Zuckerberg summoned to House Of Commons inquiry

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43474760

by sjcsjc • 8 years ago

483 160 8 years ago

bbc.co.uk

fwgwgwgch2• 8 years ago

Serious question no snark:

How does this work? How does UK know who Zuckerberg is? Shouldn't they be dealing with Facebook UK ceo? Zuckerberg is a private US citizen as far as UK is concerned, no?

Edit: stop being smartasses (to the no longer top voted replies). I am asking from a legal perspective. Facebook UK is the only entity UK law should know of (acc to my limited understanding)

TallGuyShort3• 8 years ago

Based on my admittedly limited understanding of the UK's particular brand of parliament, the House of Commons is essentially a panel of experts and advisors from various fields and they hold little direct legal authority in and of themselves, but they're supposed to be very influential to the people who do. I interpret this as trying to understand the problem better, not prosecute someone, in which case it's not who's-legally-responsible, but who-gets-Facebooks-DNA-and-vision-for-the-future.

lainga• 8 years ago

Various fields indeed: Contract law, tort law, wills & estates law, corporate law...

bdamm• 8 years ago

The ignorance displayed in this branch is amazing.

I'm assuming you're American so let me use an American metaphor. The UK House of Commons is basically the House of Representatives. They hold enormous direct legal authority.

erpellan• 8 years ago

The House of Commons closest US analogy is the House of Representatives. So, it's the equivalent of being asked to testify before Congress.

mcjiggerlog• 8 years ago

This is pretty inaccurate. The House of Commons refers to the main house of parliament which is made up entirely of elected members of parliament (MPs).

In this case it is a "select committee", which is a cross-party group of MPs which has been appointed to investigate the case. Committees can also invite special outside advisors to help. Select committees are not criminal investigations; their findings are passed to the government for consideration.

Balero• 8 years ago

Your description suits the House of Lords better, though is not wholly accurate.

The house of commons is the elected body and is by far the most powerful body of UK government. A select committee is a group of people (largely made up of members of the house of commons) with a specific goal in mind. In this case investigating the actions of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. These findings will then be delivered to the House (of Commons) along with any recommendations. The government has a large influence as to who is on the select group, so normally listens to their advice.

vidarh6• 8 years ago

The House of Commons is, in terms of authority, one of the most powerful parliamentary chambers in the world.

Most places there are constitutional limits on what parliament can decide and/or qualified majorities and other constraints needed to change constitutional law. In the UK, a central principle is that parliament is entirely sovereign. That is, parliament is not bound by any law decided by past parliaments, but can revoke or alter any of them (they are bound as long as they let a law stand, though) with a simple majority.

While your comment elsewhere that they need things to pass through House of Lords is sort of right, consider that the House of Commons powers are bootstrapped - e.g. the UK Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 severely curtailed the Lords powers, and both were passed as a direct response to the House of Lords being seen as obstructing the House of Commons. The Lords failed to stop both, because they knew in advance of the 1911 act that the government had threatened to simply stuff the Lords full of sympathetic new peers (lords).

As such, while the UK has a bicameral system, the Lords exceedingly rarely stop laws, it usually only delay them or cause negotiations over revisions, as if the Commons decide to push something through over the objections of the Lords, they generally get their will, and coupled with the lack of constitutional hindrances, they're more powerful than even most unicameral legislatives.

I interpret this as trying to understand the problem better, not prosecute someone, in which case it's not who's-legally-responsible, but who-gets-Facebooks-DNA-and-vision-for-the-future.

This is true. It's not in any way a court proceeding. In this respect it's no different from being summoned to attend an inquiry in any other parliament.

qubex2• 8 years ago

You’re very wrong, but it’s also unpleasant that you are being downvoted so forcibly.

The House of Commons is the highest authority in the UK and one of the most powerful and sovereign bodies in the world.

I think you were thinking of the House of Lords.

cryptoz• 8 years ago

How does UK know who Zuckerberg is?

...

Serious question no snark

Uh, sure. Everyone in the UK is dumb as a rock then and never heard of Facebook or Zuckerberg? How do they know who he is? Are you kidding?

