During the hearings, Zuckerberg is expected to talk about what the company is doing to protect its users' privacy following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the private data of more than 87 million people was collected illegally.

Zuckerberg will also be asked questions about Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections and what role the social media platform played.

In his opening statements to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which were released on Monday, Zuckerberg apologised for not taking a "broad enough view of our responsibility".

"It's clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well," the prepared remarks read.

"That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry."

It is not the first time the usually quiet Zuckerberg has apologised for Facebook's role in the Cambridge Analytical incident.

His prepared remarks also dig deeper into the actions Facebook has taken so far in an attempt to stop any similar user data leaks happening.

Despite the apology and plans to combat the same issue from happening, a lot of questions still remain for Facebook users and members of US Congress.

Here are some of the questions Zuckerberg will likely be asked as he testifies in front of a joint hearing of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees, as well as the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week: 

1. What is Facebook doing to protect user privacy and data?

2. What was Facebook's role in the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections?

3. Why did Facebook not act sooner in the Cambridge Analytical scandal?

4. How many other, similar cases have there been?

5. What is Facebook doing to ensure this does not happen again?

Cambridge Analytica and the Russian interference in the US elections are the two most prominent cases in which Facebook's user data were misused, but it is still unclear how many similar cases there might be.

Facebook has been blamed for creating "chaos" in Myanmar as hate speech circulated on the platform at the beginning of the Rohingya crisis. Cambridge Analytica also claimed it used Facebook user data to influence several other major events including the Brexit referendum, as well as the 2017 presidential elections in Kenya.

However, Zuckerberg said last week "it will take several years" to fix Facebook, which has raised the question about how much the newly announced efforts will improve the current issues.

News24