Mark Zuckerberg’s two days of testimony in Congress left most viewers with a strange feeling: The more he talked, the less we understood about Facebook. The social network’s CEO and founder dodged and feinted when confronted about its misdeeds and asked about its future plans. He also tossed out plenty of empty platitudes and repeated the same lines over and over. And the lawmakers in both houses of Congress revealed their lack of tech savvy, often repeating the same questions and veering off into odd tangents and personal digressions about their grandchildren’s use of social media.
In such a situation, how else are we to make sense of these 10 random hours, except through random numbers? Here’s an index of some of the hearings’ facts and figures.
- Words spoken by Zuck: 30, 147
- Times that Zuck apologized, said he was sorry, or admitted a mistake: 40
- Times that Zuck said he’ll have his “team” get back to you or follow up: 23
- Mentions of Zuck’s dorm room at Harvard: 12
- Mentions of Diamond and Silk, two Trump supporters whose Facebook page was recently blocked: 9
- Mentions of censorship in China and Myanmar, combined: 7
- Times that Zuck emphasized they “don’t sell data”: 6
- References to “pipes” to describe the internet: 6
- Times that Zuck was called “Mr. Zuckerman”: 1
- Times that Zuck mentioned ethics: 1
Here’s a word cloud of Zuck’s testimony over the two days:
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