Out of Touch Senators Mocked For Questions in Zuckerberg’s Facebook Hearing: ‘What is a Computer’

33-year-old tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, founder of a social media platform that has more users than the population of any country in the world, walked into his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.

In it, he’s faced a grilling from a series of senators, thus far the youngest being Sen. John Thune, 57, and oldest Sens. Orrin Hatch, Diane Feinstein and Chuck Grassley, all tied at 84 years old.

And it showed. During the committee hearing discussing Facebook’s role in the Cambridge Analytica data breach, Twitter users bemoaned how poorly senators seemed to understand social media, the Internet, and its intricacies.

Iowa Senator and Chair of the Judiciary Committee Grassley has never been hip to the jive on the Internet, as evidenced by a couple of his tweets:

I now h v an iphone

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 13, 2012

is on the farm.

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 27, 2007

But he was not the only offender, and people were quick to point out that the hearing sounded like Zuckerberg was a teenager trying to help his grandparents work their Netscape email.

Nobody under the age of 57 has had a chance to ask Zuckerberg a question yet.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 10, 2018

It would be cool to see Zuckerberg questioned by people who know how Facebook works

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) April 10, 2018

A bunch of 65 year olds asking him how all this stuff works has got to be Zuckerberg’s worst living nightmare

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) April 10, 2018

Senator Bill Nelson’s chocolate line of questioning does very little to dissipate the notion that the Senate is a bunch of grumpy old people clueless about technology

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) April 10, 2018

“Why won’t my grandson accept my friend request”

— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) April 10, 2018

Mr. Senator, to answer your question, you turn on the TV by pressing power on the main remote and then cable power on the small remote

— Steven Perlberg (@perlberg) April 10, 2018

senator grassley you have the floor.

chuck grassley: thank you, i want to start with a simple question: what is a computer

— soccer mom (@sexualjumanji) April 10, 2018

these people don’t understand how the internet works, come on.

— Farhad Manjoo: senator, we run ads (@fmanjoo) April 10, 2018

It would be cool to see Zuckerberg questioned by people who know how Facebook works

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) April 10, 2018

Orrin Hatch: “This is the craziest computer shit I’ve been involved in since the late 90s!”

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) April 10, 2018

“Mr. Zuckerberg, a magazine i recently opened came with a floppy disk offering me 30 free hours of something called America On-Line. Is that the same as Facebook?” pic.twitter.com/U7pqpUhEhQ

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) April 10, 2018

Hi I’m Orrin Hatch, otherwise known as a 23 year-old staffer who wrote these sheets I’m reading

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) April 10, 2018

Carry yourself with the confidence of a senator who pretends to know things about the internet.

— Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) April 10, 2018

mark zuckerberg being questioned by a bunch of people that restart their computer a lot

— Alazar Moges (@zarzarbinkss) April 10, 2018

Hatch: HOW DOES ONE MAKE MONEY ON THIS INTERNETS

— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) April 10, 2018

How many millions of dollars of productive time is being wasted by people sitting around waiting for Zuck to evade weak questions?

— Vlad Savov (@vladsavov) April 10, 2018

Congress: “Are you telling us Facebook ISN’T powered by Fred Flintstone running really fast?”

— Ira Madison III (@ira) April 10, 2018

For some reason I’m thinking about the time i tried to teach my grandparents how to use a computer mouse pic.twitter.com/tLnVx6wR8Y

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 10, 2018

If you want to know why Silicon Valley has total contempt for Washington, turn on your livestream.

— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) April 10, 2018

This hearing is embarrassing.

— Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) April 10, 2018

[image via screengrab]