On Wednesday, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the House Financial Services Committee regarding the social media company’s plans for Libra, its announced cryptocurrency. Unsurprisingly, however, the session quickly turned to a back-and-forth discussion of the platform’s past political practices — or lack thereof — and its plans heading into the 2020 U.S. presidential election. This was especially the case when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others grilled Zuckerberg over the company’s political ad approval and fact-checking policies.
“I’m not the ideal messenger for this right now,” he told the committee when the line of questioning began expanding. He was especially taken aback, and pressured to respond, when Ocasio-Cortez pushed him hard on Facebook’s political ad approval process.
"So, you won't take down lies or you will take down lies? I think that's just a pretty simple yes or no."
Complete exchange between @RepAOC @AOC and Mark Zuckerberg at today's House Financial Services Cmte hearing.
Full video here: https://t.co/heT7Psnlp1 pic.twitter.com/0iiWtfU5gQ
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 23, 2019
“Would I be able to run advertisements on Facebook targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal? I mean, if you’re not fact-checking political advertisements,” she asked him at one point. “Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements?” In response, Zuckerberg offered what many politicos, analysts, and Twitter trolls have so far judged to be one of his weirdest responses. “I think lying is bad, and I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie in it, that would be bad,” he said.
There’s a great deal more to Zuckerberg’s testimony, of course, but many of his responses and interactions — especially his back-and-forth with Ocasio-Cortez — prompted comparisons to the second season finale of HBO’s Succession. Specifically, everyone started making the same “Zuckerberg looks like Cousin Greg” joke, and to be honest, they’re not wrong.
i didn't know mark zuckerberg was being played by cousin greg this season
— nicole boyce (@nicolewboyce) October 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/gabedelahaye/status/1187108864891617280
somebody in the @JackAMonTwitch chat this morning compared Zuckerberg testifying to Kendall Roy, judging from this clip Cousin Greg would've been a better comp https://t.co/Hn9UKbqPXg
— Alex S-K (@Sas5o) October 23, 2019
Mark Zuckerberg has morphed into Cousin Greg. https://t.co/w37FScwKA8
— Gus (@WashedUpTweeter) October 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/stevekovach/status/1187082659643772928
Though, to be honest, some Succession viewers were beginning to realize the connection a little bit sooner than most.
https://twitter.com/annehelen/status/1184880703630118912
Thumbs up, Mark!
