Congress members received hefty donations from Facebook employees

Committee members of the House and Senate set to hear the testimony of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook had received considerable contributions from Facebook employees and its political action committee. These contributions were meant for the members’ political campaigns.

The Senate Judiciary Committee and Commerce Committee will conduct a joint hearing with Zuckerberg. According to Center for Responsive Politics, since 2007, members of these two committees have received $604,000 in contributions. Members of Judiciary Committee received over $235,000 while members of Commerce Committee received $369,000 in contributions. Out of the 55 members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, all except nine have received contributions over the last decade. Committee Chairman received $27,000 and a ranking member also received $6,000.

Facebook has its own political action committee that frequently makes contributions to federal candidates. The social network company also allows its employees to engage in personal political activities conducted on time away from work and on personal funds.

Over the last decade, Facebook has contributed over $7 million to federal candidates. 65 percent of these funds when to Democrats while Republicans got 33 percent. Facebook has also spent over $11.5 million lobbying Congress. Separately, Facebook and its employees have also given more than $1.3 million to 266 House candidates and $1.1 million to 134 Senate candidates. Another amount of $700,000 has been donated to a total of 14 presidential candidates.

Zuckerberg is all set to appear for his testimony tomorrow where he is expected to apologize and be answerable for the social network’s crisis to handle fake news, hate speech, allowing foreign countries to interfere in elections and most importantly, failing to protect user data.