Unimpressed with the answers given by Facebook’s chief technology officer during a government inquiry into fake news, MPs have now threatened Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a formal summons to stand before them instead.
Last week Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer was quizzed by MPs over the social media giant’s role in facilitating disinformation and the impact on election results. Schroepfer failed to answer 40 questions, and now Damian Collins, chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, has written a letter to Facebook UK’s head of public policy with a formal summons threat.
“While Mr Zuckerberg does not normally come under the jurisdiction of the UK parliament, he will do so the next time he enters the country,” Collins wrote. “We hope that he will respond positively to our request, but, if not, the committee will resolve to issue a formal summons for him to appear when he is next in the UK.”
Last week, Schroepfer told MPs during the inquiry into fake news that his firm will clean up dodgy and unaccountable political ads in time for England and Northern Ireland’s May 2019 local elections. Political ads will also be labelled as such and will include details about who paid for them.
However, a list of 40 unanswered questions left MPs dissatisfied.
“This is especially disappointing to the Committee consider that in his testimony to Congress Mark Zuckerberg also failed to give convincing answers to some questions,” Collins wrote.
Although the language used by Collins appears to carry serious clout, and Zuckerberg could be found to be in contempt of parliament by refusing to attend, the reality is it is not illegal to ignore the requests and MPs have little power to force a foreign national to appear before them.
Collins gave Facebook until 11 May to respond.
