When Mark Zuckerberg arrived on Capitol Hill this week for a House Financial Services Committee hearing, we’re pretty sure he wasn’t prepared for the full-on lambast session he received from Congresswoman Joyce Beatty and other Democrats…but here we are.

On Wednesday, the Facebook founder sat before the committee to address the company’s plan to launch Libra, a digital currency that could have a large impact on the international financial system, Politico reported. However, the hearing stretched on for more than five hours as Beatty, Representatives Maxine Waters and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pressed Zuckerberg for answers about Facebook’s lack of diversity.

Starting with the platform's COO Sheryl Sandberg, Beatty dug at Zuckerberg for a response to her role over managing an internal task force on civil rights.

"She's your COO, and I don't think there's anything — and I know Sheryl well — about civil rights in her background," Beatty said. "So come better than that for me, if we're going to talk civil rights."

“It’s almost like you think this is a joke when you have ruined the lives of many people, discriminated against them,” Beatty said.

Then, Beatty ripped the tech CEO another one as she inquired about the percentage of Black users on the platform.

“Maybe you just don’t read a lot of things that deal with civil rights or African Americans,” she said. “I would like an answer because this is appalling and disgusting to me"

According to Mashable, Facebook’s diversity report from 2018 shows, despite gradual increases in the number of hired women and employees of color, the employee population is still overwhelmingly composed of white men, especially in leadership positions.

As the congresswomen tag-teamed Zuckerberg, Waters stepped up to the plate and nailed the platform's policy on fact-checking ahead of the 2020 election.

“Despite all of your technological expertise, Russia and Iran are at it again for the upcoming elections,” Waters said to Zuckerberg. “Then, last week you announced a new ad policy that gives politicians a license to lie. Are you telling me…You plan on doing no fact-checking on political ads?” she inquired.

Zuckerberg provided a shocking yet sobering response: “Our policy is that we do not fact check politicians' speech….we believe that in a democracy it is important that people can see for themselves what politicians are saying.”

Ocasio-Cortez, who focused her critiques on Facebook's advertising policies, went a step further and asked the tech CEO if she could place an ad with misleading information on the platform that targets African American communities. While Zuckerberg explained that wouldn't be allowed, the New York congresswoman verbally wondered, "I mean, if you're not fact-checking political advertisements, I'm just trying to understand the bounds here."

Clearly caught off guard, Zuckerberg struggled to recover from the question, insisting that he thinks "lying is bad."

Eager to get a straight answer from him, Ocasio-Cortez offered the Forbes Lister a simpler form to the question: "So you won't take down lies, or you will take down lies? It's just a pretty simple yes or no."

“I told him that we were not going to make it comfortable for him,” Waters told reporters after the hearing. “I don’t think that he should be moving forward with this huge project and this big idea with all of these other concerns that have not really been resolved.”

On top of inquiries into the company’s lax policy on fact-checking political ads and their low-lifts to improve diversity in the workplace, Zuckerberg juggled questions about having business meetings in the Trump hotel in Washington D.C.

In spite of criticism, Zuckerberg reportedly attempted to make a case for Facebook, saying it can help in spreading American values globally.

“Libra will be backed mostly by dollars and I believe it will extend America’s financial leadership as well as our democratic values and oversight around the world,” he said during the hearing.

“If America doesn’t innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed.”

Unconvinced of Zuckerberg’s argument, California Democrat Brad Sherman retorted that the Facebook founder’s only motivation was to “come here and hide behind the poorest people in the world and say that’s who you’re really trying to help.”

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