Mark Zuckerberg didn’t reveal the hotel he stayed in during the testimony while Facebook users share their travel plans to everyone. This pretty much sums up the entire deposition of the Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The CEO of the largest social media company, Zuckerberg sat in front of the Congressmen and tried to clarify the role of Facebook in the whole Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal. Leading up to the testimony, it was reported that Facebook had arranged training with DC Consultants for Mark Zuckerberg.
The testimony, or more so the idea of putting Mark Zuckerberg through his paces, even though exciting for its mere existence, was anything but. All the Senators present at the testimony were inept of the working of social media and the business model of Facebook. And that clearly showed in the five-hour long testimony which was a huge win for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. The testimony meant that Facebook was prepared to go under the cosh to prove its innocence or remorse, and it did so and came out pretty much unscathed.
Mark Zuckerberg clearly knew what was to be done as he dodged any questions that could have had further implications. He repeated a lot of the answers, most of them coming from his own Facebook post from a few weeks ago. That goes on to prove how surfaced the questions were from the Senators. It is worth noting that every Senator had only five minutes with Zuckerberg, which meant that very few asked tough questions and even fewer had the opportunity to follow that up with another query.
After the testimony, important questions like did Facebook cover up the Cambridge Analytica scandal? Or decide against adding privacy protections earlier to protect its developer platform? Another rising question is whether it is a breach of trust on Facebook’s part to delete Zuckerberg’s Facebook messages out of recipients’ inboxes? Unfortunately, nobody even began to scratch the surface that could have further led to answers to these questions. Whether Zuckerberg would have complied and answered to those questions is a different kettle of fish altogether.
Facebook’s homework for this testimony also shone through during the questioning. The most common questions asked Zuckerberg were a few things that Facebook had taken care of well in advance. For example, Mark Zuckerberg was asked about Facebook’s ineptness during the 2016 Election campaign. On 9th of April, Facebook had announced that it had deleted the accounts of Russian GRU intelligence operatives in June 2016.
Another question that was asked, was “Is Facebook Sorry?” To which Zuckerberg replied:
We didn’t take a broad enough view of what our responsibility is and that was a huge mistake. That was my mistake.
The five-hour long testimony ended with Zuckerberg unmoved and calm while many viewers felt let down by the lack of knowledge behind the questions directed at him. The testimony might have left a lot of questions unanswered but, it appears to be a win for Facebook. The social media giant has pretty much laid the facts in front of the world. To prove that the testimony was a success for Facebook, investors rewarded Facebook with a 4.5% share price boost.
