Regulation of social media inevitable, says Zuckerberg

WASHINGTON: Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that regulation of social media companies is inevitable, but warned that rules could also hamper the industry’s growth.

"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 told a hearing in Congress. "But I think you have to be careful about putting regulation in place. A lot of times regulations put in place rules that a company that is larger, that has resources like ours, can easily comply with, but that might be more difficult for a smaller startup company."

Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday told lawmakers that he was among the 87 million or so Facebook Inc users whose data was improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. But the chief executive of the world’s largest social media network pushed back on Congress members’ suggestions that users do not have enough control of their data on Facebook.