Indeed, you have lots of 'snark'.

dazc• 8 years ago

He has a valid point in as much as 'Shouldn't they be dealing with Facebook UK ceo? '

Since UK Parliament doesn't have any jurisdiction over the CEO of a US corporation?

pbhjpbhj5• 8 years ago

I think they've failed to express it well and people have jumped on and interpreted the question unhelpfully.

The parent appears to be asking why Zuckerberg should come.

There's a very good chance that legally speaking he's "unknown" to the UK - a private citizens of a foreign country that holds no position that brings him in to UK jurisdiction.

Perhaps they're also calling Facebook's CEO in the UK, the Facebook pertinent to UK law?

It does seem wise to call the person whose likely to actually be in control rather than the person who legally is responsible.

s0rce• 8 years ago

How do they know who he is? He's widely known and famous worldwide as the CEO of a multibillion dollar social-media company. Also, does Facebook UK have a CEO? I don't think they are compelling him to speak simply requesting it.

raverbashing• 8 years ago

The question is less stupid than it seems given the usual shortsightedness of judicial proceedings.

Possible answer, Facebook UK/EU (or a related company) is owned by Facebook US, who has Zuckerberg as one of the owners/directors.

Silhouette4• 8 years ago

This is roughly analogous to being asked to testify before a congressional committee in the US. It doesn't matter who you are in the business world: if people at this level of government invite you, you show up.

If you have an extremely good reason not to attend, maybe you can get away with sending sincere apologies and an adequate delegate to appear on your behalf, at least in the short term. Otherwise, while it might not be possible for the committee to compel Zuckerberg to appear before them in person by law, failing to do so would almost certainly have repercussions for Facebook's continued success in the UK.

therealmarv• 8 years ago

When he attends it would be only a big favor... I'm betting he will not attend. This is more politics, they are making a bold statement to ask the CEO but it's not his duty to speak to UK officials as a US citizen (no matter what).

anon1385• 8 years ago

Select committees can ask anybody they like to appear. Although as far as I understand they don't technically have the power to force private individuals to attend.

See this briefing if you want to delve in the UK's arcane political system http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN062... (pdf)

jsty• 8 years ago

Anyone interested in this might also consider [1], which describes possible mechanisms by which a person might be compelled - namely by order of the House of Commons.

[1] http://publicregulatoryblog.fieldfisher.com/2016/declining-a...

namelost2• 8 years ago

He is not being called by a court. He is being called as a witness to a parliamentary committee. The chair of the committee can call anybody in the world that they deem appropriate.

The legal perspective is that Parliament decides the law of the UK. If Zuckerberg doesn't turn up, then he is snubbing the very people who decide the future of Facebook UK.

kazen443• 8 years ago

The legal perspective is that Parliament decides the law of the UK. If Zuckerberg doesn't turn up, then he is snubbing the very people who decide the future of Facebook UK.

it also sets a precedent for other (european) countries to try the same.

If he doesn't show up their, they might take this "up the bloc" so to speak, and make this an european issue.

Does facebook want that on it's hands?

bertil3• 8 years ago

Facebook and Zuckerberg are often called upon, or even accused, especially in countries with limits to free speech (lèse-majesté & others). They generally disregard the posturing that the court order represent and negotiate when the situation is alarming -- but truth is, the vast majority of regulation is done by other local users.

The only real impact a government can have, cutting Facebook access, even in the direst circumstances, is rarely a smart option.

samstave• 8 years ago

The chair of the committee can call anybody in the world that they deem appropriate.

Serious question: if I were to be called by the UK chair of the committee, aside from optics - why cant I just say "FU"? What authority do they have over me?

NOTE: Not defending FB/Z

stordoff4• 8 years ago

can call anybody in the world

Is this accurate? The House of Commons briefing paper on Select committees: evidence and witnesses[1] describes the power as:

In general a select committee with the power to send for persons, papers and records may summon any person within the United Kingdom jurisdiction as a witness.

[1] researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06208/SN06208.pdf

forgottenpass2• 8 years ago

Zuckerberg is a private is citizen as far as UK is concerned, no?

