Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Goes to Washington

WASHINGTON, September 19, 2019 — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will return to Capitol Hill for the first time since he appeared before Congress to answer questions about his company’s practices during the 2016 election.

The trip is meant to enable Zuckerberg “to meet with policymakers and talk about future internet regulation,” according to a Facebook spokesperson who spoke with Axios, which broke the story yesterday afternoon.

While the spokesperson said there would be no public events on Zuckerberg’s schedule, one of the elected officials with whom he will reportedly meet is Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

Since joining the Senate in January, Hawley has made a name for himself among conservative activists by sponsoring various pieces of legislation which target major technology companies, and by championing the cause of various pro-Trump Internet personalities who claim that Facebook, Twitter, Google and other social media platform operators are deliberately acting to censor conservative political speech.

His championing of such baseless theories has also won praise from President Donald Trump, who frequently claims without evidence that Twitter, Facebook, and Google are working to prevent him from being re-elected in 2020.