Zuckerberg refuses to appear before UK parliamentary committee for questioning
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has refused to appear before a UK Parliament committee that's investigating data misuse on social media in the light of the recent Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. Instead, Facebook's CTO Mike Schroepfer or Chief Product Officer Chris Cox will appear before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee. However, Zuckerberg has agreed to testify before the US Congress regarding the same.
Facebook consistently understated data privacy: British lawmaker
Accusing Facebook of having "consistently understated" user data privacy, the committee's chairman Damian Collins had said in his letter to Zuckerberg, "I [should] hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process." "Given your commitment to "fixing" Facebook, I hope that this representative will be you," he said.
We support parliamentary interest in the issue: Facebook
In response, Facebook's head of public policy Rebecca Stimson said, "Facebook fully recognizes the level of public and Parliamentary interest in these issues and support your belief that these issues must be addressed at the most senior levels of the company." "Mr. Zuckerberg has personally asked one of his deputies to make themselves available to give evidence in person to the committee," she added.
UK committee insists on speaking to Zuckerberg
Stimson assured the committee that both Cox and Schroepfer are among the longest-serving senior representatives in the company. They are responsible for the development of Facebook's core products and report directly to Zuckerberg. However, Collins said it wasn't clear from the correspondence if Zuckerberg was available or not, and that he would like to speak to him, even if it is "via video link."
Zuckerberg had promised to salvage the situation
The DCMS investigation follows the news of data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica obtaining user data of 50 million people from Facebook without their permission to allegedly manipulate their votes ahead of the 2016 US presidential elections. Later, Zuckerberg apologized for Facebook's lax terms of service that allowed Cambridge Analytica to carry out the mass data exploitation and promised to make amends.
Facebook under pressure from both US and UK lawmakers
In the US too, three congressional committees have asked Zuckerberg to testify regarding issues of data privacy on the social network. However, it is currently unclear how many of these summons Zuckerberg would accept.