Assuming the UK law and parliament cared exclusively about Facebook UK LTD, take a look at who runs that. [1] Unsurprisingly the majority of shares and control belong to Facebook, Inc. A company that Zuckerberg is an officer of.

[1] https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06331310/persons-...

fwgwgwgch2• 8 years ago

I had the same thought initially but I don't think that in matters of execution, ownership should or is brought in. At some point, sure. But not when we're "having a talk".

feelin_googley• 8 years ago

"In a letter to Mr Zuckerberg, Mr Collins accused Facebook of giving answers "misleading to the Committee" at a previous hearing which asked whether information had been taken without users' consent.

He said it was "now time to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process".

Requesting a response to the letter by 26 March, the MP added: "Given your commitment at the start of the New Year to "fixing" Facebook, I hope that this representative will be you.""

At a previous hearing, Facebook mislead a parliamentary committee.

Committee chairman now requesting accurate account from "senior Facebook executive" with proper authority.

Chairman "hopes" that will be Zuckerberg.

Poll: Do you think Facebook will have Zuckerberg give this account, or will they assign this task to some other Facebook employee? Feel free to explain your answer.

SllX2• 8 years ago

The way I'm reading that is that if it is anybody but Zuckerberg, it will not reflect well on Facebook during their testimony.

arrythur• 8 years ago

I believe it absolutely has to be Zuckerberg to get the highest level of accountability from the company.

phyller• 8 years ago

I don't think Zuckerberg will go, though I'm sure Facebook would like to send him. This puts them in a bad spot. To show respect, Zuckerberg should go. But then it sets a precedent that every country can summon him at will and it becomes an insult if he doesn't show up. And there are enough countries and committees that would enjoy ordering a US megacorp executive around, that it has a real risk of becoming a problem.

They'll probably send their highest level UK exec, or US exec that serves in some kind of ambassador role.

Edit: Plus, if Zuckerberg screws up and says something he shouldn't or commits to something he shouldn't, Facebook has no recourse. If they send a representative, that representative can always be deemed to not be properly representing the company, the statement can be clarified, and/or the representative can be chastised or replaced.

bertil3• 8 years ago

Zuckerberg is both very keen on delegating to the relevant party (he has no pride, and not always all the context), fully aware of British Parliament focus on being a brilliant orator (and it is a political maze) and aware how his presence sends a signal of gravity.

They will need of that all.

I think that sending “only” the Chief counsel Colin Stretch to the US Parliament was seen as a snub and they will want to correct that. The stock drop hurts: Mark sees that as his own performance review and the drop was large.

- Nicola Mendelsohn CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, a British high-ranking title) is the CEO of the International holding (based in Dublin); as her title indicates, she’s in Whitehall as a fish in water and she’s certainly already making sure everything is fine; I’m not sure she will speak publicly, but she will absolutely brief the speakers on who is on the committee, so look for her in the delegation;

- Sheryl Sandberg is widely seen as the politician whisperer; I can’t imagine her not close to this; she’s more soft-spoken than other in this list, the most European in the team and a good orator, especially when things get complicated; I’d recommend her as she’s the recognised “grown-up”: some of Mark’s star power and closer to the age group of the committee;

- Elliot Schrage, Head of Comms, PR (& somehow also Legal); he is a fixer and the kind of attorney claiming his bloody-handed client is innocent; he’s directly involved in most of that and I think not sending him would be a mistake; he can be a little too American and brash for something like Whitehall so I would definitely make sure he’s properly trained, but that guy could sell them their own shirts and get paid a commission for the pleasure; I was surprised that he wasn’t at the US Commission hearing;

- Colin Stretch, Chief Legal counsel, didn’t made a great showing in the US, so it’s unlikely he’ll speak, but I can’t imagine he won’t be close;

- Boz who twitted about it would make sense, as he’s still the head of Ads and I believe was in charge of the Platform at the time, but he kind of already burned himself with the argument that it’s not a “data leak” and might not play well.

