Accuracy in Media

Veteran NBC anchor Tom Brokaw chided senators Wednesday for asking a series of questions to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that exposed their lack of understanding of the platform and social media as a whole.

Zuckerberg’s appearance demonstrated most Senators think the digital age means you can still count with your fingers

— Tom Brokaw (@tombrokaw) April 11, 2018

Here are a couple of examples of what Brokaw was referring to;

Sen. Shelley Moore (R-W.V.) asked Zuckerberg if Facebook could “bring some fiber because we don’t have any connectivity” referring to the state’s rural areas, but ignoring the fact that Facebook is a social media platform, not an Internet service provider. Nevertheless, Zuckerberg told Moore that “we would be happy to follow up with you on that.”

Then there was Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who asked, “If I’m emailing within WhatsApp …does that inform your advertisers?” seemingly unaware that WhatsApp is a chat — not email — platform. Zuckerberg resisted correcting Schatz and responded by saying that content on WhatsApp would not result in related ads.

The next time the Senate decides to question someone from the tech world, they might want to do a little more research beforehand.

 

 

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