WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG, REUTERS) - Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg met with President Donald Trump on Thursday (Sept 19) as he tried to sway Congress and policymakers who have been critical of the practices of the social media platform.

Mr Zuckerberg had a constructive meeting with the President at the White House, according to a Facebook spokesman.

Mr Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Mr Jared Kushner, attended the meeting, along with Mr Dan Scavino, the President's social media director, according to a person familiar with the matter.

His meetings on Capitol Hill, however, grew testy as he faced aggressive questions over the social network's failures to protect consumer privacy and a call to sell WhatsApp and Instagram.

On the second day of a three-day trip to Washington, Mr Zuckerberg, wearing a suit and tie rather than his usual hoodie, met with Senators Josh Hawley and Mr Mike Lee.

He also had dinner with lawmakers, including Senator Richard Blumenthal, on Wednesday evening.

Mr Zuckerberg took no questions from reporters as he moved from office to office on Capitol Hill.

After his meeting with the Facebook founder, Mr Hawley, a tough critic, said that discussions had been "frank", often a euphemism for disagreements.

He told Mr Zuckerberg that Facebook could show it was serious about protecting users' privacy by selling social media platforms that Facebook had acquired.

This would restrict the company's ability to compile information about an individual from different sources.

"I said to him, 'Prove that you're serious about data. Sell WhatsApp. And sell Instagram,'" Mr Hawley told reporters.

"Safe to say he was not receptive to those suggestions."

Mr Hawley has accused Facebook of suppressing conservative speech. He was one of four senators who signed a letter this month accusing Facebook of censorship for declaring statements on the anti-abortion group Live Action's Facebook page false and temporarily restricting access to it as part of an effort to fight false news.

Mr Hawley expressed exasperation with the CEO's acknowledgement that restricting access to the page had been an error.

"He said that they made a mistake, that there was clearly bias in the Live Action decision," said Mr Hawley, who urged Facebook to submit its content moderation process to an independent third-party audit.

"The company talks a lot. I'd like to see some action."

The CEO was expected to meet on Friday with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has been an outspoken critic of what he has called bias at Facebook, as well as Mr Adam Schiff, a Democrat and chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

DINNER WITH SENATORS

Another critic has been Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who attended a dinner with Mr Zuckerberg on Wednesday at the Washington restaurant Ris.

After the dinner, Mr Blumenthal said he had brought up Facebook's "repeated failures" in election security and consumer privacy.

"We had (a) serious, substantive conversation even when we may have differed," he said in a statement.

Mr Zuckerberg also met with Senators Mike Lee, Mr Tom Cotton and Ms Maria Cantwell, who is one of several lawmakers working to draft online privacy legislation.

Mr Lee, who has more moderate views of the social media company, and Mr Zuckerberg discussed bias on Facebook's platform, potential government regulation, anti-trust and other issues, a spokesman said.

Mr Zuckerberg was expected to hold meetings with the Trump administration, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Facebook and the White House both declined to say if Mr Zuckerberg would meet with President Donald Trump.

Facebook has spent the last several years under fire for a string of lapses including inappropriately sharing information belonging to 87 million users with a now-defunct British political consultancy, triggering a US$5 billion fine.

The company, which is an advertising powerhouse, faces anti-trust investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and a number of state attorneys-general, as well as numerous legislative proposals that seek to restrict how it operates.

It may also face an anti-trust probe by the US Justice Department. Senator Lee was critical of what he saw as duplication in federal investigations in a hearing on Tuesday.