Without any specific, wide-reaching legislation on the table but lots of public anger toward Facebook, expect members of Congress to ask difficult and sensational questions designed to put the executive on the defensive. They’ll have no shortage of transgressions to focus on. There’s the fake news that spread on the platform throughout the 2016 campaign and the ways in which Russian operatives have used Facebook to try to manipulate U.S. voters. Or how Facebook, which is the second-largest online ad company in the world, allowed advertisers to market explicitly to people’s bigotries, as their software suggested ad-targeting terms like “Jew haters” and “threesome rape.” And then there’s the reason Zuckerberg finally relented to calls that he testify, the scandal involving political-data firm Cambridge Analytica, wherein the Facebook data of tens of millions people was harvested off the platform and allegedly used to help Trump’s campaign.
All of this happened on Zuckerberg’s watch—with virtually no federal laws that would have protected Americans’ privacy and the health of the country’s information ecosystem. Depending on what happens at Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s hearings, Facebook might not stay unregulated for very long. The only major legislative proposal currently drafted and seeking support is the Honest Ads Act, championed by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner and Republican Sen. John McCain. That bill would require political advertisements on Facebook to list who paid for them, just like political ads on radio, print, and television do, and would levy fines on social media companies that don’t follow the rules. On Friday, Facebook executives said in a blog postthat the company does support the Honest Ads Act, although Zuckerberg told Wired last month that he doesn’t expect that bill to pass. Considering the public blowback his company is currently facing, that legislation might be the easiest thing for Congress to pull off the shelf to show Americans that Facebook won’t pass through this controversy without consequences.
In broad strokes, most of the concerns members of Congress will likely raise will center on questions of user privacy, election integrity, and the company’s indisputable impact on how Americans communicate and get their news. (Some Republicans will probably also raise questions of whether Facebook is in some way biased against conservatives.) Throughout both hearings, lawmakers will likely highlight reporting on how Facebook’s internal culture and policies reveal that the company was well aware of how its platform was being misused and yet decided not to take the substantial steps to fix it, all the while continuing to be one of the most valuable companies in the world with control over how billions of people get information and stay connected to their personal and professional communities.
If the committee members really want to move the ball forward in terms of what we know about Facebook, here are some questions they might consider asking Zuckerberg while he’s under oath.