Now eight parliaments are demanding Zuckerberg answers for Facebook scandals
Now eight parliaments are demanding Zuckerberg answers
for Facebook scandals
By Natasha Lomas November 19, 2018
Facebook’s founder
is facing pressure to accept an invite from eight international parliaments,
with lawmakers wanting to question him about negative impacts his social
network is having on democratic processes globally.
Last week Facebook declined an invitation from five of
these parliaments.
The elected representatives of Facebook users want Mark
Zuckerberg to answer questions in the
wake of a string of data misuse and security scandals attached to his platform.
The international parliaments have joined forces — forming a grand committee —
to amp up the pressure on Facebook.
The U.K.-led grand committee said it would meet later
this month, representing the interests of some 170 million Facebook users
across Argentina, Australia, Canada, Ireland and the U.K. But Facebook snubbed
that invite.
Today the request has been reissued with an additional
three parliaments on board — Brazil, Latvia and Singapore.
In their latest invite letter they also make it clear
that Facebook’s founder does not have to attend the hearing in person — which
was the excuse the company used to decline the last request for Zuckerberg.
(Which was just the latest in a long string of ‘nos’ Facebook’s founder has
given the committee.)
“We note that while your letter states that you are ‘not
able to be in London’ on 27th, it does not rule out giving evidence per se.
Would you be amenable to giving evidence via video link instead?” the grand
committee writes now.
We’ve asked Facebook whether Zuckerberg will be able to
make time in his schedule to provide evidence remotely — and will update this
report with any response. (A company spokesman suggested to us that it’s
unlikely to do so.)
Of course Zuckerberg is very busy these days — given the
fresh scandals slamming Facebook’s exec team. His political plate is truly
heaped.
Last week a New York Times report painted an ugly and
chaotic picture of Facebook’s leaders’ response to the political disinformation
crisis — which included engaging an external public relations firm which used
smear tactics against opponents. (Facebook has since severed ties with the
firm.)
The grand committee references this controversy in its
latest invitation letter, writing: “We believe that there are important issues
to be discussed, and that you are the appropriate person to answer them.
Yesterday’s New York Times article raises further questions about how recent
data breaches were allegedly dealt with within Facebook.”
The U.K.’s DCMS committee, which has been spearheading
efforts to hold Zuckerberg to account, has spent the best part of this year asking
wide-ranging questions about the impact of online disinformation on democratic
processes. But it has become increasingly damning in its criticism of Facebook
— accusing the company of evasion, equivocation and worse as the months have
gone on.
In a preliminary report this summer it also called on the
government to act urgently, recommending a levy on social media and stronger
laws to prevent social media tools being used to undermine democratic
processes.
The U.K. government chose not to leap into action. But
even there Facebook’s platform is implicated because Brexit — which was itself
sold to voters via the medium of unregulated social media ads (with the
Electoral Commission finding earlier this year that the official Vote Leave
campaign used Facebook’s funnel to bypass electoral law) — is rather
monopolizing ministerial attention these days…
One of the questions committee members are keen to get an
answer to from Facebook is who at the company knew in the earliest incidence
about the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal. In short they want to know
where the buck stops. Who should be held accountable — for both the massive
data breach and Facebook’s internal handling of it.
And it is very close to getting an answer to that after
the U.K.’s data protection watchdog, the ICO, gave evidence earlier this month
— saying it had obtained the distribution list for emails Facebook sent
internally about the breach, saying it would pass the list on to the committee.
A spokeswoman for the DCMS committee told us it has yet
to receive this information from the ICO.
An ICO spokesperson told us it will not be publishing the
list — adding: “At this stage I’m not sure when it will be sent to the
committee.”
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