美国有线新闻 CNN 脸谱网采取举措增加透明性 CEO扎克伯格国会作证

AZUZ: Tens of millions of people will soon be able to see how they were affected 1 by a data breach 2 of their Facebook account, if they haven't already. The social media company started rolling out a tool for this Monday.

Controversy 3 erupted last month concerning Facebook users' personal information. Several hundred thousand people downloaded an app years ago, whose developer was allowed to collect information about the users, their friends, their locations and likes. This apparently 4 led to the collection of information about 87 million Facebook users. And that information was provided against Facebook's rules to a company named Cambridge Analytica.

"The New York Times" reported that Cambridge Analytica used the info to influence how Americans voted. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to discuss the data controversy with Congress on Tuesday. Meanwhile —

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN SENIOR TECH CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there.

Well, Facebook announcing a number of changes to combat election meddling 5. It's a push for more transparency around advertising 6, and the social media company will now actually begin labeling all political and issue ads. And they're also as a part of this going to show who paid for those ads and require anyone who wants to run a political or issue ad to verify their identity and location. So, they'll have to be approved in order to do this.

Now, this is an expansion from Facebook's prior moves. These measures would have ap??plied 7 to political ads — so, ads mentioning candidates. But, you know, this expansion also covers issue ads, which if you think about issue ads, they cover hot button issues that don't even mention candidates.

So, think gun control or education.

And, you know, as part of this, the company also announced a searchable database where users can actually see how much the ads cost and also what kind of people advertisers are targeting. This is all about more transparency.

And one more move which is actually pretty interesting, the company is going to start verifying the people behind pages, if they have a big following. So, think about pages like the topics or organizations that you like on Facebook. And then think about 2016, Russian trolls actually use pages to pose as Americans on different sides of the political spectrum 8, to create division in America. Facebook found out about this after the fact.

Now, you know, this news is coming as Sheryl Sandberg made the media rounds. She's asked a lot of tough questions. One question she was asked about, you know, will the company find more issues when it came to user data. Listen to what she said.

SHERYL SANDBERG, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, FACEBOOK: What we weren't focused enough was protecting because that same data that you enable to use social experiences can also be misused 9.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think there could be other breaches 10 like the one we saw in Cambridge Analytica, where tens of millions of people's status was accessed improperly 11?

SANDBERG: We're doing an investigation 12. We're going to do audits 14 and, yes, we think it's possible. That's why we're doing the audit 13.

SEGALL: And all of this is coming before a monumental week for Facebook. You know, the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, will be testifying before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. You'll have lawmakers posing very challenging questions to Mark about the company's use of data in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and everything that's come out, and also the weaponization of the platform for political purposes.

Back to you.