Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with lawmakers and Congressmen on April 10th following a mass scandal involving Facebook and the political consultant Cambridge Analytica. But, what really happened?

What is Cambridge Analytica? According to their website, “Cambridge Analytica uses data to change audience behavior”. Cambridge does this by collecting and analyzing information from across the Internet and social media and they then use this data to assist in campaigning and electoral processes. The political data consulting firm is known to have been used in 44 U.S. races and are also known to be used in Donald Trump’s and Ted Cruz’s political campaigns. However, Cambridge’s collection of online information poses the question of the right to privacy and is the reason why Mark Zuckerberg was called before Congress after it was discovered that Facebook gave up the information of around fifty million users to the data firm.

It was made clear by lawmakers and Congressmen on April 9th and 10th that regulation and restriction on Facebook would be essential to upholding the right to individual privacy. Ironically, it became visible that government officials have little to no knowledge about the Internet and social media, posing questions on the reliability of potential regulations and whether government officials should be educated in the subject. Some fear that this lack of knowledge could potentially be reflected in new laws which are planned to be imposed on Facebook and other social media companies; it is possible that this could either bring ineffective change or drastic policies which could limit our ability to share information on social media.  However, for the time being, lawmakers and Congressmen are split on the issue and can’t seem to reach compromise on a single regulation. Further research and debate may still be needed before regulation could arrive, but with the state of an evermore widening gap in Congress, compromise may not be seen for a long time.