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Zuckerberg Refuses UK Parliament Summons Over Facebook Data Misuse, Agrees To Testify Before Congress (techcrunch.com)
PolygamousRanchKid shares a report from TechCrunch: So much for "We are accountable"; Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declined a summons from a UK parliamentary committee that's investigating how social media data is being used, and -- as recent revelations suggest misused -- for political ad targeting. The DCMS committee wrote to Zuckerberg on March 20 -- following newspaper reports based on interviews with a former employee of UK political consultancy, Cambridge Analytica, who revealed the company obtained Facebook data on 50 million users -- calling for him to give oral evidence. Facebook's policy staff, Simon Milner, previously told the committee the consultancy did not have Facebook data. In a statement a Facebook spokesperson said it will be offering its CTO or chief product officer to answer questions. Today, CNN reports that Mark Zuckerberg has decided to testify before Congress within a matter of weeks, and Facebook is currently planning the strategy for his testimony. "The Facebook sources believe Zuckerberg's willingness to testify will also put pressure on Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to do the same," reports CNN. "Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has officially invited all three CEOs to a hearing on data privacy on April 10. That means Washington, not London, will be the stage for the trial of big tech."
Protect yoself before the Zuch wrecks yoself with APK HOSTs File Engine!
I guess he needs to bone up on his company security policy and business model.
The UK is a frightening police state where they imprison people over pet videos.
The UK Parliament are "dumb fucks" anyway.
You were asked nicely to attend, you send a lacky instead...
That now makes it somewhat easier to pass Facebook-unfriendly legislation.
Thanks for your contribution to internet privacy!
And I guess if would be the UKs prerogative to ban his site in the UK
Why would Zuckerberg comply with anything other than armed officers escorting him out of the building? The entire service was built on dishonesty. Stolen from another student, built to keep tabs on coeds they wanted to bang, and slurping and exploiting data on the other two billion people who have signed up since then. Facebook is toxic. Facebook is a cancer on the Internet. Facebook brings out the worst in people. Facebook breaks every privacy law a million times every day. The Internet needs to rid itself of Facebook.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
How about "declines"? He does not life in the UK, he owes them squat. If he'd actually would go, every shitty politician on the planet would "summon" him (i.e. the germans are also dillusional about that)...
They are American companies; why would they choose London over Washington D.C.? In theory, I'm assuming DC has more leverage anyway since anything London can do can probably ignored?
-SaNo
Who gives a shit.
I like it!
Yeah, because the best country to set the stage for data privacy should be the one country it actually enabled hiding the fact it in the first place. And you're surprised Russia, China or even Germany or the UK have issues with data stored in the US. Did anybody say IRIS?
You heard it from me, anonymous coward, as a 2018 prediction. Right here in this forum, if you have the courage to read at -1.
Two things will not survive 2018: 1) Facebook 2) trump
If I were Zuck, I'd stay the hell out of the U.K. as well. FB is an American company, and if every single parliament in the world starts to summon American CEOs, it simply doesn't work.
That's fine so long as those American companies "stay the hell out" of other countries too. However, if you are going to do business in those countries and especially if you are potentially involved in a massive violation of their online privacy laws then expect to get summoned by their governments, if not their courts.
And if its such a big deal why hasn't Slashdot had more stories on it?
Before you know it every country in the world will expect him to turn up in person in order to be grilled. Try keeping your story straight and your lies aligned over 195 interrogations^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H testimonies with committees who are all armed with knowledge about all the previous hearings.
The whole platform was funded by the CIA/NSA to spy on users since day one.
Facebook has been working exactly as designed.
No wonder he decided this:
- US Congress: Dance around Russian bullshit and let it blow over
- UK Parliament: Talk about privacy, a very hostile subject for FB
Well, he's still young. People forget quickly.
These are data miners, not technologists. They provide little to no net benefit to society, they simply trick idiots into handing them information so they can sell it off to marketing and PR parasites.
They can do a lot more than just ban his site. Really annoying an entire government is a dangerous thing to do given that they literally make the rules and the UK has no written constitution to constrain it: it's a parliamentary dictatorship.
It will be a non event as he'll say nothing on the advice of the 500 lawyers that will go with him.
His minion that will go to London probably won't say much more than 'No Comment'.
Stop using FaceBook and all other social media. It isn't for you. It is for others to make money from your life and you don't get either a cut of the profits or a say in how it is used.
No collusion!
The Terms of Service are clear. That Facebook users are dumbshit subhumans who are too illiterate or mentally lazy (like subhuman animals) to read terms of services they agree to, is not Zuckerberg's problem. As he said before, Facebook users are all dumb fucks. It's getting more and more true by the day.
Who deserves to be treated like shit more than the very people who are the definition of stupid shit, who even stamp a Terms of Service agreement which is saying they are stupid shit? No sympathy for Facebook users, no empathy for Facebook users, no empathy for people so low IQ and dumbshit as a collective that they not only don't know how to read ToS, they also believe a free service exists without something as a product (mainly them).