- Chris Cox has a notoriously staggering reality-distortion-field. He’s a probably billionaire with Facebook but would likely have made more money as a cult-leader. Works well on larger, more passive crowd, but this is an angry committee looking for his pound of flesh -- I’d be surprised, but if he talks, I would demand all of you watch it, because that is probably going to be spectacular public speaking, even by the Parliament’s high standards; Chris had been to London earlier in the past years (there are many product teams there); whether the felt this was productive might influence if he find the time to come back;

- for the rest of the leadership committee: Mike Schroepfer (CTO) has a real work to do, and is less relevant; I don’t know Dave Wehner (CFO) but he’s probably less relevant too.

Mark works with all those (and a handful more) as a close committee and I suspect that he mainly limits travel to avoid being too far from that committee for too long. To avoid breaking that, it is possible that most of those people show up. It will be disruptive of many of them to go, but it will send a strong signal and they can reach out to different members individually more effectively that way.

Facebook has misunderstood why European countries are trying to regulate them since their opened the service internationally. Getting at least to understand how UK see what they are doing would help. I would encourage them to reach out, as UK is the easiest to understand in detail and the closest to the US system.

On the other hand, Facebook would be keen to downplay the incident and might not send senior people -- but that’s misunderstanding British politics.

Silhouette4• 8 years ago

Poll: Do you think Facebook will have Zuckerberg give this account, or will they assign this task to some other Facebook employee? Feel free to explain your answer.

I'd guess it's more likely than not that Zuckerberg himself will appear.

The reason is simple: this is the nightmare scenario that privacy advocates have been talking about. It's a massive leak of personal data, which has been deliberately and seriously abused, and there is substantial evidence of profound implications going to the heart of our democratic processes.

It also happened just a few weeks before arguably the biggest shift in privacy law in the history of the EU comes into effect, and all of this is set against a backdrop of much increased public scepticism about both social networks specifically and big data hoarders in general, following a string of other worrying stories (some of which were about Facebook and some of which weren't, but that doesn't matter very much as far as public sentiment goes).

If this one is handled badly, it really could become an existential threat to Facebook's current very lucrative business model throughout the EU. And apparently it's already been mishandled on a previous occasion with the same parliamentary committee, so sending someone that isn't going to command the committee's confidence this time would be mishandling on a scale of pulling the pin and dropping the grenade at your feet.

vkou• 8 years ago

Nobody's forcing him to attend, but if there is any fire behind the smoke, him refusing to attend can give Parliament reason to assume ill intent in subsequent investigations/trials, when none existed.

M2Ys4U2• 8 years ago

Refusing to attend can be considered Contempt of Parliament. Theoretically that can carry a term of imprisonment that lasts until the next election.

urda• 8 years ago

How does UK know who Zuckerberg is?

How would they not know who he is? It's the world's largest social media platform, they're going to know who he is. What kind of reasoning is this?

The Government may call up whoever they like, and not showing up would be a bad thing for Facebook operations in the UK.

johannes1234321• 8 years ago

In the world of diplomacy sometimes "obvious" facts aren't "clear" but you use nice words, i.e. one could talk to an embassador and give them the chance of introducing their representative.

I however assume the original poster was more inclined "do the, have any means to summon some American citizen" (to which the answer is "they can summon who they like, and the other can do what they like, unless his state of residence has some form of agreement (like extraditement in criminal court cases)")

dragonwriter5• 8 years ago

How does UK know who Zuckerberg is?

The UK civil service is generally literate, and has been following corporate heirarchies longer than the US has existed. Finding the CEO of a publicly held multinational corporation is not difficult.

Shouldn't they be dealing with Facebook UK ceo?

Facebook UK doesn't seem to be the source of the issue they are concerned with.

Zuckerberg is a private US citizen as far as UK is concerned, no?

And...so, what? While the UK Parliament may not have legal authority to issue compulsory summons in this case [0], that's not what they’ve done. They’ve asked him to testify, not issued notional compulsory demand. (The US Congress has occasionally done the same thing in the past to foreign CEOs.)

