against U.S lawmakers’ calls to regulate Internet-based companies.
The new laws would likely restrict Facebook and other Internet companies, but government regulations governing aspects such as privacy for users are unlikely to pass, according to Reuters. Facebook in particular has been facing backlash from the federal government after accusations that Russia used the social media website to spread political propaganda in the 2016 U.S presidential election and that Cambridge Analytica accessed personal information from about 87 million Facebook users.