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'Mr. Zuckerberg' explains the internet to elderly senators

"Mr. Zuckerberg, where is Farmville?"

Morgan Sung

on April 10, 2018

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

In what will probably be the premise of The Social Network 2, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was grilled by members of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.

Zuckerberg answered questions about digital privacy in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. And a lot of the senators asking the questions were old. Very old.

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Sen. Patrick Leahy brought printouts of various Facebook groups (bless the staff member who had to print them) and asked if they were Russian propaganda groups, because as CEO, Zuckerberg obviously reads every single post on Facebook himself. Sen. Orrin Hatch asked how Facebook is able to sustain a business model while running as a free service, and Zuckerberg was barely able to keep a straight face when he responded, "Senator, we run ads."

"I see, that's great," Hatch replied.

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It wasn't just the older senators who didn't understand how Facebook works. Sen. Brian Schatz, who is only 45 years old, asked Zuckerberg if Facebook would be able to see if he "emailed" someone over Whatsapp. When Zuckerberg said that Whatsapp is encrypted, and that other companies are not able to read encrypted messages, Schatz asked if he would get Black Panther ads on Facebook if he messaged someone about the movie through Whatsapp.

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People on Twitter found it pretty ridiculous that the lawmakers who have the power to regulate technology have absolutely no idea how technology works. And so they roasted them with memes.

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In the "Mr. Zuckerberg" meme, clueless lawmakers use the Senate hearing to ask Zuckerberg questions about Facebook. Instead of interrogating the CEO about his company's business practices, though, they ask him for tech advice.