Tencent "Deep Web" Ji Zhenyu from Silicon Valley on April 11

It's not how well Zuckerberg is doing, it's how badly the lawmakers are doing.

After two consecutive days of marathon "torture" by congressmen, Facebook founder and CEO Zuckerberg left the outside world with the impression of "exceeding expectations", and Facebook's stock price even appeared on the first day In the biggest one-day increase in the past two years, Zuckerberg’s personal net worth also soared by nearly $3 billion after the end of the day.

The congressional chamber is naturally not a place for Zuckerberg to feel comfortable. In order to prepare for the two hearings, Zuckerberg came to Washington, D.C. one day ahead of schedule. In early April, Washington was still cold in spring. Most of the people here were dressed in dark gray. A coat, a solemn expression, and a hurry. Here and the bright and warm California are completely two worlds. This is not because he can wear a T-shirt and shorts, and have a live online video broadcast with his wife and children in the backyard of his own backyard, interacting with millions of people. Moments of easy chat for Facebook users.

He had to put on a tailored dark blue suit and tie, and sat behind a desk with the name brand "Mr. Zuckberg" in the same room with dozens of senators and hundreds of journalists. , to survive the next five and a half hours of hearings.

"He was nervous, but he seemed confident," one person at the scene described. "He's a smart guy."

Before he was seated, Zuckerberg was surrounded by a wall of dozens of on-site photojournalists. Every angle of his body and every detail of his movements and expressions were mercilessly exposed to the cold camera.

But Zuckerberg was obviously prepared. Sitting in the hearing box, he kept his upper body upright, listened carefully to every question, and made eye contact with the congressman who asked the question. He changed the way he used to answer questions first. Add the "so" modal particle habit, but first address the person who asked him a question by "Senator" (Senator), "Congressman" or "Congresswoman" (Member), and then answer.

On his desk is the answer outline prepared for him by his team in advance. During the intermission of the hearing, the live media photographed one of the pages. The thick stack of paper basically covered everything they could. Thinking of the questions that the lawmakers may ask in advance, his seat was put on thick cushions, which may have been carefully prepared for him by the team, in order to make him appear taller in front of the camera and more in line with leaders in times of crisis image.

Despite swallowing saliva from time to time, embarrassing expressions, or frequently raising a water glass, Zuckerberg, who appeared in Congress, was not the one we used to be familiar with in a gray hoodie, fast-talking, "move fast, break everything" of a young entrepreneur, but of a well-trained, coping CEO, the kind of leader a company in crisis needs.

On the other hand, the performance of dozens of congressmen sitting opposite Zuckerberg at the hearing was disappointing. The political circle is completely isolated from the 21st century technology circle. Many questions and answers between them and Zuckerberg seem to be talking to themselves in their own contexts, and there are many embarrassing moments that are unspeakable.

For example, a congressman asked, "How do you keep your business going if your users don't have to pay for the services you provide?"

Zuckerberg paused for a moment and said, "Senator, we sell ads."

"Oh, yes," the senator said.

"My 13-year-old son Charlie, who is an active Instagram user, asked me to make sure to mention him today," said one MP.

Another lawmaker said, "If I send an email via Whatsapp, will that let advertisers know what's in it?"

Many of the MPs' questions exposed their ignorance of some basic internet common sense or the company Facebook, with one user on Twitter even mocking, "The average age of these MPs is 100."

Throughout the hearing, the lawmakers' questions lacked focus, often rambling around in circles around some innocuous issues.

Under the question of the "ineffectiveness" of the lawmakers, Zuckerberg was able to complete the established tasks for the past two days in an orderly manner according to the strategy designed by the previous team: admit mistakes, apologize, and do not answer specific questions in the affirmative or negative. , hand it over to the team for follow-up, do not make commitments, do not deny the current business model, and do not act too greedy.

Michael Connor, executive director of the Open MIC organization, commented that Zuckerberg's hearing performance was only "barely passed", not "excellent". The agency representing Facebook investors publicly called for Zuckerberg to resign from all positions at Facebook the day before the hearing.

The initiation of the hearing stems from the outbreak of a large-scale user data leakage incident on Facebook. As the source said that the big data company Cambridge Analytica used a large amount of user data obtained from Facebook to conduct precise political advertising to influence political activities, the incident may involve 8,700 people. Tens of thousands of Facebook users, most of whom are based in the United States, have drawn Washington's attention.

Other key words in this incident are "Russian manipulation" and "US presidential election", which have touched the national security and core interests of the United States. This hearing is inevitable out of a duty to voters in their respective constituencies.

But the performance of the congressmen who participated in the hearing may not even meet the "pass" standard. The ultimate purpose of the hearing is to give these lawmakers a better understanding of the situation, and ultimately to form a consensus on at least some of the existing issues and to resolve them through the legislative process, although Zuckerberg himself during the hearing He also clearly expressed his willingness to accept "correct supervision", but at least judging from the scene of the hearing in the past two days, there is little hope of achieving the above purpose.

Another embarrassing fact is that most of the nearly 100 lawmakers participating in the hearing have directly or indirectly received political donations from Facebook. In the past 12 years, Facebook has invested a total of $7 million in political donations. Since 2014, lawmakers who questioned Zuckerberg have received more than 640,000 political donations from Facebook.

The two-day hearing was evaluated by a Twitter user as "going through the motions" and without "substantial significance." If Zuckerberg showed a nervous look from time to time on the first day of the hearing, he was completely on the second day. With a calm demeanor, when the congressman presiding over the entire hearing proposed to take a break, Zuckerberg replied, "A few more questions?" The American news television network CNN commented that after two days of hearing, Zuckerberg was able to Retired, unscathed.