Washington, Apr 9 (EFE).- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will ask US Congressional committees to pardon him this Tuesday for his management of the social network that allowed the data of millions of users to be indiscriminately shared.
The billionaire, 33, has hired a team of advisors to combat his fear of speaking in public and will change his image of a defiant youth in jeans and a gray T-shirt for a serious adult in suit and tie.
Zuckerberg will appear Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, while on Wednesday he will do the same before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
According to a leak to the media on Monday, the head of Facebook is preparing to assume his responsibility and say “it was my mistake, and I’m sorry.”
Over the past two weeks, Zuckerberg has been studying for his Congressional appearance as if it were a final exam, with the goal of changing the image of secrecy that the American public has of him.
According to his prepared testimony, Zuckerberg will admit that he and his company reacted slowly to Russia’s supposed meddling in the 2018 US elections, something Russia denies and is being investigated in the US by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The day before his hearings, Zuckerberg had several meetings with members of the committees that had asked him to appear before them.
The appearance comes after several media revealed last March that the British company Cambridge Analytica had access in 2014 to data compiled by Facebook, and used the information to create a digital program capable of predicting the decisions of its users and of influencing them.
Cambridge Analytica supposedly collaborated with the team of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump during the election campaign of 2016.