For more than an hour, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s high-profile chief operating officer, sheepishly pledged to “do better” — over and over — as stern-faced members of the Congressional Black Caucus grilled her on Thursday about Russian ads aimed at exploiting racial divisions during last year’s election.
For black lawmakers, it was a chance to vent — at the outrage they felt toward Russian intelligence and its efforts to foment racial unrest in the country; at the frustration they felt toward three separate congressional investigations into Russian interference that have plodded on and yielded little; and at Facebook itself, which has been long on promises and short on action.