Changes Coming to Facebook Ahead of Zuckerberg's Testimony to Congress

In prepared testimony released by Congress this morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company didn't do enough to prevent its tools from being used for harm.

Zuckerberg will testify in the Senate on Tuesday and in the House on Wednesday about the company's ongoing data-privacy scandal and how it failed to guard against other abuses of its service.

Zuckerberg says in an opening statement to be delivered to congressional committees, "I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens here."

He is also expected to be asked about Russia's use of social media during the 2016 U.S. election. As many as 146 million people may have received information from a Russian agency that's accused of orchestrating much of the cybermeddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to Zuckerberg.

He's privately meeting with lawmakers today on Capitol Hill ahead of his first testimony.

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune asked Zuckerberg to testify to "restore lost trust" in the company.

In his prepared remarks, Zuckerberg says the company has taken several steps to restrict outsiders' access to people's personal information on Facebook.

Facebook Investigating and Suspending Apps for Misusing Friend Data

Zuckerberg says the company will investigate every app that had access to a large amount of information, like friend data, before the company moved to prevent such access in 2014 — something that came too late in the Cambridge Analytica case.

The 2014 change by the company was an attempt to dramatically limit the access apps have to friend data, and requires developers to get approval from Facebook before accessing sensitive data.

Since Saturday, Facebook suspended Cubeyou, a firm associated with the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, and AggregateIQ, a Canadian political consulting firm.

Facebook was notified by CNBC that Cubeyou was collecting information about users through quizzes. According to reporting by CNBC, Cubeyou labeled its quizzes "for non-profit academic research" and then shared user information with marketers. CNBC says Cubeyou denies misusing data.

"These are serious claims and we have suspended Cubeyou from Facebook while we investigate them," Ime Archibong, Facebook vice president of product partnerships, told CNBC. "If they refuse or fail our audit, their apps will be banned from Facebook."

Facebook also suspended AggregateIQ amid media reports it had ties to Cambridge Analytica, which got its data through an app built by a University of Cambridge psychology researcher, Aleksandr Kogan.

This suspension comes as Facebook prepares to notify users today about whether their data had been accessed by Cambridge Analytica.

New Rules for Facebook Developers

Facebook is also increasing how it scrutinizes new developers before letting them access user data.

Domingo Guerra, the president of a mobile security firm called Appthority, says privacy concerns are now a bigger issue for Facebook than wooing developers.

Back in 2014, when Facebook wasn’t so established on mobile, it promised not to rapidly change rules on developers. That has changed after the latest Cambridge Analytica scandal.

"They’ve already gained the market share they needed from having all the third-party app integrations, and becoming the center point for third-party apps," he says. "They don’t really need their partners as when they first launched."

The company is now reviewing developers before giving access to data from people’s events, groups, pages and Instagram accounts.

Apps that gather data by allowing you to log in with Facebook will also require approval. And users will have to reauthorize apps that haven’t been used for 90 days.

The Associated Press, Sam Harnett and Sarah Craig contributed to this report.