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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."
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.
not entirely. Google kow-tows to China all the time. Remember google, the anti-censorship company from about 8yrs ago? Slowly but surely they let China boss them around and no longer allow chinese IP addresses to discover information the PRC has declared 'subversive'. Facebook doesn't have to appear, but then again the UK could simply ban all FB Access and impose sanctions on FB assets if they try to subvert the embargo. As far as FB being an american company, I honestly dont know about this. Too many times I learn that, what I assumed as an American company, paid Zero tax dollars in the USA because they incorporated all their crap into Ireland (General Electric, Amazon, etc).
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.
Except the most significant leaks in question occurred in the UK with a UK company and resulting in clear manipulation of the most significant UK referendum of the century not to mention the last US election... I'd not be surprised if the US government forced Zuckerburg to go to the UK since the whole affair is deeply tied to both countries.
I dont think you understand the UK on this. They were not 'requesting', its an order couched in nice language. This move is going to cost him a LOT of political capital to fix. You dont refuse a 'request' from Parliament.
Good-bye