Facebook has acknowledged that its engineers had flagged potentially malicious Russian activity as early as 2014, long before it became public but did not confirm evidence of a coordinated campaign. The revelation came as the British parliament held hearings featuring lawmakers from nine countries into how the social media behemoth was being used to manipulate major election results.<br />'' <br />''Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg refused to attend the meeting and organisers pulled up an empty chair in front of a spot featuring his nameplate at the shoehorn-shaped table in the House of Commons committee room in London.<br />'' <br />''Zuckerberg's company is reeling from a series of crises linked to its handling of alleged Russian meddling in both the 2016 US presidential election and that year's British referendum on leaving the EU.<br />'' <br />''<span style="color: #222222;">Committee chief Damian Collins said he reviewed internal Facebook emails showing the company's engineers telling management in October 2014 that Russian IP addresses were accessing three billion data points a day on the network. </span><br />