Mark Zuckerberg was asked a personal question during his hearing on Capitol Hill over his involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Recall that the scandal involved Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm who were said to have gotten the information of 87 million Facebook users from Facebook in what is one of the biggest scandals the company has ever faced.
As it had to do with privacy laws, Zuckerberg was asked a personal question of his own which he declined to answer.
During the hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin asked Zuckerberg, “Would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night?”
“Um,” Zuckerberg said before a long pause. “No.”
The audience and panel of senators erupted in laughter at Zuckerberg’s hesitancy to answer the question, but Durbin’s end game was to illustrate the importance of privacy and the severity of the situation that Zuckerberg had put many users.
“If you’ve messaged anybody this week, would you share with us the names of the people you’ve messaged?” Durbin asked.
“Senator, no, I would probably not choose to do that publicly here,” Zuckerberg said.
“I think that might be what this is all about — your right to privacy, the limits of your right to privacy, and how much you’d give away in modern America,” Durbin said.