Zuckerberg snubs invite to appear at ‘grand committee’
FACEBOOK boss Mark Zuckerberg has snubbed an invite to appear before an international ‘grand committee’ to answer questions about ‘disinformation and fake news’.
Ireland was one of five countries supporting the invitation, spearheaded by British MP Damian Collins, who demanded that Mr Zuckerberg appear in Westminster on November 27.
The Facebook founder had rejected an initial joint invitation from Mr Collins – chair of the UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee – and his Cana‘is dian counterpart Bob Zimmer MP earlier this month. And it has been confirmed that Mr Zuckerberg has again refused their second and most recent invitation.
The chairwoman of the Oireachtas Communications committee chair, Hildegarde Naughton, had signed the invite on Ireland’s behalf. Ms Naughton said last night that social media companies are not ‘above reproach’. and she was ‘far from happy’ with Mr Zuckerberg’s snub.
In a letter on Monday, Rebecca Stimson, Facebook’s head of public policy in the UK, said her boss not able to be in London on November 27 for your hearing and sends his apologies’. Ms Stimson wrote: ‘We remain happy to cooperate with your inquiry as you look at issues related to false news and elections.’
She then goes on – over five pages – to outline ‘some of the things we have been doing at Facebook over the last year’, covering the topics of false news, coordinate inauthentic behaviour, election teams and political advertising.
Ms Naughton told the Irish Daily Mail she was ‘very disappointed that Mr Zuckerberg couldn’t seem to take time out of his busy schedule to answer the concerns of the political representatives of 170 million Facebook users’.
The Fine Gael TD described the letter she and her four global counterparts received in recent days as being ‘no more than a repetition of what know already and can not, in any sense, be considered positive engagement’.
‘I am far from happy with this response and will be talking to my international colleagues with a view to ensuring social media – platforms are held to account for their failures. I fully recognise the huge positives of social media, the positive economic benefit accruing to Ireland by Facebook’s presence here and the huge part Mr Zuckerberg played in the advancement of technology,’ she told the Mail.
‘However, that does not mean social media platforms are above reproach.’
Damian Collins last night described the response as ‘hugely disappointing’ as he believes ‘Mark Zuckerberg has important questions to answer about what he knew about breaches of data protection law involving their customers’ personal data’.
Mr Collins has vowed that he and his counterparts ‘will not let the matter rest there’.
‘Far from happy with this reponse’