Tencent's "Deep Web" Ji Zhenyu reported from Silicon Valley on April 11
It wasn't that Zuckerberg performed particularly well, but that the lawmakers performed terribly.
After two consecutive days of marathon congressional hearings, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg left the impression of performing "beyond expectations." Facebook's stock even saw its largest single-day gain in the past two years on the first day, and Zuckerberg's personal wealth surged by nearly $3 billion by the end of that day.
The congressional hearing room was naturally not a comfortable place for Zuckerberg. To prepare for these two hearings, he arrived in Washington, D.C. a day early. In early April, Washington was still chilly with a hint of spring. Most people there wore dark gray overcoats, with solemn expressions and hurried steps. It was a world apart from the sunny and warm California. This was not a time for him to wear a T-shirt and shorts, barbecue with his wife and children in his backyard, livestream online, or casually chat with millions of Facebook users.
He had to put on a custom-made dark blue fitted suit, tie a necktie, sit upright behind a table bearing the nameplate "Mr. Zuckerberg," and share the room with dozens of senators and hundreds of journalists, enduring the next five and a half hours of hearings.
"He was nervous, but he appeared confident," one person on site described. "He's a smart guy."
Before he even sat down, Zuckerberg was surrounded by a wall of dozens of on-site photographers. Every angle of his body, every detail of his expressions and movements, was ruthlessly exposed to the cold lenses.
But Zuckerberg was clearly well-prepared. Sitting at the hearing table, he kept his upper body straight, listened attentively to every question, and made eye contact with the lawmakers asking them. He broke his habit of starting answers with "so" and instead addressed the questioner as "Senator," "Congressman," or "Congresswoman" before responding.
On his table lay a prepared response outline his team had put together for him. During a break in the hearing, the media on site captured a page of it. The thick stack of papers basically covered all the questions they could anticipate lawmakers might ask. His chair was fitted with a thick cushion, perhaps also carefully prepared by his team to make him appear taller on camera and more fitting for the image of a leader in a crisis.
Despite occasionally swallowing, showing awkward expressions, or frequently raising his water glass, the Zuckerberg appearing before Congress was not the familiar young entrepreneur in a gray hoodie, speaking rapidly and saying "move fast and break things." Instead, he was a well-trained, composed CEO—the image of a leader needed for a company in crisis.
On the other hand, the dozens of lawmakers sitting across from Zuckerberg at the hearing gave a disappointing performance. Or perhaps people never had high expectations for this hearing in the first place. Dozens of questions exposed the complete disconnect between these political figures and the 21st-century tech world. Many of the exchanges between them and Zuckerberg felt like dialogues in separate contexts, leading to many indescribably awkward moments.
For example, one lawmaker asked, "If users don't pay for the services you provide, how do you sustain your company's operations?"
Zuckerberg paused briefly and said, "Senator, we sell ads."
"Oh, I see," the senator replied.
Another lawmaker said, "My 13-year-old son Charlie is an active Instagram (a Facebook-owned photo-sharing app) user. He asked me to make sure I mentioned him today."
Another lawmaker asked, "If I send an email through WhatsApp (a Facebook-owned instant messaging app), will that let advertisers know the content inside?"
Many of the lawmakers' questions revealed their ignorance of basic internet knowledge or Facebook as a company. A Twitter user even mocked, "The average age of these lawmakers is already 100 years old."
Throughout the hearing, the lawmakers' questions also lacked focus, often wandering aimlessly around trivial issues.
Thanks to the lawmakers' "ineffective" questions, Zuckerberg was able to follow the strategy his team had designed, methodically completing the two-day agenda: admitting mistakes, apologizing, avoiding definitive yes-or-no answers on specific issues, leaving follow-ups to his team, making no promises, not denying the current business model, and not appearing overly greedy.
Michael Connor, Executive Director of Open MIC, commented that Zuckerberg's performance at the hearing could only be considered "barely passing," not "outstanding." This organization, representing Facebook investors, had publicly called for Zuckerberg to resign from all his positions at Facebook the day before the hearing began.
The hearing was triggered by the massive leak of Facebook user data. Whistleblowers claimed that the data company Cambridge Analytica used large amounts of user data obtained from Facebook for targeted political advertising to influence political activities. The incident potentially involved 87 million Facebook users, most of whom were in the United States, drawing attention from Washington.
Other key terms in this incident were "Russian manipulation" and "U.S. presidential election," which touched on U.S. national security and core interests. Out of responsibility to voters in their respective constituencies, this hearing was inevitable.
But the performance of the lawmakers attending the hearing might not even meet the "passing" standard. The ultimate goal of the hearing was to help these legislators better understand the situation, at least form a consensus on certain existing issues, and address them through legislative processes. Although Zuckerberg himself explicitly expressed willingness to accept "proper regulation" during the hearing, based on the two-day hearing scene, the hope of achieving these goals seemed slim.
Another awkward fact was that most of the nearly 100 lawmakers attending the hearing had directly or indirectly accepted political donations from Facebook. Over the past 12 years, Facebook has spent a total of $7 million on political donations. From 2014 to the present, the lawmakers who questioned Zuckerberg received over $640,000 in political contributions from Facebook.
The two-day hearing was described by a Twitter user as a "formality" with "no substance." If on the first day, Zuckerberg occasionally showed signs of nervousness, on the second day, he was completely composed. When the lawmaker presiding over the hearing suggested a break, Zuckerberg replied, "How about a few more questions?" CNN commented that over the two-day hearing, Zuckerberg managed to walk away unscathed.