Zuckerberg in the not-so-hot seat

Facebook and other social media platforms have been using the same data-mining techniques for ages, and of course have been partners with the government at times in its use of such techniques – including partnerships with the NSA in its PRISM program. But suddenly Facebook is getting hammered by both parties in the most aggressive manner. Zuckerberg is a uniquely unsympathetic person in a lot of ways, but the rapacious and completely illegal government surveillance programs to this day tolerated by this same U.S. Senate undercut the effect of the outrage they’re all going to demonstrate today.

  Matt Taibbi

Read Matt Taibbi's entertaining notes on the hearing.

One note of my own...

Cantwell asks Zuckerberg if he’s ever heard of the infamous John Ashcroft-era "Total Information Awareness" data-dominance program, and he says no.

What!?!

Ok, one more comment...

Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker asks Zuckerberg if it’s true that Facebook collects data on people even after they log off the site. Zuck pauses, looking like Daffy Duck after having his bill shot off, and tries to tell Wicker that he’ll have his people follow up.

LOL. I may have actually snorted. Daffy Duck after having his bill shot off. LOL.

And, rounding it out for you, without the fun, but with very important points, here's David Dayen at The Intercept. This may be the core of it all:

Far too many senators framed the problems with Facebook — almost unilaterally agreed to on both sides of the aisle as pernicious and requiring some action — as something for Zuckerberg to fix, and then tell Congress about later.

Could Congress have a better understanding of technology issues? Sure, and if Newt Gingrich didn’t eliminate the Office of Technology Assessment in 1995, things would be different. But we don’t need senators who are computer scientists.

The Senate didn’t have a granular knowledge of the banking system when it passed the Securities and Exchange Act, and it didn’t fully recognize every facet of the health care provider and insurance system when it established Medicare and Medicaid. We need senators who are interested in governing. Because if they’re not, we end up with a private government ruled by a boy king making consequential decisions affecting billions of people around the world — and then ritually apologizing each time he screws up.

  The Intercept

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.