Of course, there is the implicit threat that if their concerns aren't allayed, there may be legislative actions directed at curbing the capacity of Facebook to undertake actions which raise similar concerns in the future.

Facebook UK is the only entity UK law should know of

This is simply wrong. UK law needs to be cognizant of not only the officers but also the owners of Facebook UK, Ltd., and Facebook, Inc., is the dominant owner of Facebook, UK Ltd.

And, Facebook, Inc. not being a natural person, UK law and government needs to be cognizant of the officers, etc., of that firm, as well. It simply is not the case that foreign persons and entities are non-existent from the perspective of the law of the UK (or any other nation, generally.)

Heck, the US not only criminally indicts foreign citizens for violations of US domestic law outside of the US, it has used that as the basis for armed invasions (see, notably, the case of Manuel Noriega.) The UK merely inviting a foreign CEO to a parliamentary inquiry is comparatively routine.

[0] well, okay, they actually do, because parliamentary sovereignty, but they may lack practical enforcement powers.

chiph• 8 years ago

IANAL, but I'm curious - Can Parliament issue a Crown Court Bench Warrant compelling a non-UK subject to appear? And if that gets ignored, presumably the person can't ever enter the country unless it's to respond to the warrant. But what about a Commonwealth Nation - would that person have to avoid entering Canada?

simonbarker87• 8 years ago

If the US congress are allowed to summon Tony Hayward (then CEO of BP) over the Deep Water Horizon catastrophe then it is a fairly straight line to see how UK House of Commons can do the same for Facebook's CEO.

ptrott2017• 8 years ago

Facebook Inc - is listed at Companies House (UK register of businesses) as a legal person with significant control (75%) of Facebook UK. Mark Zuckerberg is the senior officer of the significant person company that has a controlling interest in a UK company. Either an officer of the company (i,e, those listed as officers/ Directors of Facebook UK) or, as in this case, a person representing significant control(more than 50% ownership and therefore potentially a say in or responsibility for operations) of a UK company can be requested to explain a companies activities to either the UK parliament or a UK court.

MistahKoala5• 8 years ago

You're being entirely reasonable with your line of questioning. There is a Facebook operation in the UK, but the scale and reach of the issue is such that the House of Commons committee concerned wants to hear from the company's executive leadership.

Unfortunately, the BBC News article misrepresents what the select committee chairman actually said with his letter, which was to merely request Zuck's appearance before the committee. There is no suggestion in the letter itself that Zuck is being 'summoned', which would be both amusing and embarrassing.

pjc504• 8 years ago

Compare the situation of Amazon which I posted a reply to a similar question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16611317

Which "entity" is Facebook in the UK? Well, there's no facebook.co.uk. If you scrabble about for an "about" on facebook.com, it lists the US headquarters. The SSL certificate says "Facebook, Inc".

If I traceroute in the UK to "facebook.com" I get 157.240.1.35, which although it geolocates to London is an edgebox in the 157.240.0.0/16 block registered to ... Facebook Inc, Menlo Park.

The UK office is just for buying advertising, it's not publishing to the public.

sol_remmy• 8 years ago

Ongoing discussion at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16626318

philfrasty• 8 years ago

Curious about this scandal: is the bigger play here (by some unknown actors) to damage Zuckerberg's reputation in order to hinder him running for president in 2020? Or this is purely about violating privacy?

dmead• 8 years ago

Seeing as how that notion is a joke outside of the bay, you can take this on face value.

danso2• 8 years ago

What about this situation makes you think there is a "bigger play" that requires a conspiracy?

djsumdog• 8 years ago

In the other HN discussions, people have talked about how this type of Data Sharing has been known about in our community for years.

Hell, I've seen product demos from 2012 that showed big players offering private FB/Twitter post analytics for targeting ads/marketing. It's been going on for a long time.

So that does raise this serious concern: why are we making such a big deal of it now? One whistle blower?

A hundred other people groups discovered the continents we call The Americas long before Columbus. His timing was right to gain the popularity he did.

