Politicians around the world today said they are 'deeply disappointed' at Mark Zuckerberg's refusal to appear in front of their grand committee at the UK Houses of Parliament.
The Facebook boss was 'empty chaired' after he snubbed their demands to appear in front of a Commons select committee to be grilled on the Cambridge Analytica scandal and privacy breaches.
It came as committee chairman Damian Collins revealed a Facebook engineer in 2014 warned bosses that Russians were harvesting three billion data points a day.
The revelation, which is contained in a cache of secret documents seized by the committee, raises fresh questions about the scale of Facebook privacy breaches.
Mr Zuckerberg refused to appear in front of the committee despite being invited six months ago - and Instead sent British Facebook executive Richard Allan in his place.
The move sparked fury among politicians from countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Latvia and Singapore, who had travelled to the UK for the grilling.
Charlie Angus, a politician from Canada, lashed Mr Zuckerberg, saying 'we are deeply disappointed' and demanded to know why the Facebook boss decided to 'blow off this meeting'.
He added: 'Mr Zuckerberg's decision to not appear here speaks volumes.
'When he says that the plan was, to move fast and break things, and that breaking may have involved our Democratic institutions, does he not think or not believe that parliamentarians will push back?'
His colleague Bob Zimmer said: 'In this room we represent over 400 million people and to not have your CEO sit in that chair is an offence to all of us in this room, and our citizens as well.'
Lord Allan said Facebook would 'very much welcome' tighter regulations to clamp down on fake news and foreign interference in elections, saying new laws would be 'extraordinarily helpful'.
The DCMS select committee brought representatives from 9 countries around the world to quiz Facebook over the privacy breached which has rocked the tech giant - and were furious when Mark Zuckerberg snubbed the invite - and empty-chaired him
The Facebook boss sent Richard Allan, a Lib Dem peer and senior Facebook executive, in his place to face the furious politicians (pictured)
Lord Allan, a Lib Dem peer, admitted the no show looks 'not good, but added: 'I also have a role supporting my company as it tries to grapple with the issues it faces today.
'I am proud of the fact that we have answered thousands of questions and appeared in front of many committee hearings around the world.'
And he admitted that trust in Facebook has plummeted in the wake of a series of scandals, saying: 'We recognise through our own actions and external events that we are not in a good pace in terms of trust.'
Lord Allan also revealed that he volunteered to face the wrath of politicians on the committee today.
Today's hearing comes after British MP Mr Collins used his parliamentary powers to seize a cache of secret documents from a company linked to the scandal.
He sent a House of Commons Serjeant at Arms to personally demand documents from the founder of a company called Six4Three, a controversial app that allowed people to find pictures of friends in bikinis.
The papers - said to include confidential emails between senior executives, and correspondence with Mr Zuckerberg - are under orders to be kept secret by a US court.
The Tory MP said he would not be publishing the documents - but did reveal that they suggested Russia had been using the social networking site to get access to massive amounts of information.
He said: 'An engineer at Facebook notified the company in 2014 that an entity with Russian IP addresses had been using an API key to pull over three billion data points a day...was that reported to any external body at the time?'
But Lord Allan downplayed the claims - saying it was from a 'hostile litigant' adding: 'Any information is at best partial, or at worst misleading.'
He said he will look into the claim and write to the committee to explain what the firm's position is.
The hearing is the first time politicians from around the world have taken part in such an international hearing in the British Parliament since 1933.
They have travelled to hold a special session of the inquiry, which was set up to investigate fake news on Facebook after the 2016 EU referendum but widened following revelations about Cambridge Analytica and claims Russia used the social network to spread disinformation and sow chaos.
Lord Allan was challenged over whether Facebook poses a threat to democracy.
He said: 'What we want are free and fair elections.'
He said the firm did 'spot this activity' from foreign countries and that it was 'wrong'. was wrong
Facebook has demanded the Six4Three papers are handed back without being opened by MPs or published.
Six4Three are the makers of the controversial app Pinkini, and is suing Facebook for restricting the app's access to users' data.
As part of its case, Six4Three's lawyers were handed internal Facebook documents - including executives' email correspondence with Mr Zuckerberg - but they were 'sealed' by a court in California, meaning they are kept secret.
It believed the documents show how the firm created and effectively drew attention to a privacy loophole later used by Cambridge Analytica to collect the data of millions of users.
Six4Three managing director Ted Kramer gave the documents to British authorities after being warned he could be banned from leaving the UK if he refused.
In an extraordinary sequence of events, he ignored three demands for the emails before being personally served by a Serjeant at Arms and meeting Mr Collins in his Commons office.
MPs drew up the 'unprecedented' order to seize the documents after discovering that Mr Kramer was due to visit the UK.
Mr Kramer has claimed in court documents he 'panicked' while in the meeting with Mr Collins and his staff, meaning he copied documents from his cloud storage and onto a USB stick.
But after seizing the documents, Mr Collins said: 'Under UK law and parliamentary privilege we can publish papers if we choose to.
'As you know we have asked many questions of Facebook about its policies on sharing user data.
'I believe these documents may contain important information.'
He said Facebook had some 'very serious questions' to answer and accused it of misleading the committee over Russian involvement on the platform.
'It has not answered our questions about who knew what, when with regards to the Cambridge Analytica scandal,' Mr Collins said.
'We have followed this court case in America and we believed these documents contained answers to some of the questions we have been seeking about the use of data, especially by external developers.'
Mr Collins is attempting to hold Facebook to account over data breaches that affected more than 87 million Facebook users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Charlie Angus, a politician from Canada,(pictured) lashed Mr Zuckerberg for not bothering to show up to the committee, saying 'we are deeply disappointed'
An app called ThisIsYourDigitalLife harvested the data of millions of Facebook users, largely without their knowledge, then sold it on to now-defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
The firm then used the data to target political advertising at users during both the US elections in 2016 and the Brexit referendum when it worked on behalf of Donald Trump's campaign and Leave.EU.
The documents were seized after Zuckerberg was forced to defend his job over revelations that Facebook knew about Russian election interference despite denying it and used lobby firms to smear critics.
It was revealed last week that Facebook deliberately misled the public about what it knew about the Kremlin's 2016 election tampering.
The tech giant also employed a 'research firm' to smear protesters by linking them to George Soros and a lobby firm to brand critics anti-Semites.
When asked today if would consider stepping down as chairman Mr Zuckerberg told CNN Business 'That's not the plan.'
He was critical of the use of lobby and research firms to attack opponents.
'I wasn't particularly happy about that piece of it. And that's certainly a lot of what made me want to look into this more deeply,' he said.
'The intention was never to attack an individual but there are lobbying groups out there who are out to attack, it's fine to push back on them.'
He also criticised the decision to link critics to George Soros.
'George Soros has been the target of a lot of really horrendous attacks and I think that that is terrible and I certainly wouldn't want anyone who is associated with our company to be a part of that,' he said.
'A lot of the critique that folks have had about our company, I read and I think a lot of it is fair and we need to do better and learn from but at the same time I don't think all of it is fair.'
Facebook's share price has been tanking since it became embroiled in the data scandal, and took a particularly sharp nose-dive in recent weeks.
The social network is down almost 20 per cent in this quarter compared to last, with shares selling at $134.82 last week.
On July 25, Facebook was selling at $217.50 a share.
Lord Allan has also urged Mr Collins not to reveal the documents. He warned Collins yesterday in an email that the documents are 'sub judice before a court in California' and are 'sealed'.
Lord Allan is a Liberal Democrat peer and unlike previous Facebook witnesses at the House of Commons is an expert in Parliament's procedures.
He spent eight years as MP for Sheffield Hallam and was succeeded by Nick Clegg, who has since been hired by Facebook since he lost the seat last year.
A US judge in California had ordered the files, obtained from Facebook via a legal discovery process, could not be revealed to the public earlier this year.
Mr Zuckerberg has repeatedly refused to attend the UK Parliament saying that he has already testified to Congress in the US and before the European Union.
'It is not possible for Mr Zuckerberg to be available to all parliaments,' the firm said.
Mr Collins has repeatedly hit out over the snub, describing the response as 'not good enough'.
Facebook said after the documents were seized: 'The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure.
'We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook.
'We have no further comment.'
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/11/27/mark-zuckerberg-slammed-by-global-politicians-for-refusing-to-give-evidence-in-uk-parliament/
Main photo article Politicians around the world today said they are ‘deeply disappointed’ at Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to appear in front of their grand committee at the UK Houses of Parliament.
The Facebook boss was ’empty chaired’ after he snubbed their demands to appear in front ...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2018/11/27/12/6698142-6433179-image-a-14_1543323155759.jpg
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