Facebook Wants Congress To Regulate Privacy After Senator Demands Answers From Whistleblower Controversy

Facebook is continuing to do damage control following whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony to Congress about how Instagram can pose a threat to privacy and the mental health of children.

Appearing on ABC News' "This Week," Nick Clegg, the vice president for global affairs and communications of Facebook, claimed the company would do more amid growing privacy concerns.

​​Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., later called for the tech giant to become more transparent about its algorithms and how it affects the privacy of users as well as what they see while on the platform.

“I appreciate that [Clegg’s] willing to talk about things, but the time for action is now,” she said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

Klobuchar believes the first step is privacy legislation. “If you want to share all your private data, you have to opt-in and make an actual decision to do that,” she said.

Clegg defended the algorithms used on the platform after Haugen suggested they push extreme content.

He insisted the coding was helpful in several ways, but it couldn’t completely block misinformation.

“If you across-the-board remove the algorithm, the first thing that would happen is that people would see more, not less, hate speech -- more, not less misinformation; more not less harmful content,” Clegg noted.

“Those algorithmic systems precisely are designed like a great giant spam filter to identify ad deprecate and downgrade bad content.”

When appearing on CNN, Clegg seemed to agree with Klobuchar’s earlier comments about Facebook being honest about its algorithms.

“We need greater transparency so the systems we have in place … should be held to account if necessary by regulation so that people can match what our systems say they're supposed to do from what actually happens,” he said.

While Clegg claims Facebook will continue to work on solutions when it comes to privacy on the platform, he believes it’s up to Congress to “create a digital regulator” and make rules regarding content moderation and data privacy.