Updated at 11:50 a.m EST.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg breezed through 10 hours of questioning in Congress this week, but for his “team” there’s plenty of work ahead.
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During five hours of testimony before the Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary committees Tuesday, and another five hours in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday, Zuckerberg repeatedly deflected questions, saying, “My team will follow up with you after this.”
Based on Tuesday’s transcriptions, he committed his team to a follow-up 19 times. Perhaps on advice, Zuckerberg mentioned his “team” only twice Wednesday, although he did commit to a further 13 follow-ups.
As technology analyst Ben Thompson points out, Zuckerberg mostly invoked the “team” deflection in and around “discussions about Facebook’s accumulation of data that users didn’t explicitly upload.”
Rep. Debbie Dingell asked Zuckerberg whether Facebook would be able to respond to her questions within 72 hours, which is what the EU demands. Unsurprisingly, the Michigan lawmaker was told Zuckerberg would have to get his “team” to answer that.
One member of the “team” told VICE News that a response would take a while, as the official record of the hearings will be open for two more weeks for legislators to submit additional questions. “The committees will then share those questions with us and give us a deadline to respond,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
Below is a list of all the questions that Zuckerberg said his “team” would answer in the coming days and weeks, as well as items he promised the company would work on with lawmakers:
TUESDAY
Sen. Chuck Grassley
- How many apps have you identified where data was improperly transferred to third parties in breach of Facebook’s terms?
- How many times has Facebook conducted an audit to ensure the deletion of improperly transferred data?
- Do you think we need a law to protect children’s privacy?
Sen. Dianne Feinstein
- How many fake accounts has Facebook removed?
Sen. Maria Cantwell
- Did Facebook employees work with Cambridge Analytica employees on the Trump campaign?
Sen. Roger Wicker
- Does Facebook collect call and text messages from users between the ages of 13 and 17?
- Does Facebook track user activity on the internet after they have logged off?
- How does Facebook tell people it is tracking them?
Sen. Patrick Leahy
- [Pointing to a large poster] Were these specific pages created by Russian account holders?
Sen. Lindsey Graham
- What legislation would Facebook propose to regulate the social media industry?
Sen. Amy Klobuchar
- Would you support a rule that would require you to notify your users of a breach within 72 hours?
- Where were the 87 million people whose data was harvested by Cambridge Analytica located across the U.S.?
Sen. Roy Blunt
- Do you track devices that an individual who uses Facebook has that is connected to the device that they use for their Facebook connection, but not necessarily connected to Facebook? [We’re not sure what he means either]
Sen. Tammy Baldwin
- Do you know whether Aleksandr Kogan sold any of the data he collected with anyone other than Cambridge Analytica?
- Do you know how Cambridge Analytica used the data while they had it?
- What evidence can you give that you have excluded foreign accounts using Facebook to place political ads?
Sen. Cory Gardner
- Can you tell me how Facebook’s systems work when someone wants to wipe their data when deleting their account?
Sen. Richard Blumenthal
- Will Facebook support legislation to allow users to access all of their information?
Sen. Ted Cruz
- Does Facebook consider itself to be a neutral public forum?
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
- Does Aleksandr Kogan (whose app collected the data used by Cambridge Analytica) still have a Facebook account?
Sen. Ed Markey
- Do you support a law that enshrines that a user’s permission has to be obtained before their information is used?
Sen. Tom Udall
- Will you be an advocate for the Honest Ads Act?
Sen. Jerry Moran
- Your bug bounty program offers to reward people who find vulnerabilities in your system, but what about the legal but opaque practices that leak user data, what are you doing about those?
Sen. Dean Heller
- How many Nevadans were among the 87 million that received a notification that their data had been shared with Cambridge Analytica?
- How long do you keep a user’s data after they’ve left Facebook?
Sen. Gary Peters
- Can you provide details about the principles your company is developing that are going to guide its development in the area of artificial intelligence?
READ: A literal Russian troll showed up to Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing
Wednesday
Rep. G.K. Butterfield
- Will you commit to providing data on the retention of your employees, disaggregated by race, in your diversity update, starting this year?
- Will you commit to personally convene a meeting of tech industry CEOs to develop a strategy to increase racial diversity in the technology industry?
Rep. Leonard Lance
- Will you and your company review the BROWSER legislation that requires an opt-in consent for sharing sensitive data?
Rep. Adam Kinzinger
- Has Facebook given the Russian government or intel agencies any user data?
Rep. Morgan Griffith
- Will you share Facebook’s plans for rural broadband?
Rep. Ben Lujan
- Do you know how many points of data Facebook has on the average non-Facebook user?
Rep. Debbie Dingell
- How many Facebook Like buttons are there on non-Facebook web pages?
- How many chunks of Facebook pixel code are there on non-Facebook web pages?
- How many share buttons are there on non-Facebook web pages?
- Can Facebook answer the committee’s questions within 72 hours?
Rep. Jan Schakowsky
- How many companies did Aleksandr Kogan sell his data to, and what are their names?
Rep. Cathy McMorris-Roger
- What is Facebook doing to ensure that its users are being treated fairly and objectively by content reviewers?
Rep. Frank Pallone
- Can you give a one-word answer to the question: Will you make the commitment to changing all the user default settings to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, the collection and use of users’ data?
Rep. Fred Upton
- Why did Facebook block an ad from former Michigan Lottery commissioner announcing his run for state senate?
Rep. Eliot Engel
- Can you provide more details on exactly how Facebook’s AI tools help catch fake accounts from Russia?
Rep. Gene Green
- Can you tell me if and how Facebook plans to implement Europe’s sweeping privacy laws known as GDPR, specifically the part that gives users the right to object to the processing of their personal data for marketing purposes?
Rep. Steve Scalise
- Is the data that is mined on users after they log off for security purposes also used to sell as part of the business model?
- Will the people who banned conservative vloggers Diamond and Silk be held accountable in any way?
Cover image: Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on April 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images)
