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UK Officials Will Summon Mark Zuckerberg To Testify if He Won't Do So Voluntarily (cnbc.com)
UK officials said Tuesday they will summon Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Parliament the next time he's in British territory if he does not volunteer to do so. From a report: It would be the first governmental summons for Zuckerberg in the fallout of the Cambridge Analytica data leak and widespread concerns around user privacy. "It's worth noting that, while Mr. Zuckerberg does not normally come under the jurisdiction of the UK Parliament, he will do so the next time he enters the country," Damian Collins, a member of the UK Parliament, wrote in a letter published Tuesday. "There are over 40 million Facebook users in the UK and they deserve to hear accurate answers from the company he created and whether it is able to keep their users' data safe," Collins wrote.
So... like they draw a pentagram, hold hands and say his name three times while looking in the mirror? Does that work?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Does Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Sweden each get a turn summoning a CEO for questions?
It's a big unrealistic to expect someone to visit every country in a timely manner. If they wish to speak with company representatives available in their respective region that's certainly reasonable and I'm sure can be arranged promptly.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
*knock on the door*
*Assange opens it*
Assange: Mark?
Zuckerberg: Hey man, slumber party?
I can see how this will play out.
The big players (Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al.) should not determine what's acceptable speech, or attempt to enforce it.
That's the job of the government, there's lots of existing precedent to rely on, and there are clear avenues of appeal and change.
So here's what will happen: things will get really bad for awhile, then something will happen that breaks the dam. There will be a flood of calls to break up Google (in particular), and twitter and facebook and all the others.
Facebook's problem wasn't that they gave information to an outside party, it's that the party was associated with Trump that got them in trouble. Largely the same thing happened with Obama, and Facebook didn't care.
Recently published research shows that google manipulated search results to make Clinton seem more favorable to Trump. The research uses comparisons of search keys between Google, Bing, and Yahoo to make it's point, and is based on results published in PNAS. An excerpt:
overall, manipulating search suggestions can shift a 50/50 split among people who are undecided on an issue to a 90/10 split without people’s awareness and without leaving a paper trail for authorities to follow.
Google engages in unfair media manipulation at its worst, they are literally trying to sway the results of an election to a candidate they prefer. Facebook and Twitter are doing the same. Facebook does the same thing indirectly, by selling personal information to companies who themselves do the manipulation.
It was thought to be "the smart move" when the Obama campaign did it, and at the time no one realized that the same effect could be turned the other way.
The big players are right now laying the grounds for the upcoming election by eliminating certain opinions. Gun proponents explaining how to clean and care for their guns get their accounts locked, videos get demonetized, commentary gets shadow-banned... despite claims of "it was a mistake" and "it's our AI", the results have been largely one-sided.
I don't expect Facebook to be smart enough to notice what's happening (or Google or Twitter), so the most likely outcome is that this will come to a head with enormous public outcry over something in the future (possibly the upcoming US midterm elections), and the companies will be forceably broken down into smaller pieces or made to submit to regulation.
A pity, really. Facebook could probably get a lot of consumer good will by being the champions of human rights.
Instead, they seem hell-bent on forcing governments to step in with regulation.
What exactly do you think the local operation does? Maintain a parallel Facebook with its own independent privacy policies and implementation of those policies?
All of the questions MPs want answered pertain to decisions being made by Zuckerberg and his US-based subordinates. They don't give a fuck how much advertising "Facebook UK" was able to sell.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Zuckerberg is a demon lord, so nothing that simple will work.
It has to be a full summoning circle, with protection circles for the summoner, acolyte minor, and familiar.
The full incant goes something like:
Here have I scribed the true URLs of power,
Forward and backward anagrammatized,
The abbreviated names of holy CEOs,
Figures of every adjunct to the internet,
And characters of signs and evening stars,
By which the spirits are enforced to rise.
And do the utmost magic can perform.
You also need something to appease Zuckerberg once he gets there. The life of a small child, or the promise of toothless regulation, or something similar.
I think they should get with the State Department and get him extradited like any other criminal.
This is the parliamentary equivalent of "We've tried being polite and you refused, so we're not asking anymore".
If someone asks you to attend something, and you decline, and they immediately make some vague threat, then they were never really asking in the first place. This is just them dropping the pretense that it was ever voluntary.
Yes.
It seems to me that US people (I only say the US because that's where I live, I don't know if it's as common elsewhere) seem to think Brits are nice people, and you can get away with shit around them. Brits are *not* especially nice. Brits are *polite*, there is a huge difference. The velvet glove conceals an iron fist, and it's generally easier to be polite back than to piss them off overmuch.
I imagine his questioning will be somewhat more ... in depth ... than it would have been previously. There is no time limit on select-committee investigations, like in the US congressional hearings. If it takes several hours, then it takes several hours...
Physicists get Hadrons!
Just point out that the UK's Customs and Revenues Service will be taking a very detailed look at Facebook's tax returns, with a view to implementing necessary corrections in legislation that will prevent Zuck from off-shoring his profits to some tax haven.
Nothing will get a mega-corp CEO in the room like a threat to their profits.