Facebook helping Mueller in Russia probe: Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed on Tuesday that his company is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller in its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

When asked by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy while he testified on Capitol Hill whether Facebook had been served subpoenas for the special counsel, Zuckerberg responded "yes," but later clarified: "I am actually not aware of a subpoena. I'm aware that there may be, but we are working with them."

When asked if his employees had been interviewed, he also responded yes, but added, "I have not", reports CNN.

He continued: "I want to be careful here because 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 is confidential."

This is the first time that the Facebook CEO is testifying before Congress.

Facebook is currently embroiled in a widening scandal that a British data firm called Cambridge Analytica had improperly gathered detailed Facebook information on 87 million users, up from a previous estimate of more than 50 million.

Facebook previously said last year it shared the content and related information of more than 3,000 ads it sold to Russian-linked accounts with Mueller.

--IANS

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