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Zuckerberg Rebuffs Request To Appear Before UK Parliament (apnews.com)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has rejected a request to appear before an international parliamentary delving into the questions around fake news. From a report: The rebuff came after Damian Collins, the head of the U.K. parliament's media committee, joined forces with his Canadian counterpart in hopes of pressuring Zuckerberg to testify, as he did before the U.S Congress. Facebook rejected the invitation to appear before the so-called "international grand committee" session Nov. 27, arguing it wasn't possible for Zuckerberg to appear before all parliaments.
Alright, I'll try something...
"Hey, Zuckerberg! Don't be a wanker, eh?"
#DeleteFacebook
What a wanker
He must have better things to do than fly around the world explaining things
First pushed around by the EU for daring to not submit, and then ignored by Facebook...
Send a Facebook Portal to every interested parliament, and Zuckerberg gets to live stream to everyone at once without travelling. There you go Facebook, got your next TV commercial for you--Zuck explaining himself to multiple foreign governments at once! Tell me that doesn't move some hardware....
Who do those people think they are? Lord Zuckerberg doesn't have to do shit for them! And they better watch out or during the next elections they'll be on the other end of negative propaganda.
Zuckerberg can get anyone elected! He even got a baboon as President of the USA!
Keeping course...straight to the frying pan! FB WILL be back to pay for its crimes! Zuck gonna cry on CSPAN!
I saw it more as a blue trickle.
Play the Commonwealth card! Her Majesty calls you to testify before the 2.4 billion citizens of her Commonwealth Realms and allied republics, many of whom are nations currently targeted by Facebook.
I'm more interested in the mysterious blue nipple.
Block Fakebook by country and only unblock it (for a couple o'years) when Zuckie appears before the corresponding parliament and says "so sorry, folks".
Popcorn.
I wouldn't either, even were I pure as the driven snow.
I have no love for Zuck or FB, but it's hard to see this as anything but a dog and pony show, or a kangaroo court.
There's no benefit to him, and plenty of potential downside. Why would he show up?
Dems took the House, Reps took some more Senate seats, all as predicted. Big whoop. Nobody outside of the US cares about your insane political system, only about the effects you lunatics have on the rest of us.
I guess my first question would be "or what?"
Is the UK going to try to block Facebook? That's a pretty good way to piss off your citizens as well as the government of one of your major trading partners (the United States); to say nothing about inviting the asking of serious questions about the power of the state to censor, etc.
Will they deny him entry into Commonwealth entities? That might be inconvenient, but that would be all.
I'm sure there are other levers to pull, but I'm not sure what they would be.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Mister Z is a very busy man. Running the world and tweaking people's opinions is a full-time job. Please leave him alone.
Down with the blue party. Red party is the best! Go Red!
you'll get a more human response
If he won't answer questions for the product which is being used on UK soil (and 'sold' on it - adverts etc) then fine, block it pirate-bay style
Sure, it'll be unpopular, but productivity will skyrocket, fake news will probably not get read anywhere near as much, zuckerberg 'may' get the message, and people will discover that there's more to life than facebook.
And I also have no sympathys if your business uses facebook a *lot*. You don't put all your eggs in one basket.
I for one, would welcome a ban/block on facebook, given the damage it does to peoples psychological well being.
The midterm results are consistent with the 2016 election. The states voted for him party-wise by a small margin. The people voted against him party-wise by a larger margin. The takeaway is that more states have some concern that he addresses that isn't shared by the majority of the people in the country. He's a "special interests" president. Anonymous, because you're already offtopic.
If I - as an American - were asked to appear before foreign government bodies for questioning, my response would not be so politic. Zuckerberg most certainly has better things to be doing. It's a slippery slope. Next month, France wants him to appear, then Spain and Italy, then Angola and China. The obvious place to draw the line is at the edges of your own nation's sovereignty.
to say nothing about inviting the asking of serious questions about the power of the state to censor, etc.
The UK already does censor. There are things called super injunctions that rich people and royals can use to silence the press when they do something embarrassing (and the newspaper's are not even allowed to admit they're being censored when it happens). There is also already censorship of certain types of consensual pron. UK regularly censors what is on children's shows. Some shows from America have to be reworded before being allowed to be shown in UK or get banned altogether. And... don't forget hate speech. You can be arrested just for saying something hateful about a minority.
In many ways Britain is a free and forwards-looking country- but in many other ways it is a censor-heavy contradiction of itself and what it purportedly believes in. I love the UK but it has some back-ass censorship laws in place. They're not going to block Facebook; but, don't act surprised if Britain censors anything. The government certainly reserves the right and there is no written constitution that forbids them.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
âoeInternet media should spread positive information, uphold the correct political direction, and guide public opinion toward the right direction,â the state-run Xinhua news service reported in April, summarizing the instructions of Mr. Xi, who âoestressed the centralized, unified leadership of the Party over cybersecurity.â
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Taxes, fines, and regulations.
Regulations especially. The UK or Canada could quite easily make it clear that their existing privacy law applies to Facebook.
"That's a pretty good way to piss off your citizens"
I don't know, as a citizen of one of those countries i am more pissed off that the head of a company which does business in my country is unwilling to come answer a few questions from the elected officials who represent me. Especially given the influence that facebook has (intentional or not) into our elections, if the head of the country is unwilling to come answer questions regarding such propaganda efforts that happen on his network then by all means ban that network.
He is the one who wants to do business around the world and be the largest social network. Guess what? that kind of requires him to be social with the governments of countries which he wants to do business in. With great power comes great responsibility, and his responsibility is to represent the company in the best light even if that means he has to travel the world glad handing politicians. if he doesn't want to do it he could make someone else CEO and send them, but snubbing any government request as such is similar to snubbing the citizens of that country. Facebook has an image problem of late and this isnt helping it, heck i wouldn't be surprised if there was an investor lawsuit because of this as he is not completing his fiduciary requirement to maximize profits for the shareholders. Facebook stands to loose a bunch of advertising revenue due to this decision.
Will they deny him entry into Commonwealth entities? That might be inconvenient, but that would be all.
Contrary to what many people think, the Commonwealth member nations are actually independent, or at the very least, self-governing. The UK cannot dictate to the rest of the Commonwealth to ban or otherwise sanction any individual. In other words, even that minor inconvenience isn't even on the table. (And, no, Elizabeth II cannot try throwing her weight as Queen around, even in nations where her power is more than ceremonial, without potentially triggering a wave of monachy abolition movements.)
Obviously, the Commonwealth nations could agree to take some action, but that is unlikely on anything but the least controversial issues. Everyone has a dozen mutually incompatible agendas of their own, never mind trying to figure out something they all agree on with others.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
"Feels like we're really there!"
'I'm more interested in the mysterious blue nipple.'
I'm waiting for the 4 Avatar sequels as well.
' Elizabeth II cannot try throwing her weight as Queen around, '
Sssssss! Lèse-Majesté!
The Queen is not fat!
I thought Red meant Russia, a.k.a. "scary Communists". Seeing how they act, except using money instead of the military, it's hard to tell the difference.
#DeleteFacebook
"it wasn't possible for Zuckerberg to appear before all parliaments"
Funny, he seems to have the time to court nearly every country's MARKETS, but not to speak to their government. What, he's got a lot of paperwork to do?
He had the time to basically wander across America on his apologia tour https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... (that was turned into an hilarious meme https://mashable.com/2017/09/2...). But not for, say, the democratically elected representatives of a major western government to speak with him?
-Styopa
Just modify your /etc/hosts file (or whatever Windows calls it).
It will take a few hundred entries to ban all of facebook, but it does work.
Are a few examples.
Fuck Zuck and his Chinese conspirators!
They're Red because Putin bought out the Repugnant Klan Party, didn't you hear? They don't actually care about freedumb as long as El Dump says it's ok to beat up brown people.
Yes. The Klan States are still the people the Nazis took their hints from. That's how this works, white supremacists in the USA never really went away. They've been the Repugnant Klan Party since Nixon & Atwater and the "Southern Strategy".
Exactly, all Commonwealth members are equal.
There is one area where they do have to legislate together, namely the Monarchy. Things like the order of succession have to be agreed to by all members of the Commonwealth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Well I would block acces to the site... .see if your advertiser stay with you when they have no one to reach.
You ungrateful b****
It's not just the US that make facebook a success.
In fact, he'd need only appear before the EU, AU and USAN to have appeared before over two thirds the inhabited globe.
By my count, that's three. His may be different. I am sure he can spare half a week from selling your data to whoever asks.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Feaceexit from CAD and UK, nobody except snowflakes will cry much.
I umderstand that he shoild go, but is there any legal reason he must go? It is not a court, so is there a legal reason he must appear? And if not, what are the consequences?
Honest question, as I have no idea snd it is important to the discussion.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
What makes you think you have some inherent right to be free from propaganda or being offended? Fuck off cuck. You're free to flood the airwaves with your false misguided bullshit leftist "think of the children" bullshit. So the right is free to post whatever they want too.
The Count Dankula kerfuffle certainly shows what side the UK stands for. What a fucking waste of taxpayer money that was.
Zuckerberg is shit, but if other countries don't like our shitbags they can get off our internet.
What I'm suggesting is that there is a formal organization that they can use to put pressure on Zuckerberg. I know that the Commonwealth nations are all independent state, but that's what this kind of multilateral organization is for, to use their collective weight for common interests. Talk about Her Majesty was merely for literary flourish.
The Count Dankula kerfuffle certainly shows what side the UK stands for. What a fucking waste of taxpayer money that was.
Indeed, if you're an F1 millionaire you can get away with Nazi themed sex parties with prostitutes dressed as concentration camp guards and have the newspapers silenced so they can't report on it (at least for a time). If you're a nobody and you post a video showing you pranking your girlfriend by teaching her cute dog to do a Nazi salute you get charged with a hate crime
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Along with all social media...
But we want a fresh set of memes!
Why should Zuckerberg testify before a UK governmental body? Facebook is for the record, Facebook UK LTD, a corporate entity in the UK. He is not one of the officers of that entity. The nearest person of interest in that UK entity is Sheryl Sandberg (Director).
If the UK parliament is interested in having a company account for its UK activities they should call the corporate officers responsible for that company in the UK. So I would call this mostly a symbolic demand, which Zuckerberg is probably right to equally symbolically turn down.
News flash: The United States is not a member of the Commonwealth.
For "historical reasons."
For those same historical reasons, Americans find it hilarious that the British Government would send a "summons" to an American.
I think the general response is going to be something along the lines of, "Shove it up your Battle of New Orleans!"
The weirdest part is the idea that Queen Elizabeth II is some sort of political figure who would get involved in this stuff! My goodness.
It doesn't matter what powers she still is granted, attempting to wield political powers is not going to happen. The British Royal Family understands very well their role in society, which is why they still have that roll, and are in fact well loves around the world for the grace and dignity with which they play it.
Ah, isn't capitalism wonderful when it works exactly as intended?
Not really though, because they're only agreeing on the long list of titles that are normally omitted. :)
I don't think they've ever claimed a different order of succession than was determined by the British. They wouldn't try, if a country disagreed they'd just leave the Commonwealth instead. I mean, how would they ever win that argument? "No, sorry, Britain doesn't know what their succession is." That would be silly.
They don't collectively legislate the order of succession, they collectively show continuing agreement with the things that underpin their alliance.
You expressed it more clearly, but I think that was actually my point with the throwing weight around thing.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
If the US was a Commonwealth nation, (we're not) then they could try to force the US Government to force Zuckerberg to testify, but then they'd find out that the US Government has no power to order him to, and so they'd just have to kick us out. Kicking members out of the Commonwealth is 100% of the power that the Commonwealth has over members. 100%.
Under US law, the British Parliament is outside US jurisdiction. If you wanted to the US Government to have the power to order US Persons to testify there, you would, at a minimum and before US courts would even think about saying yes, have to get the British to place their Parliament entirely under US jurisdiction! And if they did that, then there would no longer be any pressing need to have a person testify over there, they could just testify to the US Congress and the British would then have to accept those answers. So even turning their whole country over to us wouldn't make it likely that they could force testimony.
That's not quite correct. The only countries which have to legislate together on the succession are the 16 countries where Elizabeth is the monarch. They're a minority of the Commonwealth countries.
The queen doesn't have a direct political role, but she still plays a role. To many citizens, the queen's disapproval of a government action (or inaction) would carry a lot of weight.
International warrant for arrest
Seizure of assets
make laws that enable fine of say 10% of global revenue (not profit, revenue)
Removal of tax deductible status for advertising with facebook
The USA is NOT the boss of the world, no matter what you think.
The USA has as much (if not more) to loose than the UK, what happens to the US if the rest of the world follows any sanctions the UK imposes, the US is only 4% of the worlds population. The rest of the world is looking at how to tax US corporations, do you think the US government wants the world to be shown that it can be done and the US can be bullied back.... for example what happens to Boeing if everyone choose to buy Airbus, US space missions, how well do they work if other countries stop supplying communications, what happens if everyone else decides international trade will be done in Euro's, how about if the rest of the world goes back to the old copyright/patent periods.
There are lots and lots of levers, and if enough of them get pulled the US government would be happy to delivery his body if needed.
The USA is NOT the greatest country on earth, it is NOT the leader of the free world
Yes, they could block Facebook. And don't think they'd give a damn about their bad reputation. They're going to lose the next general election, so why should they care? What's in it for them? Besides, people in Britain hold privacy dear to them, we invented most of the existing data protection laws around the world. Don't expect the British to support Facebook, in a showdown.
(And, no, nobody would regard it as censorship. It is enforcing a law the British requested in the first place. To put it in perspective, many British hold privacy in the same regard as Americans hold the Second Amendment, maybe higher.)
The US doesn't matter to Britain. We regard our former colonists with derision and amusement, and very little more.
Britain is more likely to put out an international arrest warrant, which would affect Zuckerberg's freedom of movement and would not seriously affect anyone in Britain.
The most likely situation, though, is for the EU to place a $1 billion fine on Facebook, with threat of disconnection across Europe as a whole if Facebook didn't pay up. Whether they carried that out or not wouldn't matter, share prices would be hit, as would advertising revenue.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No, no power. Except to totally ruin your business model.
And, yes, they do have power. Failure to answer a subpoena is a criminal offence.
Which means he can't answer to the British courts, because as soon as he turned up, he'd be arrested for contempt of Parliament. Under the British system, this can be indefinite, since Britain is leaving the EU and will no longer follow EU law obligating them to limited tariffs.
He has sold personal information to agents of a hostile power that has launched multiple chemical warfare attacks against Britain. What sort of trial do you think he'd get?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's amazing the human capacity to be grovelling slaves to the powerful. And they enjoy it.
Which is exactly why she's not going to express disapproval! It would carry weight, which is a political act itself, and it would endanger the Royal Family's position in society. Their contemporary position in society is based on being outside of politics, that doesn't just mean not running for office, it means actually remaining outside of politics. There are different "sides" in politics, and so if you say something that carries weight, all the people that disagree know you were being political!
Boy, y'all sure do tell some funny stories.
>captcha: winced
The US doesn't matter to Britain. We regard our former colonists with derision and amusement, and very little more.
