Washington (AFP)

Mark Zuckerberg rejected Thursday the idea of ​​selling Instagram and WhatsApp to address concerns over the weight of the giant Facebook, said the Republican Senator who suggested it during a visit to Washington punctuated by private meetings with elected officials .

"We had a frank conversation," tweeted Republican Senator Josh Hawley, one of Facebook's most outspoken critics, after his behind-the-scenes meeting with his boss-founder in the US Congress.

"I challenged him to do two things to show that Facebook is serious about the issues of impartiality, personal data protection and competition," he added:

"1) Sell Whatsapp & Instagram 2) Submit yourself to an independent, external audit on the issue of censorship." He answered no to both, "said the senator, who had already pursued the network of his thunders when he was Attorney General of Missouri.

Mark Zuckerberg also reportedly spoke with President Donald Trump on Thursday, according to the Axios website.

On Wednesday night, Zuckerberg met privately with other elected officials at a lively dinner party, Democrat Senator Mark Warner said.

"We still have a long way to go but I appreciate his sincerity and the fact that he has taken our concerns seriously, and I hope we can work together to meet these challenges," he tweeted.

"He has taken the ears of many colleagues," said Warner on Yahoo Finance.

If he wants a stricter regulation, Mr. Warner said he was not, for now, in favor of dismantling the giant Facebook.

"I'm not here yet with some of my friends who want to go straight to breaking the band," he told Fox Business Network.

The young tech mogul and elected officials have touched "on many subjects", according to Mr. Warner, including the protection of personal data, transparency, racist content, ways to better authenticate identities or cryptocurrencies.

The Congress is working on legislation to better protect privacy against Internet giants, for whom personal data is often the main source of income.

In late July, the US federal authorities had imposed on Facebook, which they accuse of "cheating" its users, an independent control of the way it processes personal data in addition to a record fine of five billion dollars.

© 2019 AFP