What to make of Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony

SAYING sorry can be an enriching experience. For Mark Zuckerberg, who this week endured two days of questioning in front of Congress, the rewards of contrition are not just metaphorical. Over the course of his testimony, as the Facebook boss apologised for the leakage of data on 87m users to a political-campaign firm, his company’s shares rose by 5.7% and his own net worth by $3.2bn.Shareholders were doubtless relieved by Mr Zuckerberg’s robotic but gaffe-free display. And even the firm’s fiercest critics ought to acknowledge the distance that it has travelled since the Cambridge Analytica story broke in March. Mr Zuckerberg welcomed the idea of regulation and cautiously endorsed a forthcoming European law on data protection. By saying explicitly that Facebook was responsible for the content on its platform, he has opened the door to bearing greater liability for the material it carries. But the bounce in the share price also signals something worrying: that neither the firm nor American legislators have grasped the need for radical change.