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Zuckerberg accused of dodging questions at European Parliament meeting

Zuckerberg accused of dodging questions at European Parliament meeting

MEPs were left angered by what has been described as an elusive showing by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg at the European Parliament last night.

“I asked you six yes or no questions,” Green Party politician Philippe Lamberts said. “I got not a single answer.”

Some have blamed the format for the meeting’s failure. Each MEP was given three minutes to ask questions, with Zuckerberg then responding to all of them in one go. This effectively allowed the executive to pick and choose what he did and did not respond to. In most instances follow up information was promised.

As the session hit its allotted time, he concluded that “there were a lot of specific questions that I didn’t get to specifically answer” though insisted he was pleased he “was able to address the high-level areas” – a moment that was not at all well received.

Accountability

In one of the more notable exchanges, Zuckerberg seemed to brush aside concerns about Facebook retaining data on non-registered users.

“On the security side, we think it’s important to keep it to protect people in our community,” he said. “Were there any other themes that we wanted to get through?”

Lamberts even accused Zuckerberg of “asking for this format for a reason”, while Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt labelled the session as “pre-cooked” to deliberately grant Zuckerberg a free pass. He also warned that if the promised answers are not forthcoming “the EU competition authorities must be activated and legislation sharpened”.

It has even been suggested that Facebook be broken up into separate companies to increase competition.

For his part Zuckerberg did apologise for the part his company played in the Cambridge Analytica scandal and promised to ramp up Facebook’s data security efforts with an investment that “significantly impact profitability”, adding that “keeping people safe will always come before maximizing our profits”.

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