Thread by @allenf32

yeah so I'm livetweeting this shitshow now.

congressman guy: would you agree with setting up a government agency that controls all the things to stop them being bad?

@jack: um ... no?

congressman guy 2: I really liked John Adams on HBO and Google seems like a monopoly to me.

@sundarpichai: we have many, many lines of business. we do searches for cats, we do searches for dogs. we sell phones. we have lost a lot of money on pointless investments too.

Zuck: please, please, please shut down TikTok. we have tried everything and they are destroying us. also, Snapchat is still a thing.

it's still a thing right?

.@jack: I like protocols. you people don't seem to like protocols. sad face.

congresswoman: I have no idea what you are talking about but thank you for being here.

congresswoman: I recently learned what targeted marketing is and am concerned that it allows for discrimination.

Zuck: we have active conversations going on as to how to improve this without changing anything. thank you. I am a good person.

congresswoman: are any kinds of discrimination allowed on twitter? in particular, in your targeted advertising?

@jack: no

congresswoman: I didn't catch that.

@jack: I said no. discrimination is bad. also, protocols.

@sundarpichai: we are going to use machine learning to construct our AI principles and help answer your concerns and questions.

congressman 3: OMG GUYS I CANT BELIEVE YOURE HERE AND IM GETTING TO SPEAK TO YOU. don't listen to these other meany faces. it's totes amazeballs.

congressman 3: I too watched John Adams on HBO. you get it for free when you join congress.

congressman 3: I tried to post a picture of a puppydog cuddling a kittykat and it told me it was racist and sent an antifa mob to my house. I love you guys, but come on, man. that's not cool.

congressman 3: are you the arbiter of truth?

Zuck: content moderation is good. so is transparency. please shut down TikTok.

@jack: no. nobody tells me what to do. nobody should tell anybody what to do. protocols.

congressman 4: how much of your 387 bajillion dollars of revenue did you invest in the thing I like as of last week?

Zuck: I have absolutely no idea but I swear to god I am pretending to take this seriously.

congressman 4: why is there more spanish fake news than English fake news? riddle me this? me-riddlo este?

Zuck: I honestly have no idea but we invest lots and lots and lots in all this shit and yet I still have to come to congress and you STILL haven't shut down tiktok.

congressman 4: my grandma joined facebook and now she's a Spanish language scientologist Brexiteer. why is that?

Zuck: we have done so much but we can do more.

congressman 4: who works for you? how important are they? do literally any of you care?

@sundarpichai / Zuck / @jack: nah, not really

congressman 5: there is a really bad thing happening that I'm super mad about and it's your fault-

Zuck: it's really bad-

congressman 5: IM NOT ASKING IF YOU THINK ITS BAD IM TELLING YOU ITS YOUR FAULT

Zuck: it's really serious and we are taking it very seriously.

congressman 5: why are you silent on ELECTION THEFT of my BUDDY?!? HUH?

Zuck: Trump was kinda weird when you think about it-

congressman 5: -WHY DOES THAT MATTER ANSWER MY QUESTION

Zuck: we apply our policies to all situations - what? I'm not laughing. shut up.

congressman 5: WHAT UP JACK, WHY DONT YOU LIKE ELECITONS?

@jack: I like elections. especially fair elections. almost as much as I like protocols.

congressman 5: there are mobs of twitter users out there just CANCELLING people left and right!

@jack: well, we sorta don't want to do the work. we'd rather let others do it.

congressman 5: YOU ARE EXPERIMENTING ON US GOD DAMN IT!

@jack: huh?

other guy: RECESS!

allen: phew

***WE'RE BACK***

congresswoman 2: we can all agree that you should be doing what I want and (ahem, passive aggression) aren't. I seriously question facebook's commitment to thwarting my political opponents.

congresswoman 2: I watched that Netflix documentary and I also subscribe to the WSJ, so I know that facebook is a really big company.

so, in short, explain yourself, god damn it!

Zuck: thank you so much for raising this question and also telling lots and lots of lies-

congresswoman 2: -keep it short please!

Zuck: people don't want stupid content.

congresswoman 2: we're running out of time, damn it! are you or are you not a surveillance capitalist?!?

Zuck: come on, man, people love surveillance capitalism!

congresswoman 2: you're not really answering my question!

Zuck: correct, I'm filibustering, how are we for time?

congresswoman 2: I find it very difficult to take you seriously! I want access to all your data because I care so much about how bad it is to exploit data!

congresswoman 2: are you opposed to a law that would give us control of your company for the greater good?

Zuck: well, while I don't necessarily agree with your characterization, I am confident I can run down the clock here.

congressman 6: democrats complaining about things they always complain about when this is supposed to be an inclusive complaining session is HILARIOUS. my turn to complain: Jack, how racist can I be on twitter? like, what are the rules?

@jack: that's kinda creepy, bro

congressman 6: are you like, maybe, a little politically biased?

@jack: dude, I have been linking in morse code this whole time that I don't control twitter. how are you not getting this?

congressman 6: I want it on the record that I am against child sex trafficking. I don't know how DEMOCRATS feel about this, but I think we can all guess, ANYWAY, what about you? child sex trafficking? good or bad?

congressman 6: don't answer that because instead I'm going to give a rant about how I don't understand section 230 at all. I don't like you and I don't like laws or the first amendment that much either.

congresswoman 3: the business model for your platforms is quite simple: memes and clicks and shit.

but what about when the memes are naughty? HUH? EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT?

congresswoman 3: are you bad? like really bad and without a moral compass?

