There is no conspiracy here. Being publicly scrutanized is not good for business, there is no win for Facebook to be had in this format.

Perhaps not but there is a big difference between going on TV and taking out an apology ad vs. appearing in sworn-in hearings. Recall this is a part of an ongoing issue that they have been carefully trying to manage for the past few years. Unfortunately for Facebook, they are very much in the public space by design. If they cannot withstand this level of public scrutiny, then they are effectively conceding that they "don't deserve" to serve the public.

There's no conspiracy: huge political ad campaigns were purchased in rubles sent from Russian bank accounts. Moreover:

* Monthly meetings with Yuri Milner after he invests $200 million dollars of Gazprom money in facebook after the 2008 crash.

* Facebook assigning liaisons to work at the Trump campaign offices - side by side, if not directly with, Cambridge Analytica. Kushner implies it's directly with them.

“We found that Facebook and digital targeting were the most effective ways to reach the audiences. After the primary, we started ramping up because we knew that doing a national campaign is different than doing a primary campaign. That was when we formalized the system because we had to ramp up for digital fundraising. We brought in Cambridge Analytica. I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley who were some of the best digital marketers in the world. And I asked them how to scale this stuff."

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-40852227/the-digital-gur...

There's a possible win—people would have assumed he was sincere in his apology. Sure it would be bad for business, but perhaps some things are more important than business.