Haugen’s testimony worsened an already torrid week for Zuckerberg afterFacebook suffered a major outage on Tuesday (AEDT) that left users unable to access its services for almost six hours.

Facebook and Zuckerberg faced fierce criticism from both Democrats and Republicans on the committee who vowed to work together to introduce legislation to make the company more accountable and transparent.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal,the committee chair,said that “big tech now faces that Big Tobacco jaw-dropping moment of truth”.

“The damage to self-interest and self-worth inflected by Facebook today will haunt a generation,” Blumenthal said,adding that Haugen’s leaks constitute “documented proof that Facebook knows its products can be addictive and toxic to children”.

The top Republican on the committee,Marsha Blackburn,said that Facebook had “gotten away with abusing consumers for far too long”.

“By shining a light on Mr Zuckerberg and the company’s conduct,we will help hold them accountable,” she said.

Blackburn was among several senators who took a swipe at Zuckerberg for posting a picture of himself sailing over the weekend while remaining silent about Haugen’s revelations.

“Rather than taking responsibility and showing leadership,Mr Zuckerberg is going sailing,” she said.

Facebook Director of Policy Communications Lena Pietsch said in a statement that Haugen had worked at the company “for less than two years,had no direct reports,never attended a decision-point meeting with C-level executives — and testified more than six times to not working on the subject matter in question”.

Although Facebook disputed much of Haugen’s testimony,Pietsch said the company agreed that it was time for Congress “to begin to create standard rules for the internet”.

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