The UK refuses to give up on a Mark Zuckerberg privacy hearing
They're not backing down.
UK MPs are doubling down on their campaign to get Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear before them to answer questions on data privacy. Zuckerberg has previously refused MPs' requests, instead sending a representative to hearings. This time, though, the Commons Digital Culture is joining forces with its Canadian counterpart for a joint hearing in London on November 27, with chair Damian Collins saying Zuckerberg's "evidence is now overdue and urgent."
Collins and Bob Zimmer, the chairman of the Canadian standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics, have written jointly to Zuckerberg, calling on him to "take up this historic opportunity to tell parliamentarians from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond about the measures Facebook is taking to halt the spread of disinformation on your platform, and to protect user data."
Zuckerberg is yet to respond to the "invitation", but having already appeared in front of the US Congress and EU Parliament regarding the matter, it's likely he'll once again send a representative -- perhaps chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer, who appeared before the UK committee in April. The MPs are persistent, if nothing else, but if Zuckerberg continues to say no they'll be left red-faced, and certainly unwilling to tolerate any future privacy issues from the platform.
