'He Knew He Was Lying': Marsha Blackburn Calls Out Mark Zuckerberg Over His Congressional Testimony

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Um, to close us out, I've got a couple of more questions. Ms. Leneer, I'm going to come back to you because I want to revisit some of Mark Zuckerberg's testimony one more time.

[00:00:14]Um, let's go back to 2020 when he was before us for a congressional hearing and we were talking about addictive products.

[00:00:28]And his comment was, we certainly do not want our products to be addictive. I don't think the company should be optimizing to just encourage people to spend as much time as possible on them, end quote. Now, that is that was his statement that he publicly gave under oath in that hearing. And then the evidence that you brought forward at trial showed that he was lying.

[00:01:06]And that they had the information.

[00:01:09]He knew better. He knew he was lying, so it was intentional.

[00:01:15]And his own email that he sent out on company goals list time spent increases by 12%. Now, that time spent, Ms. Leneer, you were talking about the number of hours that a child spent. So, they have had a goal for increasing time spent. Now, his time spent goal of 12% was in 2017, correct?

[00:01:50]Uh, it was in 2015 2016. 2016. Mark has decided the top priority for the company in 2017 is total team time spent.

[00:02:05]Well, really it's every year if the company's goal is total team time spent, but he had multiple documents that he was confronted with on cross-examination.

[00:02:15]He said, "We We don't try to increase the goal or our goal is not to increase team time spent." And then we would show him where literally he's saying, "Our goal is into 2026, they still had goals for team time spent. Absolutely. Our Our latest documents were a little bit before that just because of the discovery cut-off, but our latest documents showed that year after year after year a goal and a milestone and a metric for success at Meta was to grow team time spent as much as possible. So every year they wanted to make the product a little bit more addictive. Absolutely.

[00:02:59]Ms. Bogard, you were in that hearing in 2020.

[00:03:05]Uh when he gave that testimony, you were also in the courtroom. So, how did you feel knowing that you have been through this and then you were in the courtroom?

[00:03:17]Talk to us about that moment.

[00:03:21]Not surprised, of course, um but still very disappointing that someone, anyone, could lie repeatedly and continue to do stat business status quo putting profit before the lives of our children.

[00:03:41]It was very hard to contain your emotions in both of those settings.

[00:03:46]Um all of the parents, we all felt the same. It was very hard to listen to that.

[00:03:53]Oh, I am sure it is because you all live this every single day and we are just so grateful for your persistence.

[00:04:03]We you give strength to legislators. I think that the the fact that you parents and advocates have continued to come forward is why we have 76 co-sponsors on COSA here in the Senate and of course our goal is to get it across the finish line. So, we thank you very much for the consistency of your efforts in helping us with this.

[00:04:38]So, this is concluding our hearing for the day. We thank you all all the parents that are here in the room for my colleagues. I will remind you that questions for the record can be submitted for the next 7 days. You've heard a couple members mention that they're going to have some of those for you and a prompt response is appreciated and at this time the subcommittee is adjourned.

[00:05:08]Thank you.