Zuckerberg and Sandberg will defy Canadian subpoena, risking contempt vote

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/27/tech/zuckerberg-contempt-canada/index.html

141 142 7 years ago

gruez• 7 years ago

The decision could result in the executives being held in contempt of parliament

So worst case, they can't enter canada anymore? I find it unlikely that they'd get cut out of the canadian market because of it.

xyzzy_plugh• 7 years ago

It's an international committee, likely just leaves an even more sour taste in the mouths of international governments.

SapporoChris• 7 years ago

Okay, I never have used Facebook so perhaps I am missing something. Quite probable.

However, I humbly disagree, you hinted at the answer. Yes, worse case is Canada and other markets begin blocking Facebook.

What value does Facebook add to Canada or any market. Advertising? Advertising is a zero sum game. If Facebook disappears there's no advertising loss in the market, other agencies will take over.

devoply2• 7 years ago

If facebook disappeared from those 10 countries what difference would it make to the citizens of those countries? Not very much. Other local services would pop up to take its place and replicate its functionality. I don't think Facebook pays much tax to these countries either, so a local replacement would create greater amounts of tax revenue as well as jobs for their citizens.

Considering how large a political and security risk Facebook is, I don't understand why any country would allow this sort of service to operate outside its borders without oversight.

apatters• 7 years ago

I think the most probable outcome would be that they would fine Facebook.

crazygringo2• 7 years ago

On the one hand, yes companies should be held accountable to governments everywhere they operate, of course.

On the other hand, a multinational company can't be expected to fly its CEO to a legislative hearing in every country where it operates... you could spend an entire year doing that instead of actually running your company. It's just straight-up logistically impossible, a legitimately unreasonable burden. And if a government legitimately just needs information as opposed to just optics, they don't need the CEO anyways.

Where do you draw the line? It seems pretty reasonable for the CEO to show up to hearings for the country where your company is headquartered... but to send lieutenants everywhere else, no?

Tyrek• 7 years ago

It seems equally reasonable to withdraw from doing business in countries where you can't bother to show up for a hearing. Where do you draw the line?

crazygringo2• 7 years ago

Facebook said is it sending Kevin Chan, its head of public policy for Facebook Canada, and Neil Potts, its director of public policy, to the meeting instead.

They're sending multiple people, just not the CEO. It's logistically impossible for a CEO to be in every country at every government's whim, and also run their company. Shouldn't a company be allowed to choose who represents it legally?

nearbuy• 7 years ago

I tend to agree, but in this case it's a meeting of 10 countries representing 450 million people.

tjpnz2• 7 years ago

And they had no issue fronting in the US. Clearly the opinions from representatives to those countries are worth less in their eyes.

pfarnsworth• 7 years ago

Did they send the leaders of those 10 countries, or just the representatives?

bassman9000• 7 years ago

Where do you draw the line?

At the point in which you have 1B+ users, access to mind-boggling quantities of information about them, and unprecedented power over elections.

TallGuyShort2• 7 years ago

If we think Facebook has "power" over elections, let's just give up on democracy, honestly. That's abdicating any responsibility voters have for their own votes.

mikeash6• 7 years ago

I don’t see what's unreasonable about a legislature compelling the appearance of a CEO that operates in their country.

If it’s logistically impossible for a large multinational operating in many countries to comply, then maybe its unreasonable for a single company to operate in so many countries.

There’s such a weird sense of entitlement here, that companies should be able to do what they want and countries need to accommodate them. There’s nothing that says it must be easy or even possible to operate a company in every country in the world simultaneously.

I see no need to draw any lines. If you don’t want to be subject to a particular country’s rules, there is a really easy solution: don’t operate there.

asdfasgasdgasdg3• 7 years ago

IMO, it depends whether the law is just and reasonable. I do not think any just or reasonable purpose is served better by having Zuckerberg or Sandberg attend this meeting, as opposed to their lieutenants. No questions will be asked that the lieutenants would not be equally or better equipped to answer. If such questions need to be asked, a letter and response would be fine.

