UPDATED WASHINGTON — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify about the company’s data practices before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on April 11.
Later in the day on Wednesday, the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees said that Zuckerberg would testify in a joint hearing on April 10.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), its top Democrat, said in a statement that the hearing “will be an important opportunity to shed light on critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online.”
They added, “We appreciate Mr. Zuckerberg’s willingness to testify before the committee, and look forward to him answering our questions on April 11.”
The appearances come in the wake of the reports that Cambridge Analytica, the U.K. political data firm used by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, gained access to the personal information of tens of millions of Facebook users.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal put a focus on Zuckerberg, who apologized for the use of the information and expressed a willingness to appear before lawmakers. When a series of congressional committees held hearings last November on Russian influence over social media platforms in the 2016 election, Facebook sent general counsel Colin Stretch to testify.
On Tuesday, Facebook announced the removal of 70 Facebook and 65 Instagram accounts and 138 Facebook pages linked to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency.
