It’s hard to say that much was learned from Mark Zuckerberg’s first day of testimony in front of Congress, although we did discover one thing – the government doesn’t really understand how Facebook works.

Much of the day was spent listening to really quite basic questions about how the social network functions and monetises, most of which could likely have been answered with ten minutes of Googling.

Either regardless of this or because of it, the stock market seemed reassured by the Facebook owner’s performance. Shares in the company grew 4.5 per cent through the day.

Nonetheless, an at times very nervous looking Zuckerberg did reveal a few things we didn’t know before. For instance, it now looks likely that a paid version of Facebook is at the very least being considered.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg last week raised the prospect of users paying a subscription to escape ads. When pressed on this Zuckerberg did not elaborate beyond saying that there would “always be a free version of the platform”, which of course alludes to the possibility of a non-free version.

Regulation

Also interesting was Zuckerberg’s apparent willingness to entertain the idea of regulation for his network, with the CEO saying that his team would “follow up” with the group of senators about the areas in which he thinks such a discussion “needs to happen”. This backs up comments made last month to CNN which appeared to read as Zuckerberg saying that regulation might be good, but government regulation maybe not so much.

Another snippet of note is that it appears Robert Mueller’s Russian investigators have spoken to at least some people at the company. Zuckerberg didn’t specify whether there had been any subpoenas, but did confirm that interviews had taken place, albeit not with himself.

Of course, Twitter was arguably where the real fun was at, with the world’s social media users relishing in the CEO’s apparent discomfort.

BINGOOOOOO https://t.co/zK038khTb0 pic.twitter.com/PjiTnMLCH2

— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) April 10, 2018

That face when you just wanted a faster way to rank girls by looks and ended up installing a fascist government in the most powerful country on earth pic.twitter.com/VEaQjz9Z6s

— Zack Bornstein (@ZackBornstein) April 10, 2018

Mark Zuckerburg getting roasted on Twitch with robot emojis is peak 2018 pic.twitter.com/oxHuG5Ipnr

— Tristan Cooper (@TristanACooper) April 10, 2018

when everything's fine and you feel great pic.twitter.com/d8wenWQfd5

— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) April 10, 2018

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