UK parliament will issue Mark Zuckerberg with formal summons if he continues to refuse to speak to MPs
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Your support makes all the difference.The UK parliament could issue a formal summons forcing Mark Zuckerberg to speak to MPs if he continues to refuse to do so willingly.
Damian Collins, the MP who chairs the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said that he hopes Mr Zuckerberg will choose to come to London and speak to them. But if he keeps refusing it will have to issue a formal summons the next time he is in the UK, Mr Collins wrote in a letter to Facebook.
Mr Collins added that Mr Zuckerberg is rumoured to be coming to Europe at the end of May, and extended yet another offer for the Facebook boss to come and speak.
But he noted that parliament does have the power to compel him to appear if he continues to refuse to do so.
“It is worth noting that, 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,” Mr Collins wrote, in a letter addressed to Facebook’s head of public policy in the UK. ”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.”
The DCMS select committee has repeatedly asked Mr Zuckerberg to appear for questioning, and he has repeatedly refused. Most recently, the company said that its chief technology office Mike Schroepfer would appear instead.
Mr Schroepfer appeared before the committee last week, facing a grilling that saw MPs laugh at him and suggest that Facebook had conspired to mislead British politicians.
Mr Collins noted in his letter that Facebook had failed to answer nearly 40 questions, all of which were set out in the same letter sent to Facebook.
The committee expects those questions to be answered by 11 May, he said. “We would like confirmation of Mr Zuckerberg’s attendance by the same date,” he wrote.
The select committee’s letter was published on the same day as the beginning of Facebook’s F8 conference, at which Mr Zuckerberg is expected to address the ongoing controversy around privacy. It will be his first public appearance since he was grilled over two days by the US Congress.
Ahead of his keynote, the social network’s founder said he would discuss Facebook’s approach to safety while at the event, writing in a Facebook post that he was “looking forward to sharing more of what we’re working on” during F8.
“Our focus in 2018 is to keep people safe, and to keep building the experiences people expect from us,” he said.
“We are taking a broader view of our responsibility – to not only give people powerful tools but to make sure these tools are used for good.”
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