As the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur ends, Facebook co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg posted a message asking forgiveness for his mistakes. Zuckerberg particularly asked forgiveness for the ways his work was used to divide people rather than unite them. The FB president promised to work to do better.

Facebook has been embroiled in controversy lately in connection with the investigation on Russian interference into the 2016 US presidential election. The probe now looks into how the social media platform was used to influence the outcome of the race between President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Alleged Russian fake ads

The company previously denied the accusations that Facebook was used to influence the 2016 elections. However, it revealed later that it was able to identify about 500 accounts that apparently originated in Russia. These accounts reportedly spent over $100,000 on fake ads prior to and after the presidential race.

Mark Zuckerberg’s social media company was also criticized by US President Donald Trump who tweeted that Facebook was “always Anti-Trump.” The 33-year-old billionaire responded to the president’s tweet by pointing out that both sides criticized Facebook and are upset about ideas and contents they don’t like.

He went on to say, “that’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like.”

Sharing data with Google and Twitter

Facebook is not the only social media platform facing inquiries regarding interference during the US 2016 elections as Google and Twitter are similarly under scrutiny for the same reason. In line with this, reports said that Facebook is going to share some of its data with Google in order to help the search engine giant in its investigation on the matter.

In early September, Google issued a statement saying it had not found evidence that would suggest its advertising platform was made a tool to influence the outcome of the US election last year. However, it is still conducting an investigation and could use the data shared by Facebook to come up with a more definitive conclusion.

Both Facebook and Google, however, did not issue a comment regarding the reported sharing of data, according to The Hill.

US Congress’ inquiry

The United States Congress had called representatives from the three social media giants to testify on how Russian groups may have used the platforms in order to influence the 2016 race to the White House. Google is said to share the results of its investigation to US lawmakers when the company appears in Congress in November. Facebook and Twitter are expected to do the same.
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