SAN FRANCISCO • Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg says he remains the best person to lead the social network despite acknowledging mistakes in underestimating abuse of the platform.

Mr Zuckerberg told reporters in a conference call on Wednesday that he accepted responsibility for the hijacking of private user data and other abuses, but when asked if he remained the best person to lead Facebook, he answered "yes".

"I think life is about learning from the mistakes and figuring out how to move forward," he said. "When you are building something like Facebook, which is unprecedented in the world, there are things that you are going to mess up. What I think people should hold us accountable for is if we are learning from our mistakes."

Mr Zuckerberg will appear before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees on Tuesday, the chairmen of the two panels said on Wednesday night.

The Commerce Committee chairman, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, said in a statement: "Our joint hearing will be a public conversation with the CEO of this powerful and influential company about his vision for addressing problems that have generated significant concern about Facebook's role in our democracy, bad actors using the platform and user privacy."

Mr Zuckerberg had already agreed to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, the chairman and top Democrat on that committee announced last Wednesday.

"This hearing will be an important opportunity to shed light on critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online," chairman Greg Walden of Oregon said in a statement with ranking panel Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG