Zuckerberg: Facebook is in 'arms race' with Russia

INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Media captionHighlights from Mark Zuckerberg's day on Capitol HillFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told US senators his company is in a
constant battle with Russian operators seeking to exploit the social network."This is an arms race
They're going to keep getting better," he said.Mr Zuckerberg was answering questions in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data collection
scandal.He also revealed Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, had interviewed
Facebook staff.Mr Zuckerberg said he has not been among those interviewed by Mr Mueller's office.But he added: "Our work with the special
counsel is confidential and I want to make sure that in an open session I'm not revealing something that's confidential."In February, Mr
Mueller's office charged 13 Russians with interference in the 2016 election, along with three Russian companies
One was the Internet Research Agency, sometimes referred to as a "Russian troll farm", which the indictment said had a "strategic goal to
sow discord in the US political system".Mr Zuckerberg said the company was now developing new tools to identify fake accounts.Media
captionWhat Facebook protesters want from Zuckerberg"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."The Facebook chief fended off questions from senators about how the social network might be
regulated more closely
Senator John Kennedy warned him: "I don't want to have to vote to regulate Facebook
But by God, I will
That depends on you Your user agreement sucks."When pressed, the 33-year-old billionaire tech titan said he would welcome regulation, if it
was the "right regulation," though he avoided specifics.He was appearing in front of a joint session of several US senate committees, after
it was revealed in recent weeks that about 87 million people had their profile information accessed by marketing firm Cambridge
Analytica.During the hearing, Mr Zuckerberg also said:"It's clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for
harm" "In retrospect it was clearly a mistake" to believe Cambridge Analytica deleted data, without further examinationHe does not "feel
like" Facebook has a monopolyThat there would always be a free version of Facebook, leaving open the possibility of a paid, ad-free version
of the social networkDealing with hate speech automatically has "a higher error rate than I am happy with"He was personally concerned about
the possibility of political bias at the companyBy the first break in proceedings, Facebook's share price had risen by almost 5%, as markets
reacted favourably to Mr Zuckerberg's performance, increasing his net worth by an estimated $3bn.The company is best known for its
association with Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign, and has claimed it played "an integral part" in Mr Trump's victory
But it says none of the data involved in the recent scandal was used to help the Trump campaign.The news that a personality quiz developed
by an academic, Aleksandr Kogan, had collected data not just from the people who used it but also from their Facebook friends was revealed
by newspaper investigations
Mr Kogan then sold the data to Cambridge Analytica.Both companies lay the blame on Mr Kogan
Facebook says that although users gave permission to Mr Kogan's app to collect their information, selling it on was against the terms of
service
Cambridge Analytica, meanwhile, claims it did not know the information had been obtained improperly
During Mr Zuckerberg's appearance, the firm tweeted it was "advising" news media - through its lawyers - about coverage.Both companies also
say they moved to have the data deleted once they learned of the problem in 2015.Hours ahead of the congressional hearing, Facebook also
revealed that private messages from some 1,500 users were included in the data collection.