Facebook policy VP, Richard Allan, to face the international ‘fake news’ grilling that Zuckerberg won’t
An
unprecedented international grand committee comprised of 22 representatives
from seven parliaments will meet in London next week to put questions to
Facebook about the online fake news crisis and the social network’s own string
of data misuse scandals.
But Facebook
founder Mark Zuckerberg won’t be providing any answers. The company has
repeatedly refused requests for him to answer parliamentarians’ questions.
Instead it’s
sending a veteran EMEA policy guy, Richard Allan, now its London-based VP of
policy solutions, to face a roomful of irate MPs.
Allan will
give evidence next week to elected members from the parliaments of Argentina,
Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Singapore, along with members of the UK’s
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) parliamentary committee.
At the last
call the international initiative had a full eight parliaments behind it but
it’s down to seven — with Australia being unable to attend on account of the
travel involved in getting to London.
A
spokeswoman for the DCMS committee confirmed Facebook declined its last request
for Zuckerberg to give evidence, telling the Media: “The Committee offered the
opportunity for him to give evidence over video link, which was also refused.
Facebook has offered Richard Allan, vice president of policy solutions, which
the Committee has accepted.”
“The
Committee still believes that Mark Zuckerberg is the appropriate person to
answer important questions about data privacy, safety, security and sharing,”
she added. “The recent New York Times investigation raises further questions
about how recent data breaches were allegedly dealt with within Facebook, and
when the senior leadership team became aware of the breaches and the spread of
Russian disinformation.”
The DCMS
committee has spearheaded the international effort to hold Facebook to account
for its role in a string of major data scandals, joining forces with similarly
concerned committees across the world, as part of an already wide-ranging
enquiry into the democratic impacts of online disinformation that’s been
keeping it busy for the best part of this year.
And
especially busy since the Cambridge Analytica story blew up into a major global
scandal this April, although Facebook’s 2018 run of bad news hasn’t stopped
there…
The evidence
session with Allan is scheduled to take place at 11.30am (GMT) on November 27
in Westminster. (It will also be streamed live on the UK’s parliament.tv
website.)
Afterwards a
press conference has been scheduled — during which DCMS says a representative from
each of the seven parliaments will sign a set of ‘International Principles for
the Law Governing the Internet’.
It bills
this as “a declaration on future action from the parliaments involved” —
suggesting the intent is to generate international momentum and consensus for
regulating social media.
The DCMS’
preliminary report on the fake news crisis, which it put out this summer,
called for urgent action from government on a number of fronts — including
floating the idea of a levy on social media to defence democracy.
However UK
ministers failed to leap into action, merely putting out a tepid ‘wait and see’
response. Marshalling international action appears to be DCMS’ alternative
action plan.
At next
week’s press conference, grand committee members will take questions following
Allan’s evidence — so expect swift condemnation of any fresh equivocation,
misdirection or question-dodging from Facebook (which has already been accused
by DCMS members of a pattern of evasive behavior).
Last week’s
NYT report also characterized the company’s strategy since 2016, vis-a-vis the
fake news crisis, as ‘delay, deny, deflect’.
The grand
committee will hear from other witnesses too, including the UK’s information
commissioner Elizabeth Denham who was before the DCMS committee recently to
report on a wide-ranging ecosystem investigation it instigated in the wake of
the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
She told it
then that Facebooks needs to take “much greater responsibility” for how its
platform is being used, and warning that unless the company overhauls its
privacy-hostile business model it risk burning user trust for good.
Also giving
evidence next week: Deputy information commissioner Steve Wood; the former Prime
Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Rt Hon Dr Denzil L Douglas (on account of
Cambridge Analytica/SCL Elections having done work in the region); and the
co-founder of PersonalData.IO, Paul-Olivier Dehaye.
Dehaye has
also given evidence to the committee before — detailing his experience of
making Subject Access Requests to Facebook — and trying and failing to obtain
all the data it holds on him.
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