@jack: no

Zuck: no

@sundarpichai: nope. nopedy nope nope.

congresswoman 3: THEN WRITE ME A NICE LETTER.

congresswoman 3: do you acknowledge that you are bad in a really specific, culture war-adjacent manner and that you will be lambasted as racist if you now answer no?

@jack: yes

@sundarpichai: yes

Zuck: yes

congresswoman 3: good. no letter this time.

congresswoman 3: do you believe that you will always be bad or that you could one day be not totally bad?

Zuck: look lady, it's really not our fault.

@jack: I agree with Mark because I really don't understand the question.

@sundarpichai: yeah same. there are many, many things.

congresswoman 3: you need to spend a lot more money on AI stuff because AI is the future and scary and racist.

@jack: yes. we are interested in the future of PROTOCOLS.

Zuck: research would be helpful because then you could look at that rather than talking to me.

congressman whatever number I lost count: I don't like China. do you like China?

@sundarpichai: we like the good stuff in China with kids and sick people and whatnot, but not the bad stuff. we are categorically against bad stuff.

congressman: WOAH WOAH WOAH I like business as well as the next guy. I'm all about making money. but I just don't like communism and organ harvesting and that kind of thing. so are you a communist organ harvesting shill or not?

@sundarpichai: very happy to engage on this.

congressman: what are you doing to stop climate change? climate change is really bad. did you know that? I have recently learned lots of stats about it but unfortunately I did not learn the proper meaning of "beg the question"

congressman: climate change climate change facebook climate change?

Zuck: I totally agree. we take a multi-pronged approach. we try to promote good stuff and demote bad stuff. science. climate change. very happy to follow up and teach you what "beg the question" means.

congressman: why dont you apply the same standards to this one incredibly complex thing as you do this other incredibly complex thing?

Zuck: well basically if it's reasonable people will die and we might get sued or get forced to come to GOD DAMN CONGRESS AGAIN we take it down.

congressman: look, nobody seems to know how to pronounce your name, but I'm at least gonna try to be polite and be honest about it: same ridiculous question for you:

@sundarpichai: we have policies and AI and it's all very clever and we are super sustainable.

congressman: look guys, literally nobody likes you. it's not looking good. nothing you say makes sense? wanna try to make some sense now?

Zuck: BILLIONS AND BILLIONS (*sagans) of data pinging back and forth and WOAH we can't handle that!

Zuck: but also we should absolutely be able to do whatever we want and we are scarily good at it. it's not gonna be perfect and, hey, sometimes some child porn slips through the cracks, but hey, it's hard, man. it's hard.

congressman: why do you crush your competitors? it's so mean.

Zuck: well, I am vicious and cannot be stopped. I mean, sure, if they are cute and small, let them do what they want but when they get big enough I WILL CRUSH THEM and if I don't, you should.

congressman: when I lie, people get mad, but when you lie, all that happens is we drag you in front of congress. ALGORITHMS! crazy stuff. it ain't 1683 no more! this violence is real. I am a victim.

congressman: what changes to 230 do you support?

@sundarpichai: okay so basically none. there are lots of laws. so many laws. do you know how many lawyers I employ? I hate lawyers! I'm an engineer so many lawyers ...

congressman: so you agree with Mark?

@sundarpichai: what Mark said is worth thinking about but preferably do nothing about.

.@jack: we need all sorts of things but man, algorithms are scary shit.

congressman: explain misinformation, please, Zuck

Zuck: yeah I don't like it. there is misinformation everywhere, especially on TikTok, you should absolutely look into that.

Zuck: it's a major problem we can't screen people's messages because people say crazy shit. also, TV! old tech! that was crazy. there are threats everywhere, especially on TikTok.

congressman: okay but what about in Spanish?

Zuck: si, estoy muy serioso en espanol

congresswoman: most of my constituents are basically good people unlike you assholes. so what about Wikipedia?

@sundarpichai: yes, that is a thing and we use it.

congresswoman: Jack, do you hate The God Emperor?

@jack: no, but I take responsiblity.

congresswoman: are Google a lil employees pervy?

@sundarpichai: I HEART PRIVACY! why are you laughing Jack? I'm for realizes. I mean ... sometimes-

congresswoman: -so basically you're lying?

@sundarpichai: we don't sell the data because we profit from it ourselves.

congresswoman: I am very concerned. I don't know who's looking at what, what's going on, it could be anything anywhere, it's scary shit.

@sundarpichai: yeah, APIs and code and all sorts of tech stuff that explains this sort of not really.

congresswoman: why you so woke, Jack?

@jack: I'M NOT BUT I HAVE NO CONTROL READ MY MORSE CODE BLINKING

congresswoman: but this is the legal, factual term, so I don't understand why - are you blinking at me?

congresswoman: Zuck, are you truly a despicable person?

Zuck: no, I care about love and connection and relationships and unicorns and rainbows.

*** I'm terribly sorry all but I gotta go have dinner now or the fiancée is gonna go all Bulgarian on me ***

hope you all enjoyed that. here's the link to keep up on your own: