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Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#101

Post by walshemj »

chrisseaton wrote: post #81
simonbarker87 wrote: post #60

I said it in a previous post but if the congress/senate were allowed to summon Tony Hayward, BP CEO, over the Deep Water Horizon disaster then the UK Parliament are well in their rights to summon, and expect attendance, of Zukerberg over this.

> the UK Parliament are well in their rights to summon, and expect attendance, of Zukerberg over this But they aren't within their rights to summon him. That's not a power they have. They can invite him, and they did, but he doesn't have to go and speak to a committee if he doesn't want to.

I believe they (select committees) can compel witnesses within the UK so visiting the UK might be a problem.

Its never been done recently - though god knows what old laws are still on the books that could be applied.

Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#102

Post by anonu »

VVyattPrentice wrote: post #80
anonu wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm old enough to remember the 1993 Jack in the Box e. coli outbreak... and then fast-forward to Chipotle's 2015 handling of the same thing. The responses between then and now were staggering differently. Back then it was "deny, deny, deny". In today's PR conscious world - for better or worse - the people expect an immediate confession from the very top. Given's FB's breadth and depth of exposure to many people's liv…

Zuckerberg seems confident he doesn't need to really give a crap. FB will be fine either way. Why bother? He's got better things to do with his time.

Will it be fine? Stock market shaved 10 percent of it's market cap on this. I suppose if you're a $500bn or $450bn company you'll be fine either way... But this is only a week... So time will tell how far the negative press goes with this... And ultimately how many of it's 2bn users actually care.

Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#103

Post by chrisseaton »

walshemj wrote: post #101
chrisseaton wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the UK Parliament are well in their rights to summon, and expect attendance, of Zukerberg over this But they aren't within their rights to summon him. That's not a power they have. They can invite him, and they did, but he doesn't have to go and speak to a committee if he doesn't want to.

I believe they (select committees) can compel witnesses within the UK so visiting the UK might be a problem. Its never been done recently - though god knows what old laws are still on the books that could be applied.

An opinion on rules is here (I think like a lot of old systems these rules are based on unwritten convention) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmli....

And yes of course they can't compel anyone outside the UK to do anything they don't want to do.

Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#104

Post by jacquesm »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #5
gianmaro wrote: post #4

It feels like Zuck is in panic and listening too much to his PR advisors who are likely telling him to stay out of the public until the storm settles. Not a smart move on this particular case

To be fair being called in front of MP's is like a ritualised grilling, nothing ever comes out of it other than total humiliation for the victim.

When you've fucked up at that level a bit of humble pie goes a long way towards smoothing over the various ruffled feathers. There wasn't anything to win here but there was a lot to lose.

Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#105

Post by jacquesm »

babuskov wrote: post #78
kazen44 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if regulators will just decide the split up facebook. It would take a ton of leverage and political goodwill across both the EU and the US, but i have no doubt it could happen.

> I wonder if regulators will just decide the split up facebook. I keep hearing this suggestion and it makes no sense. Split into what? It would be like asking to split Google into one company doing the search and another one doing the ads. You're talking about loss leader strategy here and you cannot have a company whose only product is a loss leader. Majority of users won't pay to have search or social network. The…

An advertising company and the various communications platforms.

Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#107

Post by headmelted »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #65
headmelted wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you've said is utterly accurate and yet I still think this is a terrible decision. We'll have to witness some hapless middle-manager undergo the same circus, but with every new person to speak we'll have a customary "I simply cannot believe Mr. Zuckerberg did not think it was important for him to be here in person!". Having a fall guy give terrible answers looks worse than him giving terrible answers. At t…

> We'll have to witness some hapless middle-manager undergo the same circus According to The Guardian, Facebook said that "the company would be putting forward its chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, or its chief product officer, Chris Cox." https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/27/facebook-...

Which is fair enough, but the point is it's not Mark or Sheryl.

They want a celebrity they can shake their fists at and give a right telling off to. Politicians don't build their careers giving tongue-lashings to non-public figures, and that's going to be a problem now.

As I type this, I've just read that Zuckerberg has agreed to testify before a congressional committee - this is going to piss off MPs in the UK all the more though because he snubbed them first (which in turns means whoever gets sent is going to get a lot more abuse and more of the "Where is he!?" feigned outrage).

I'm frankly surprised that Sheryl Sandberg isn't being sent to the UK if Zuckerberg is testifying in the US (although I don't see why he can't do both). The whole angle at the time of her hiring was that she would be "the grown up in the room". I realize that was a long time ago now, but if ever there was a time for the COO to step up this has to be it.

Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#108

Post by gluelogic »

fancyfacebook wrote: post #15
flexie wrote: post #13

Arrogant little boy king. This is a major PR blunder. It's hard to imagine such attitude will make the parliament more lenient. Facebook just played a vital role in the manipulation of British democracy in one of the most important decisions in a century. But the CEO responsible couldn't care to fly over and explain himself. If what Facebook wanted was to be forgiven (or at least forgotten), and to secure more accomm…

Normally I'd think this comment is a bit too lowbrow for the orange site, but I think it's justified in light of just how fundamentally the world shifted due to the Brexit vote. If this breach was part of that then people should be incredibly angry.

Facebook ads are not responsible for the Brexit vote.

Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#109

Post by josephlord »

martinald wrote: post #8

Facebooks PR seems all over the place. It seems to go like this: 1) Blame users/say it wasn't as bad/not a breach 2) Controversy gets worse 3) Apologise, say we got it wrong, working on it I think this is especially dumb as FB took out a personally-signed-by-Zuckerberg letter in 6 UK sunday papers last weekend. It looks very fake.

You missed threatening to sue the newspapers and reporters before the first stories dropped with Wylie on the record blowing the whistle the previous Sunday.

Re: Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

#110

Post by avoidit »

babuskov wrote: post #78
kazen44 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if regulators will just decide the split up facebook. It would take a ton of leverage and political goodwill across both the EU and the US, but i have no doubt it could happen.

> I wonder if regulators will just decide the split up facebook. I keep hearing this suggestion and it makes no sense. Split into what? It would be like asking to split Google into one company doing the search and another one doing the ads. You're talking about loss leader strategy here and you cannot have a company whose only product is a loss leader. Majority of users won't pay to have search or social network. The…

The sibling comments make it clear what the split could be. In fact, people who say #deletefacebook are both overreacting and overreaching, when a much easier solution is at hand. It should really be #splitfacebook - that is an excellent outcome for most of the concerned parties (except maybe FB shareholders, which might as well be a good thing).
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