Zuckerberg to make Capitol Hill rounds before testimony
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to meet with some lawmakers Monday, his latest maneuver to prepare for hearings in front of three congressional committees this week, Reuters reports.
Why it matters: Last week Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg worked the media, doing roughly a dozen interviews collectively. As Zuckerberg heads into trial mode this week, he’s expected to keep a low media profile and instead focus his efforts chiefly on Capitol Hill.
What he's doing:
Zuckerberg will hold meetings with some U.S. lawmakers ahead of his hearings on Monday, sources tell Reuters. The meetings are said to include some members of the committees that will be questioning Zuckerberg later in the week.
Facebook has hired a team of experts, including a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, to give Zuckerberg "a crash course in humility and charm," The New York Times reports.
The company will notify users whose data may have been provided to Cambridge Analytica on Monday.
Facebook has been taking action on more third-party data vendors ahead of the testimony. It suspended data analytics firm CubeYou, after CNBC found that the organization used personality quizzes that were labeled as "non-profit academic research" to help advertisers target customers, a similar tactic to those used by Cambridge Analytica.
Be smart: Its camera-shy CEO has never testified before Congress and has no Washington experience. How well he satisfies lawmakers will shape whether talks about regulations turn out friendly or tough.
Extremist with ties to 9/11 captured by U.S.-backed Syrian forces
Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces stand guard on a rooftop in Raqa on October 20, 2017. Photo: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a Syrian-born German extremist who is believed to have links to the 9/11 attacks, is being questioned by the Syrian Democratic Forces, NBC reported Wednesday, citing an AFP report, and CNN confirmed on Thursday.
Why it matters: Per CNN, Zammar "is believed to have recruited some of the perpetrators" for the 9/11 attacks. Zammar was "a well-known figure in the Muslim community (and to German and U.S. intelligence agencies by the late 1990s)," the 9/11 Commission Report stated, according to NBC. Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told CNN that Zammar "was captured more than a month ago by SDF partners as part of their ongoing operations to defeat ISIS inside Syria."
