Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced new policies for political ads Friday in a bid to increase transparency on the platform. Going forward, the social network will require companies that want to run political ads to verify their identities and locations. In a post on his platform, the CEO said, “One of my top priorities for 2018 is making sure we support positive discourse and prevent interference in...elections.” This news comes after Facebook spent months downplaying its role in Russia’s interference with the 2016 presidential election and days ahead of Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress, when he will be grilled about the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It’s one of several announcements the company has made in this week, all of which are just part his preparations for the hearings, according to Axios’ Sara Fischer. “They’ve been prepping him for the past week so that he can test his messaging [and] get comfortable speaking in front of people who might be willing to criticize him off the bat,” Fischer told Cheddar. “We’re trying to grapple with so many headlines, that by the time he takes the witness table at the hearing next week, there probably isn’t going to be a lot of news.” Friday morning, COO Sheryl Sandberg admitted on NBC’s Today Show that it’s “possible” there will be other data abuses on Facebook’s platform. She also said Facebook could never have a full opt-out option for users who do not want their data shared without turning into a paid service. And earlier this week, Zuckerberg said the number of users impacted by the data scandal may be as high as 87 million, well above the previous estimate of 50 million. He also said it’s likely that most of the company’s 2 billion members have had their information scraped by third-parties. But these disclosures aren’t likely to mollify legislators going into the hearings. Ken Gude, Senior Fellow at the Center For American Progress, pointed out that congressmen have not yet forgotten how much attention Zuckerberg gave their hearings on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “When Facebook was called before the Senate Intelligence Committee last year,” he said, “they sent a relatively low-level official, and that drew the ire of the Senators on the committee and members of both parties.” Zuckerberg will appear before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on Tuesday and the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday. For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/mark-zuckerberg-heads-to-capitol-hill-next-week-can-he-fix-facebooks-image-there).
