Zuck was back in the hot seat yesterday, this time in front of EU political leaders and lawmakers, to answer questions about Facebook's little faux pas of giving 87 million users' (of which 2.7 million were EU residents) data to Cambridge Analytica without the users' consent.
What it means: Firstly, Zuck is reaaally good at dodging questions. He picked a format where EU reps would talk at him for three minutes each and he answered everyone at the end – meaning he could pick and choose what to respond to.
"I asked you six yes or no questions. I go no single answer," one politician said. Things got pretty heated – one MP asked whether Zuckerberg wanted to be known as one of the world's "internet giants" or "a genius who created a digital monster that is destroying our societies?" Way to get personal.
One important topic in the hearing was the issue of whether Facebook is a monopoly, i.e. a company that dominates a market in a way that makes competition next to impossible (which is bad for customers, who don't end up with a choice of products.) Zuckerberg insists it isn't – he says the market for social media communications is "a competitive space", with new media popping up all the time.
He didn't give many details on how exactly the Cambridge Analytica thing could have happened or how they're going to comply with new data rules – but he did say he'd double investment into security, because keeping people safe was more important than maximising profits.
Then again, maximising profits doesn't seem to be something he needs to worry about: Facebook reported record revenue results in April despite all this shebang going on in the months before.