Such stupid subhuman filth needs not be accommodated by governments, for it exists to be exploited like pigs, for the intellect of the Facebook collective is that of pigs to be herded and exploited for their meat and fat.
It's a simple truth.
...meanwhile, for those not in the know, the UK courts issued a search warrant on Cambridge Analytica. This took so long and was so well publicised that the company took measures to remove a lot of files from its building, and were photographed in the act. So I don't know what they expect to find other than shredded paper.
You know, it's a corporation thing... The shareholders made me do it.
Photo op for politicians. No laws were broken, at least no one has cited one law that was broken. All that has been implied is that data was mis-used, which is also incorrect. Data was mined and used. Just like Obama did in 2012.
You may hate the weasel but all he has done is what Facebook has stated they would do, sell your information for profit.
Until you change the laws around that, nothing will change.
Zuckerberg is a cartoonish villain. But he's an American. Let him testify to Congress. Good for him.
But yeah, time for some antitrust action on FB & duh Goog.
>>599607
Q
are we going to have more freedom of speech on "private" public speech services or not?
please answer this question
>>599614
100%
Regulated.
Some platforms will collapse under their own weight of illegal activities.
Q
March 9th, 2018, 6:20 EST
americans must be the stupidest people out there. anyone with memory better than a fish should remember several cases where american law is supposedly being broken by people that have never ever been in the country or had anything to do with the country and woe those that did that... illegal swat operations to come.. kim.com f.ex. and well i guess even some uk citicens being extrodited.
honestly i personally hoped he crashes and burns
You know, it's a corporation thing... The shareholders made me do it.
Since Zuck owns enough Facebook Class B shares** to give himself 60% of the voting rights in FB, I'm not sure that is the best argument for him to make...
**Facebook Class B shares have 10x the voting rights of Class A shares...
Q: How do you respond to the millions of people you've put at risk by failing to implement basic privacy control?
A: You told us. We provide data you yourselves mine.
Isnt Facebook's business model based on being able to capitalize on user data? Do people not understand this when they setup an account with FB? Honestly, I dont understand why people are upset about this.
So when we entered this huge social media experiment, we got kind of closer to each other in that we're all connected, but we gave government a back door to our data (because companies can't say no). Government hasn't been able to admit to the amount of spying, so they had to wait until an appropriate time to make a big deal of the providers' lack of respect for their customers' data privacy. The ultimate goal of the intelligence services and politicians is ultimately to establish a core of what are essentially the same as Communist Party political officers in Russia.
At this briefing / "trial", congress' goal will be to establish itself as the nanny. Ultimately, it will attempt to put more people, pointedly who government controls, in as censors. They won't call them that. Right now they are up in arms about denying the other party access to the social graph while maintaining control of as much of it as they can in their own party. The goal of the censor will be to represent their own party, allow the greatest amount of data mining possible, while denying any data mining to the opposite party. Further, suppressing speech by the opposing party while encouraging meme flow by the in group.
Both parties have that as the goal. In the past, the Democratic Party has had a large advantage in tech and on the social graph due to having a homogeneity of thought in tech workers. As the opposing group has been disproportionately banned and censored, you can expect that both sides will lose a great amount of political freedom.
Why reciprocity?
There have been a number of cases where the UK has refused to hand over hackers who have been caught criminally hacking US government computers. If the UK will not hand over criminal hackers, why should that same government expect an American citizen not yet formally accused of any illegality to voluntarily spend time and money and expose himself to legal jeopardy voluntarily?
Why is Zuckerberg (who I personally find reprehensible) making sense with these actions?
He is a US Citizen with Constitutional rights. He will testify before the congress of his country as is his duty, but has no duty to submit to the rule of the very monarchy our nation's founders cast off and whose rule we are very specifically not under. His business (which I dislike and do not use, so I am NOT a fanboy) is an American business, based in the US and subject to US law and operating on the Internet which is a US creation. It's perfectly fine that the UK has attached itself to the internet, but that does not suddenly make UK law supreme on the internet. I'm sure there are Germans who would like German law to rule the internet, and Chinese who'd like Chinese law to rule the internet, and Bulgarians who'd like Bulgarian law to rule the internet, but it's a completely untenable idea that every nation gets to apply all its laws to the entire planet's internet activity - many of those laws would conflict with each other (just imagine all the conflicting censorship regimes). The UK offers very few protections - they recently imprisoned a young American woman when she stepped onto their soil because she was going there to interview some anti-Muslim European and they decided that made her a public danger (no hint of where this rule goes when Muslim Jihadists arrive in London and hop onto a soap box in the park to loudly proclaim their intentions to kill or convert all to Islam and place the UK under Sharia law...). The UK has no actual Constitutional rights, for all their democratic pretenses, they are still formally a monarchy with some rather arbitrary laws.