Okay, pipsqueak
The mouse that roared.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
My dick fell off. When it bounced, it got stuck in my ass. Then it got a boner.
Um, no
the Commonwealth of Nations isn't run by the UK at all, the UK Government has no more influence on the Government of any other Commonwealth nation than any other allied country does.
Lovely Whitehouse you have there, shame if something were to happen to it...
again
Winning one battle, AFTER you lost the war (and everywhere outside the US acknowledges you lost that war, easiest proof, there is a Canada) isn't really much to brag about, especially since the British were sort of distracted with this gigantic war in Europe, some pesky fellow named Napoleon
It's not "the UK government" that has backwards censorship laws.
The government is corrupt, sure, but the bottom line is that the citizens of the UK demand and acquiesce to this stuff.
Thank the self-righteous prick and the room-temperature-IQ-fool to your left and right-- they're every bit as much to blame as the government is.
But I doubt you'll be reading my words if you live in the UK so let this be a warning to anyone living in a slightly-more-free country where men and women are still able to speak.
You are correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The Statute of Westminster says,
And while my country can't decide on the order of succession of the British Monarch, the UK can't decide on the order of of succession of the Canadian Monarch and neither of us can decide on the order of succession of the Australian Monarch etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
Right, right, that's the whole point. The Commonwealth is a club, not a cartel. It has no powers other than something something having to do with cricket.
They can start by making an actual legal summons rather than just a pretty-please letter from a parliamentry subcommittee.
I find it fascinating that you've made assumptions about the politics (and marital status) of the person to whom you replied, none of which relate even slightly to the post they made.
It doesn't make you look good. Or sane.
I think you'll find the cricket is merely an excuse for a good tea.
Indeed, I think you'll find England have paused their rampant domination of a struggling Sri Lankan side so that they can enjoy a nice mid afternoon cuppa in Galle.
It'll be nice if Jennings can get his century when they resume, although the 351 run lead is probably already enough.
That's not entirely true. As a permanent member of the UN security council, one of the world's largest economies, a nuclear power with substantial conventional force projection capabilities and a centuries old reputation the UK exerts a tremendous amount of influence.
It just doesn't derive from its position in the Commonwealth.
Britain is more likely to put out an international arrest warrant
No, they're more likely to go "Well, fuck him" and regulate Facebook anyway.
Er that that is a legal summons. It's debatable if failure to comply by a none UK citizen is contempt of Parliament. However if it is the Serjeant at Arms is responsible for enforcement and is able to call upon the civil authorities including the police to enforce the appearance.
A UK citizen *MUST* appear if called, including coming back from abroad. A non UK citizen not so clear, but failure to attend is likely to make visiting the UK in future a risky business. It has been a very long time since someone need to be forced to appear before a select committee. However next time Zuckerberg steps on UK soil he could easily find himself arrested.
I think Zuck is in for a few firmware updates around that time anyway.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You may want it to be, but it's not. The UK parliament has not yet issued a legal summons for the Zuck. Not now, and not back in May. Actually the last time we debated this and everyone held up this parliamentary summons it was easy enough to quote the actual MPs who said that they would consider issuing a formal summons if he entered the UK.
But until they do, the only requests have been kindly worded letters posted through Facebook's public relations department, not even addressed to Zucker himself.
In countries that aren't run by tin pot dictators, warrants for arrest and asset forfeiture are responses to breaking laws.
Are you really arguing for authoritarian, nationalist actions?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I don't know who you think you are fooling when you say that the US doesn't matter to Britain, well, other than yourself.
At least try to be a little honest.
Was actually intended as obnoxious trolling but I forgot to hit the checkbox.
I'm sure that is not the only way it can work. After all, people are extradited from the US to other countries aren't they? And that doesn't require the other countries to be placed under US jurisdiction.
Yes, and one of the agreements to be in the club is agreeing on the order of succession before any of us change it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism