Mark Zuckerberg’s call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon was only supposed to last for 45 minutes. But when the flow of questions showed no sign of ebbing, the Facebook C.E.O. elected to remain on the line for 10 extra minutes to answer reporters’ queries. The nearly hour-long call was something of an about-face for the typically reticent Zuckerberg, who seems to prefer communicating through typed statements posted to his own platform or via recorded video messages. But following a data-privacy scandal that’s growing steadily worse, Facebook has deployed its c-suite to seize control of the narrative before it can spiral, soothing spooked investors and compiling a sizzle reel for Zuckerberg to parade before lawmakers when he testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week.

“It’s clear now that we didn’t . . . focus enough on preventing abuse,” Zuckerberg said on the call. “We didn’t take a broad enough view of what our responsibility is. That was a huge mistake, and it was my mistake.” He also fielded questions about whether Facebook’s board had discussed him stepping down as chairman (“Not that I’m aware of,” he said after a beat), and if Zuckerberg was still the right person to lead Facebook (yes, he said, adding, “When you are building something like Facebook that is unprecedented in the world, there are going to be things that you mess up”).

Appearances that would be somewhat routine for any other company’s executives are a rarity for Facebook, which has long stuck to the mold of secretive Silicon Valley fortress. But Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, who’s largely considered the adult supervisor at Facebook, have tag-teamed the press this week. By the end of the week, Sandberg will have appeared on networks and programs including Fox News, PBS, NPR, and the Today show, and Zuckerberg has opened up, too, giving yet another interview to Reuters on Tuesday. The relentless flow of bad news has also prompted Facebook to act internally; on Wednesday, the company announced an update to its data policy designed to make its terms clearer, and it cracked down on Russian operatives on Tuesday, removing pages and accounts run by Russia’s Internet Research Agency. The latter news was accompanied by a post from Zuckerberg, who wrote that “while we respect people and governments sharing political views on Facebook, we do not allow them to set up fake accounts to do this. We don’t want them on Facebook anywhere in the world.”

These efforts seem to have appeased Wall Street, where Facebook’s stock, which was decimated after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, was up 3 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday. During his call with reporters, Zuckerberg said that recent headlines, as well as the #DeleteFacebook movement, have not had a “meaningful impact” on Facebook’s advertising business. Whether they’ll be as ineffective on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have lately grown more critical of the tech giant, is another matter. But by airing its dirty laundry and laying out concrete changes before Zuckerberg’s congressional appearance, Facebook can minimize the damage from disclosures that would have been twice as damning if made under duress.

Of course, this whole mess could have likely been avoided had Facebook been truly transparent about things like third parties’ access to user data in the first place. But Facebook isn’t the only tech company to keep its inner workings a closely held secret, and in its initial iteration, the company could hardly have expected to hold sway over things like global elections. Zuckerberg seemingly never wanted to be responsible for securing democracy, or even for deciding which sort of speech to censor and which to allow. But now that the ramifications of Facebook’s model are becoming clear, his recent series of policy announcements and press appearances may be a sign that he’s ready to shoulder the burden he’s unwittingly created for himself—or, at least, that he’ll play the part until Facebook digs itself out from its most recent scandal.