Historically, nations handle the actions of their own citizens and of others who are within their territories - and enything else is handled between nations at the level of diplomats and diplomacy. This is the tradition that ought to be upheld in the internet era. If the Brits want Zuck to testify, they can contact the Trump Administration State Department and make a formal request - which could be interesting given that Trump probably does not care for Zuck, but also has been attacked quite loudly by many British pols. The US and the UK have long diplomatic ties and are allies, so there are almost certainly treaties that cover such situations that would permit the Brits to get Zuck to come over and testify while not losing his rights as a US citizen, and as a US citizen Zuck should insist on his rights.
typical antisemitic gall.
Wrap yourself in one of your spare aryan nation flags and jump off a very tall building.
You idiots who rant about and hate individuals you've never met, based purely on their genetics, are dumber that a fence post.
The request by Parliament is not an order, it is a request. Even as a UK citizen I can refuse to appear however it's a very stupid thing to do as it's a very clear message to MP's (AKA a BIG middle finger). But here are a few arguments as to why he should turn up.
1) Yes he is CEO of Facebook US however has actions have a direct impact on the users in the UK. Mr Z has publicly stated that he approves change to the website, API's etc etc. The EU subsidiaries in effect use what he controls so it's reasonable for MP's who look out of UK citizens want a word. ;)
2) Yes Cambridge Ana. are a UK company (and the Information commissioner is going to have fun) but the alleged data was gained through Facebook's API which last time I checked were controlled by the US company (see point 1). Also I think Facebook had data protection obligations under the data safe harbor rules between the US/EU at the time which appear breached. You could say this is an EU matter however.
3) As the biggest why. Facebook (and the other internet companies) as facing increasing pressure for regulation in Europe and in the biggest bone headed move that is a clear example of the Valley's attitude the very same MP's he's just "snubbed" are in fact looking as this area of the law now. Win Win
4) Facebook say there a "global company", well now's the time to act like one.
Finally starting to see the Zuck's true colors. Underneath that carefully manufactured facade of brogrammer hypsterism is a scared, spoiled, insecure little coward.
I see why he wanted to run for PotUS, he's just like The Donald.
He's actually quite a good metaphor for his company: all ego, no substance.
1. as you admitted, if a government tosses you into a cell and refuses to let you go anywhere other than onto a plane out of the country it sure seems like being jailed. It's about on-par with a person arrested for a traffic offense and being allowed to post bail, except that the bad driver is not told to leave the county and never return.
2. There are plenty of radical Muslims in the UK who march in protests and who speak loudly in public spaces in favor of Jihad and converting the UK to a Muslim country under Sharia law. This is far more "divisive" than an American reporter arriving to interview a European and then fly home, but the American reporter was detained and then kicked out. I dislike the guy rather intensely, but it reminds me of the way radio guy Savage was banned from the UK under Tony Blair; it was later determined that the government wanted to blame some Muslim "hate preachers" but did not want to be called racists, so they looked for a non-Muslim white guy to ban from the UK and somebody suggested Savage.
When a system is that off-kilter and that willing to go after an American of some note (not a typical tourist) for internal political reasons, it could be a really bad idea for somebody like Zuck to go there to be publicly berated by a bunch of politicians seeking to mollify an angry mob.
and pointed out that the UK is free to regulate and/or shut down any UK division of Facebook.
Traditionally, nations have had the ability to enforce their own laws on their own people and businesses, foreign people and businesses which are physically within their borders (provided they give access to diplomats from their home country), and any foreign persons handed over in honor of extradition treaties agreed to by diplomats. Nations have not had the ability to go after foreigners of foreign soil other than in times of war or with the assistance of a bunch of diplomats. The fact that an internet user in one country can log into a website provided by a business in another country causes many people to forget the norms and imagine that this means the website owner is operating within every country - that's a temtping illusion for politicians of all parties in all countries but it is simply untenable.
Facebook [and other companies] have been using a variety of loopholes to smuggle profits out of the UK for years.
If Zuckerberg thinks he can thumb his nose at the UK government and get away with it, he might be in for a very rude awakening. Governments like the UK seem to "turn a blind eye" to multinational companies that off-shore profits, as long as they do so when employing a reasonable number of UK nationals on UK soil - i.e. to provide a reasonable amount of local employment in return.
But that's not the case here - and being rude to a government is not going to help his case much.
The UK police state wants it cake and eats it too? Why the hell should he? Are they going to shut down FB over it? And really, why do you need the CEO to testify...he likely doesn't have all of the technical details.
I don't like this situation any more than anyone in the UK, but I'm not feeling very generous toward them allowing a UK citizen a free pass on hacking into American systems with no consequences. Sure, don't send them, but what's to stop other UK citizens from doing the same now?
Just another day in Paradise