So it could be coincidence, or it could be intentional. That 2nd thing should be thought of as a crazy conspiracy theory. Our media/TV is tightly manipulated and controlled. I mean if anything, this leak should make that more obvious than anything! So it's not so far out there as you might think.

dbbk• 8 years ago

Mark Zuckerberg isn't going to run for President... the idea is just ludicrous.

jcoffland2• 8 years ago

How to protect your data on Facebook

...

Use an ad blocker to limit advertising

Wow, this is awesome. I did not know the BBC was officially recommending the use of ad blockers.

lucasverra• 8 years ago

link please ?

jcoffland2• 8 years ago

It's in the article.

roryrjb• 8 years ago

Well the BBC does not advertise, so this isn't really unexpected.

robjan• 8 years ago

The BBC worldwide service is funded by advertisements. If you browse their website from outside the UK, you get redirected to BBC.com which is plastered with ads.

giobox2• 8 years ago

As soon as you leave the UK the BBC advertises extensively, including on their website. If you are a UK national try visiting bbc.co.uk next time you are abroad, you may be in for a surprise.

forkLding• 8 years ago

I think most Americans comments in this thread is displaying bias.

To put in perspective, if Alibaba's partners was caught collecting massive amounts of customer data through Alibaba and using it to spy (in part for Chinese govt) and perform experiments/tactics on the American people, would they first summon the highest American branch leader of Alibaba in hush-hush manner or the most notable founder himself/herself with the most voting power on changing and directing the organization?

UK isn't USA, if they feel that the liberties of their own people is being tampered with, they would want to talk directly to the big man, the UK-based CEO would rather be just a horn through which Zuckerberg and his team talks through so it would be more direct to talk to him.

Moreover whole situation is like a Catch-22, if Zuckerberg doesn't go, it would betray him more.

equalunique• 8 years ago

This analogy seems out-of-proportion, IMO.

With Cambridge Analytica, the customer data wasn't used by any government, but by a political party. To me, this really is the legitimate status quo of advertising. As a US citizen, it's not clear to me why this is wrong or bad, only that people "don't like it."

I for one am grateful that these services target me with relevant adds. Is that something we want undo? What is the strategy here? Is the objective to be less informed and be directed to information that is non-relevant to our interests?

Now, I'm not saying that the ideal utopia wouldn't be a Facebook-less interlocking combination of privacy respecting, free open source software, decentralized networking, and federated identity. I just feel weird how it seems like "fears of election interference" and "muh democratic system" are being used to effect arbitrary changes in how Facebook does business.

bkor• 8 years ago

As a US citizen, it's not clear to me why this is wrong or bad, only that people "don't like it."

Hacker News had various articles explaining that the EU soon will have something called the GDPR (https://www.eugdpr.org/). UK is going to exit the EU, but it's not about that in particular. If EU citizens didn't give explicit permission for this data to be shared Facebook is not following this law. As UK is questioning this behaviour it seems they'll probably have something similar to GDPR after they leave the EU.

Further, this was NOT about providing ads, instead the data personal information was shared with a third party without this being explicitly consented to. People have been profiled without this been explicit, further no consent was given. That's what is not ok.

All the other questions seem like strawmans.

ekanes• 8 years ago

the customer data wasn't used by any government, but by a political party.

... to become the government.

dragonwriter5• 8 years ago

With Cambridge Analytica, the customer data wasn't used by any government, but by a political party.

It was used by a political campaign; that it was not used by a government is...less clear. The Trump-Mercer-CA-Lukhoil-Putin connections are intriguing, and part of the reason this is getting so much media attention with the ongoing Mueller investigation.

ljm• 8 years ago

I for one am grateful that these services target me with relevant adds.

There is a very subtle distinction here, no? What you're talking about is relevancy but the criticism levied against Facebook, CA, et al, is that it's not necessarily relevant per se, but manipulating fears and emotions of people based on easily identified characteristics.

If this was purely relevant then you'd expect Facebook and Google to serve you content that challenged your opinion, rather than vying for your approval. As it stands, the technology understands you like certain things and does whatever it can to hide things it assumes you won't like.

ranit• 8 years ago

I for one am grateful that these services target me with relevant adds. ... Is the objective to be less informed ...

