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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."
I guess he needs to bone up on his company security policy and business model.
Well, he can't exactly bring the Russians with him to explain how things work.
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!
The UK is a frightening police state where they imprison people over pet videos.
This. Exactly this. 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.
Moreover, free speech does not have the same protections in the U.K. as it does in the U.S.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
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.
Kind of like how America extradites CEOs of non-American companies to the US to face 'justice' in the American court system?
Be very careful with that glass house you're throwing rocks from.
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).
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.
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...