Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told a House oversight panel today that he believes government regulation of the social media industry is “inevitable.”
Zuckerberg also disclosed to lawmakers that his own data was included in the personal information sold to malicious third-party companies.
“The internet is growing in importance around the world in people’s lives, and I think that it is inevitable that there will need to be some regulation,” he said during testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “So my position is not that there should be no regulation, but I also think that you have to be careful with the regulation you put in place.”
Larger, more dominant companies like Facebook have the resources to comply with government regulation, he said, but “that might be more difficult for a smaller startup to comply with.”
Both Democrats and Republicans have floated the possibility of regulating Facebook and other tech companies amid privacy scandals and Russian intervention on the platform. It’s not clear what that regulation would look like and Zuckerberg didn’t offer any specifics.
Zuckerberg was answering a question from Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., when he informed lawmakers about his personal data, a reference to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that has rocked his company over the past several weeks.
