Mark Zuckerberg may have finished up answering lawmakers face-to-face during two days of Capitol Hill testimony, but he and his team still have a lot to follow up on — including responses to senators and representatives on at least 44 questions. Many Facebook users who watched the testimony still have questions, too. In Denver, Pollster Frank Luntz talked a group of 21-to-49-year-olds, who say they despise the platform’s tactics but at the same time, can’t live without it.“There’s nothing else like it,” said 26 year-old Erin Finn. “But if you delete it what is there to replace it? How am I going to connect to my family?”She added, “You can meet, or you can reconnect, with someone that you went to school with ten years ago.”None of the panelists trust Zuckerberg, and felt like his answers on Capitol Hill rang hollow and felt insincere. “You can't have that much power unregulated in the hands of one CEO,” said Andrew Bunker, a 23 year-old legislative assistant. “He has, for my mind, little risk of losing his position because the unwillingness of us to change our social-media behavior.”And while most were concerned about how Facebook might be using, and potentially abusing, their personal data, they were even more concerned about the long term impacts on democracy.“I would ask him if he could stop making these mini propaganda machines,” said Jamie Javier, a 39 year old geotechnical engineer from Boulder, CO. “I think that is divisive and, yeah, just in general, bad for society.”This segment originally aired April 12, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.UPDATE, June 1, 2021: VICE News produced a series of seven panels moderated by Frank Luntz from December 2017 to January 2019. Recently, it was reported that Luntz was on Ted Cruz’s reelection campaign payroll in 2018. VICE News was unaware of this affiliation, and Luntz did not disclose this information at the time of these productions.
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