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_Understated_

I'm no lawyer but this looks damning - It says he lied to Congress.

I'm not in the US, but isn't that pretty serious (if proven!)?

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Everyone lies to Congress and all the people in Congress are well established liars.

It is pretty serious if a majority in both houses of Congress want to make trouble for you, otherwise not a problem.

Hm, Zuckerberg isn't exactly well liked by anyone group in politics, at least not publicly.

No, they love his Facebook thing but they want his bumblefuck ass gone so the company can be professionally managed.

It is a serious crime, but perjury is hard to prove because you need to show that Zuckerberg not only lied, but did so intentionally.

Facebook is fairly unpopular amongst both political parties so it wouldn't surprise me if at some point in the future, they were smacked down by an antitrust lawsuit or beaten up by Congress.

And they’re usually prepped to sprinkle in lots of weasel words when they testify.

“If I’m not mistaken...”

“If I’m understanding the question correctly...”

“I believe the answer is...”

So if and when they’re caught they weren’t lying they were simply misinformed or innocently misunderstood.

Technology executes lie in front of Congress all the time. It's only serious when someone calls them out and decides to pursue it.

You could do any kind of crime and potentially get away with it. That’s not a good measure of how serious it is.

But the statistic of how often doing X gets somebody in jail is very important measure. (there is a fine for littering, but people constantly drop cigarette butts or gum on the ground, because there is no enforcement. And since there is no enforcement it is perceived as not a serious thing / acceptable behaviour)

Edit: to add to that, there are two dimensions: potential punishment and probability of enforcment. Both are equaly important.

> It's only serious when someone calls them out and decides to pursue it.

How many technology executives who have clearly lied before Congress have been charged with a crime?

https://www.rollcall.com/2018/11/30/cohen-among-select-few-c...

> Pursuing criminal charges against those who are untruthful to Congress would be a huge shift from tradition. “Almost no one is prosecuted for lying to Congress,” attorney PJ Meitl wrote in a 2006 law review article on the topic, “in fact, only six people have been convicted of perjury or related charges in relation to Congress in the last sixty years.”

It’s only illegal if you get caught.

> Technology executes lie in front of Congress all the time.

Do you mean the technology is programmed to present incorrect data or that tech company executives lie?

James Clapper's lies while under oath suggest it needn't be.

Not wittingly, at least.

But that's bulls*t on roller-skates. He had notice of the question, he knew the truthful answer. He chose his answer he gave and not even on the spur of the moment.

Cold, calculated, pre-meditated lie whilst under oath. That, sadly, as much as I hate to acknowledge it, is just a /fact/. It's every bit as nuts as it sounds if not worse.

yup

I think the problem is more related to the lack of technical knowledge in congress, and so the ability to even know what is a lie in this technical field.

Also Facebook would have some good lawyers to get him out of it.

Unfortunately people lying under oath is typically not punished as severely as you would imagine. And a lot of times the risk/reward of the lie weighs heavily in favor of being deceitful.

Didn't Bill Clinton lie to congress too?

He was accused of lying to Congress, which resulted in an article of impeachment that could have removed him from office had he not been acquitted. Lying to Congress is pretty serious indeed.

Technically no. But I guess you could describe what he did was to lie with the truth. He manipulated his accusers to define sex precisely so that he could honestly answer that he had not had sex.

Now if only if this whole sordid affair had been rock bottom rather than the beginning of the decline but that's another story...

Depends on the definition of the word "is".

> There's no "there" there!

Sorry, wrong Clinton.

I mean, they lie to us all the time, so turnabout is fair play?

IIRC the CEO of Twitter did lie to congress recently and nothing happened to him. It seem like its not a lie if you cant proof that what someone said was known to be wrong at that time by the person who said it.

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