Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had made it about an hour into his two-day marathon testimony in front of Congress before the M-word came up.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was the first to float the term as lawmakers began their grilling at the April 2018 hearing. The senators wanted to know how the data from 87 million Facebook profiles was able to be harvested and sold to a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, without users’ consent.

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The story prompted outrage at a time when Americans were particularly divided in the wake of Trump’s election and concerned about Russian interference through social media platforms. The most important response, according to Jen King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, came from lawmakers.

“I think Cambridge Analytica was pivotal a little bit less because of the public impact and a little bit more because of the effect on Congress,” King said. “Cambridge Analytica, because of its potential effect on the election, I think, is what motivated a lot of congressional actors to go, ‘Oh crap, this is a serious issue.’”