If the purpose of the meeting were more than a show trial, I might feel different. But, that is universally not the case. FWIW I would not be offended if Zuckerberg declined invitations from the US congress either, although it's difficult for him to do so considering they could actually arrest him.

DannyBee• 7 years ago

A large number of these countries require country-level directors that are supposed to be accountable, or locally owned subsidiaries, etc.

This is literally the person who they would hall away in cuffs and send off to jail if they charged the corporation with a criminal act in the country, etc.

Requiring that, and then not letting them send those people, is definitely stupid.

Saying you have a model where someone else is accountable, and then not accepting that person as a stand-in, makes no sense.

Well, except for the "we want our political theater so we can look like we care to our constituents", which this kind of thing almost always is, it makes no sense.

For countries that don't, yeah, sure.

Canada allows both branches and wholly owned subsidiaries. (I'm too lazy to discover which facebook is using).

In the subsidiary model, the subsidiary would, in a lot of cases, have its own CEO.

So if Facebook Canada is a subsidiary and has a CEO, Canada should be okay with that person testifying.

If they aren't, they shouldn't be allowing this model, and only allow the branch model.

(In the branch office model, i'm fine with requiring the parent CEO to testify)

wmil• 7 years ago

On principle, a country shouldn't be able to compel a non-resident non-citizen to enter the country and become subject to it's laws. Except in the case of some sort of criminal extradition.

mises• 7 years ago

The difference is that I don't have to have an "operation" (i.e. office) in a nation for my website to be accessible in that nation. Looking at a map of facebook offices [0], I don't see any in Kazakhstan (just to pick an arbitrary nation with a tinpot dictator), but Facebook still has a substantial presence there.

Also, there is a serious risk flying to some countries. I would expect quite a few of them to arrest for some "crime" and demand a "fine" to be released.

[0] https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations

HenryBemis2• 7 years ago

This is not some small business making minim salaries for the owners. Not your typical corner store who's owners cannot afford the tickets. How fun it would be if all 10 countries block Facebook for a couple of years, now THAT would be fun!! That would teach these thugs a lesson or two about 'corporate responsibility'.

bin07• 7 years ago

Not sure that this would be legal in many countries. Not showing up is not a crime. Besides, were I Facebook, I would put my best men to work on anti-censorship technology posthaste. Airlift in slips of paper with tor bridges written on them; I don't care. They would figure something out.

vkou2• 7 years ago

On the other hand, a multinational company can't be expected to fly its CEO to a legislative hearing in every country where it operates... you could spend an entire year doing that instead of actually running your company.

You don't get called out for a legislative hearing for running a company. You get called out for a legislative hearing when you are running your company poorly, and in opposition to public welfare.

If he doesn't want to meet the legal obligations for operating in Canada, Mark is more then welcome to close up shop.

xxs2• 7 years ago

Mark is more then welcome to close up shop.

Still, he might need to pay fines.

bin07• 7 years ago

Let's say he takes you up on that:

* closes all canadian offices

* shuts down all canadian datacenters

* moves everything back to America

What will canadians do? Easy, keep using Facebook with slightly higher latency. He'll put up a bunch of servers right across the border; done. Unless canada wants to pull a China and start censoring the traffic of her citizens, she'd be out of options.

bryanrasmussen• 7 years ago

how many days of this last year has Zuckerberg been appearing at hearings, I'm sure it sounds like a lot but I bet if we count up the amount it wouldn't seem like near an unreasonable burden yet.

Aside from that if any company should be able to have it's CEO work remotely Facebook should, so year he will spend some hours in a hearing, and then answer his email.

paulcole• 7 years ago

If every country you operate in is subpoenaing you, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate how you run your company?

monkeydreams• 7 years ago

One of the roles of the CEO is to be the "public face" of the company. This is literally "the public" requiring Facebook to explain themselves. Demanding that a CEO face up to public scrutiny of a company's operations is well on this side of the line.