Do you feel more informed when targeted with relevant adds?

nicoburns• 8 years ago

You may be missing the context that political adverts are strictly regulated in the UK (and most of europe). For example, there are no politicians in TV commercials, no politicians on billboards, etc.

zeofig• 8 years ago

it's not clear to me why this is wrong or bad, only that people "don't like it."

Ah yes, the poor plebs just don't know what's good for them!

beojan• 8 years ago

I for one am grateful that these services target me with relevant adds. Is that something we want undo? What is the strategy here? Is the objective to be less informed and be directed to information that is non-relevant to our interests?

What does "relevant ads" mean? They're more than just ads for something you would want to buy, the message is specifically tailored to you, and they use what they know about you to decide what to tell you and what not to tell you.

This is bad enough when it's used to advertise products, it's much worse when used to influence how you vote, given candidates and political parties will have views / policy ideas on many different subjects. Targeting means you only hear about the ones you would agree with, not the ones you wouldn't.

pjc504• 8 years ago

Firstly, UK political advertising is highly regulated. There are spending limits, spending reporting requirements, and a general ban on TV advertising outside of the regulated slots: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22238582 Most people are comfortable with this especially if the alternative is lie-filled attack ads as in the American system.

Secondly, the context of this is the "fake news" enquiry. It seems that the Facebook advertising and targeting has been used to identify people who are already susceptible to lies (conspiracy theorists, woo believers, anti-vaxers etc) or racism and then feed links to "fake news" stories that were guaranteed to make them angry while encouraging them to share.

It doesn't matter if an algorithm deems that my neighbour finds "relevant" an article on "here's why we should deport all the Poles", it's not an acceptable thing for Facebook to be showing people and they need to take responsibility for it.

jkFeiwi• 8 years ago

I for one am grateful that these services target me with relevant adds. Is that something we want undo?

That's what you're giving up your privacy for. So you see more ads that relate to your interests. And you're grateful.

Are you from Mars?

SmellTheGlove• 8 years ago

A couple of things. First, the USA and UK are regulated differently - while you might be right that it's fine in the US, it may not be in the UK. I'm from the US, so I don't actually know, but there's a good chance here given Europe's data privacy laws.

The other is that this might not be legitimate advertising at all. Depending on what eventually shakes out regarding Cambridge Analytica's intent, there might be fraud in play, and conspiracy to fraud to various actors that may have assisted in some fashion. I'm not saying for certain, just raising the possibility as this unfolds.

dragonwriter5• 8 years ago

Or, for a more concrete American example:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-toyota-president-ag...

MistahKoala5• 8 years ago

'summoned' ◔_◔

For a moment, I feared we were treading the same path beaten by the US Congress with parliamentary extra-territorial over-reach, but it turns out it's just the BBC using the wrong words; the chairman of the select committee has merely requested that he give evidence before the committee: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu...

labster• 8 years ago

I think it's a fair trade if you want to continue to run a business in a country, that country has a right to summon you to explain what your business is doing.

s4vi0r• 8 years ago

Definitely. Especially after the whole Facebook getting to CAs office(s) before authorities thing.

hannibalhorn• 8 years ago

The right to summon the local corporate representative, legal team, etc.? Sure.

Does every country have the "right" to summon a multinational CEO? That'd get crazy really quick, and I doubt it'd benefit anybody (beyond politicians.)

I had the same reaction as the parent comment - to "request" his presence is perfectly fine, but a "summons" would be a bit much...

IncRnd• 8 years ago

A request for appearance is a summons. BBC didn't necessarily use the word as a legal term.

MistahKoala5• 8 years ago

A summons is an order, which is not what the committee has issued to Zuckerberg. The BBC's usage of the word is still incorrect.

The procedure for soliciting evidence before a select committee is first to extend an invitation - as has been done - and only after that would a summons be expected to be issued, if at all.

DanBC2• 8 years ago

But in a process where Zuckerberg could be summonsed by the House it seems unfortunate to use the simmilar but different summons word.

Zuckerberg summoned to House Of Commons inquiry

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