[Published: Wednesday April 11 2018]
 Facebook in 'arms race' with Russia, Zuckerberg
WASHINGTON 11 Apr (ANA) - Facebook 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.
Zuckerberg says that Facebook has been served with subpoenas by special counsel Mueller's office - but then backs off and says that Facebook is "working with them", including meetings.
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.
"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.(ANA)
FA/ANA/11 April 2018--------
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