Mark Zuckerberg is going before Congress for a second time Wednesday — and members of the House are likely to be better versed in both Facebook's business model and technology in general than their Senate counterparts were yesterday.
The Facebook founder and CEO spent nearly five hours addressing members of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees Tuesday, often answering basic questions about the company's ad-based business model, its wholly-owned apps Messenger and WhatsApp, and simple user-facing functionality.
The frequently clumsy line of questioning inspired jokes online of the 33-year-old CEO explaining technology to an older generation of lawmakers.
Lawmakers are today — like yesterday — expecting answers on whether Facebook neglected its duty to users in failing to keep track of the sensitive data under its stewardship.
Members of the House committee, for their part, have not only Tuesday's testimony but a detailed primer on the issues to help them.
A memo dated Monday outlines Facebook's 2011 consent decree, the fundamentals of targeted advertising and its corresponding business model — even one of Facebook's earliest privacy scandals in the Beacon feature of over a decade ago.
If House members are sufficiently prepared, having heeded the added preparation afforded to them more so than their Senate counterparts, Zuckerberg could face some challenging questions.