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And the award for most aggressive member of Congress during Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing on Tuesday goes to… Sen. John Kennedy.

The Louisiana congressman used his five minutes to blast the Facebook chief exec, colorfully letting Zuckerberg know what he thinks of the social network’s user agreement.

“Here’s what everybody’s been trying to tell you today, and I say this gently: Your user agreement sucks,” said Sen. Kennedy. “The purpose of Facebook’s user agreement is to protect Facebook’s rear end. It’s not to inform your users of their rights.”

Also Read: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg: Russian Trolls Among His 'Greatest Regrets'

Senator John Kennedy to Mark Zuckerberg: "I say this gently: Your user agreement sucks."

"The purpose of that user agreement is to cover Facebook's rear end. It's not to inform your users about their rights. You know that, and I know that." pic.twitter.com/HZu6aoWzTv

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) April 10, 2018

Sen. Kennedy didn’t stop there. He told Zuckerberg to have his “$1,200 an hour lawyers” to rewrite the agreement in “non-Swahili.” Interestingly enough, Zuckerberg was lambasted earlier in the 5-hour hearing for Facebook’s user agreement being too rudimentary.

The Facebook co-founder was on hand to address the Cambridge Analytica data leak, where 87 million users had their information unknowingly accessed in 2014. The issue has brought the world’s biggest social media site a mountain of criticism in the last month, after it was reported Cambridge Analytica didn’t delete all of the data when Facebook asked it to in 2015.

The senator then seemed confused by how Facebook works, asking if the company will give users more ways to “erase” their data.

Also Read: 100 Mark Zuckerberg Cardboard Cutouts Go Up on Capitol Lawn Ahead of Facebook CEO's Testimony

“Senator, you can already delete any of the data that’s there,” said Zuckerberg.

The Facebook chief mentioned earlier in the hearing Facebook erases the data of any user that deletes their account.

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Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post

The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”

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Chris Hughes - The New Republic

The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."

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Pierre Omidyar - The Intercept

The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”

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Peter Thiel

The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.

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Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook

OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.

Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.

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Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse

Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.

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