Ten Completely Real Questions Congress Asked Mark Zuckerberg

All of these questions come straight from the official government record.

Last year, a friend of IBT asked me to consider doing a piece on Congressional hearings. He was curious how high-profile hearings, like those conducted to investigate Facebook’s privacy leaks or Game Stop’s meteoric increase in shareholder valuation, are assembled. I spent a lot of time on this project, attacking it from various angles, but was ultimately never able to find a story I wanted to tell.

However, I did read a lot of congressional transcripts. I combed through hundreds of pages worth of questions, including those submitted in writing after the hearing by Senators and Representatives. The written questions are often those “cut for time” from the limited grandstanding opportunity given to committee members during the live portion of a congressional testimony but carry the same weight in terms of requiring a response from the person(s) testifying.

Many of these questions are normal, mundane lines of inquiry. Far more are not.

The true topic I was trying to illuminate with my pro…