Facebook displays 'contempt' with Zuckerberg no-show

Facebook has been accused of showing contempt for both its users and the UK Parliamentary process following news that founder Mark Zukerberg has now turned down calls to give evidence to MPs for a third time.
The criticism, from the chair of the Commons select committee for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Damien Collins, comes as Zuckerberg prepares to speak in front of a “closed door” committee at the European Commission to answer questions about his company’s data governance.
When asked by the BBC whether the Facebook boss was ignoring UK Parliament, DCMS committee chair Damian Collins said: “He is choosing his environment. Rather than appearing in front of the House of Commons committee, which has been investigating this issue for some time, he has chosen to give evidence behind closed dooors in Brussels from MEPs, none of whom have any particular expertise in this sector.
“The session is going to be quite short. They have reluctantly agreed it can be live-streamed so we can see what he is being asked, but it shows Facebook is doing the bare minimum they can get away with in terms of public disclosure and answering questions on this very important subject.
“It’s just simply not good enough and it shows a certain contempt for what people think about them in Europe.”
Last week, Collins slammed the social media giant for failing to fully answer scores of extra questions about how it tackles data privacy and fake news, saying “we expected detail and got excuses”.
Facebook UK’s head of public policy, Rebecca Stimson, gave 39 answers to the extra questions in a letter published by the committee, but chair Damian Collins insisted they lacked the detail the MPs were looking for.