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.”
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.
“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.