Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg has apologised over the data privacy matter he was hauled before the US Senate to answer for.

Zuckerberg endured an hours-long grilling by dozens of U.S. senators Tuesday during which he repeatedly apologized and promised privacy reforms but also pointedly defended his company against the threat of new legislation.

Zuckerberg invoked Facebook’s unlikely journey — from a tiny start-up he co-founded in his Harvard dorm room 14 years ago to a social media behemoth — in explaining Facebook’s frequent privacy missteps and its failure to spot and defeat Russia’s aggressive campaign to manipulate American voters in 2016 and beyond.

Senators repeatedly challenged Zuckerberg’s explanations in the wide-ranging hearing, a rare joint session before two Senate panels — the Commerce and Judiciary committees — with 42 senators questioning the Facebook executive.

While there were few bombshell revelations, Zuckerberg did answer a far-reaching and diverse set of questions ranging from whether Facebook is a monopoly to whether the company would ever consider an ad-free paid version. As part of his appearance on Capitol Hill, Zuckerberg brought along a thick binder of notes to help him answer questions, stay on his talking points, and come up with quick and relatively innocuous responses to hot-button issues. Thankfully, because there were photojournalists in the room, we have access to a least two pages of those notes. – TheVerge/WashingtonPost