Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg yet to see 'meaningful impact' from scandal

Still, the company faces challenges ahead, particularly as Zuckerberg confronts that questioning from lawmakers in two congressional hearings next week. The Federal Trade Commission also is probing whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent agreement to protect privacy after data from as many as 87 million users, most in the US, were shared with political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

"I think we're very confident that that was in compliance with the FTC consent decree," Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said on Thursday in an interview. A spokeswoman later clarified that the data on friends who were not direct users of the app was passed along in adherence with their privacy settings, sharing only public information.

The world's largest social-media company made a dizzying array of privacy-related disclosures this week, including a new data policy, updated terms of service and confirmation that it scans links and images that people send via its Messenger service.

The most dramatic update was the removal of a feature that let users enter phone numbers or email addresses into Facebook's search tool to find other people. That was being used by malicious actors to scrape public profile information.

"Most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way," the company said.

Soon after that bombshell, Zuckerberg addressed a crisis that's been building since revelations last month that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed user data. Legislators and policy makers are now calling for greater regulation of social media, which has helped knock almost $US100 billion off the company's market value in the past three weeks.

"We didn't take a broad enough view of what our responsibility was and that was a huge mistake. It was my mistake," Zuckerberg said in a conference call on Wednesday with reporters. "We're broadening our view of our responsibility."

Facebook won't find "every single bad use of data, but what we can do is make it a lot harder for folks to do that going forward", he added.

"We will be able to uncover a large amount of bad activity that exists."

Facebook shares had fallen 16 per cent through Wednesday's close since the Cambridge Analytica privacy issue emerged because investors are concerned the company's massive data-gathering operation will be limited, either voluntarily or through regulation. That information is used to target ads, making them much more valuable and profitable.

Zuckerberg defended the business model on Wednesday. "People tell us that if they're going to see ads they want the ads to be good," he said, noting that requires keeping track of people's interests.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says Mark Zuckerberg is the right person to lead the company.
Photo: AP

Zuckerberg also said he should remain at the helm. "As far as I'm aware, the board has not discussed whether I should step down as chairman," he said.

"Life is about learning from mistakes and figuring out what you need to do to move forward."

Facebook shares closed 2.7 per cent higher at $US159.34.

Bloomberg