Zuckerberg Faces Hostile Congress as Calls for Regulation Mount

After two days and more than 10 hours of questioning of Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, there was widespread consensus among lawmakers that social media technology — and its potential for abuse — had far outpaced Washington and that Congress should step in to close the gap. But the agreement largely ended there. For lawmakers, the calculus is tricky: They do not want to infringe on First Amendment rights or hurt Silicon Valley innovation but are also unsure how to regulate this new breed of company, which wields enormous power by collecting vast amounts of private data from billions of consumers. The question now is whether Washington will create regulations that address increasingly widespread concerns about digital privacy, and how any new constraints would squeeze the business models of companies like Facebook that rely on the free flow of data.

“While Facebook has certainly grown, I worry it has not matured,” said Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR). “I think it is time to ask whether Facebook may have moved too fast and broken too many things.”

Many longtime advocates for reining in the industry remain unconvinced that federal action is imminent after more than a decade in which privacy controversies have failed to generate meaningful new laws. Few expect a reversal this year with a looming election, a Congress riven by partisan discord and a White House weakened by federal investigation.