If companies want to be treated as citizens they must, periodically, offer up a pair of wrists to be cuffed.

drivebycomment• 7 years ago

From the article:

Both executives received formal requests from the Canadian Parliament earlier this month tied to a gathering of an international committee examining Silicon Valley's impact on privacy and democracy....Lawmakers from at least ten countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, are expected to attend the meeting, which is the second of its kind.

The meeting of an international committee of lawmakers, without any specific tie to an international body, has to be an informational one, and such a meeting does not need a CEO. In fact, you actually don't want the CEO but the actual experts. So by calling out Zuckerberg, those lawmakers are implicitly declaring that they want this meeting to be a dog-and-pony show of political theater, not an actually useful meeting.

This sounds like some Canadian politician is huffing and puffing about Zuck not helping them look good when they are hosting some event. I'm not at all surprised Facebook doesn't want any of it, and I wouldn't be surprised that the threat of contempt vote is a complete bluff and won't go anywhere.

M2Ys4U2• 7 years ago

Also from the article:

Their presence is important, he said, because, "Knowing the structure of Facebook and how it is micro-managed right from the top, any change on the platform is done through Mr. Zuckerberg or through Ms. Sandberg."

bin07• 7 years ago

You hit the nail on the head here. The canadians are doing the same thing the American Congress did recently: pulling in the big bad zuck for a stern talking-to. Notice that they passed no laws. It's televised political theater of the kind we have seen ever since C-Span showed up.

jaredklewis• 7 years ago

All good points.

Probably just the bitter American in me speaking, but if Canada is anything like the US, the hearing will be 100% optics, 0% substance. All the politicians will want to be seen asking tough questions and then–once the public flogging is over–will return to their regularly scheduled program of doing fuck all.

As cathartic as it would be to see another grilling of Zuckerberg, it's hard to get too worked up that he's sending his understudy. Same song and dance either way.

lazugod• 7 years ago

Where do you draw the line? It seems pretty reasonable for the CEO to show up to hearings for the country where your company is headquartered... but to send lieutenants everywhere else, no?

What is the precedent in this case? I assume Facebook is not the only multinational corporation to ever exist or be called to testify to foreign congresses. What have other corporations done?

pulse7• 7 years ago

If Facebook operates in Canada it must: 1) either have there a subsidiary and a CEO of that subsidiary would represent a company in this case or 2) the CEO of a multinational company needs to go there and represent a company.

tus872• 7 years ago

Do they operate in Canada though?

tpm• 7 years ago

Do they accept money from Canadian customers and show ads to Canadian users?

M2Ys4U2• 7 years ago

On the other hand, a multinational company can't be expected to fly its CEO to a legislative hearing in every country where it operates...

Yes, yes it should be expected to do that.

StreamBright4• 7 years ago

I think Zuckerberg has both the financial means and the time to fly to every country where he operates. Not all the countries requested hearings so the number of countries he needs to show up is probably less than the number of countries he visits on pleasure trips.

eeeeeeeeeeeee• 7 years ago

Then Facebook shouldn’t do business in that country. It’s really simple.

Corporations and their executives should not be exempt from governments, especially democratically elected ones.

OrgNet• 7 years ago

It's just straight-up logistically impossible

yes, Facebook should probably get sued daily seeing the way it is acting so that they can suffer the consequences of its actions... If that isn't possible, maybe jail is the only option.

CosmicShadow4• 7 years ago

"Right now we're focused on engaging in meaningful dialogue with the committee and look forward to answering their questions." ...but we aren't going to send over the people you asked for and the only ones that really matter for this kind of thing...

I hope they get held in contempt and banned from the country, maybe others will follow suit. It feels like an insult, it's not like it's that far, and there will be many countries there. I know they don't give a shit unless it's the US and that makes it even worse.

Frustrating to see them untouchable and with no shits given. No accountability, no responsibility.

paxys2• 7 years ago

I'm on Zuck's side here. Complying will set a precedent that any country in the world can summon him for any or no reason just to score some political points (which is exactly what the US and EU hearings were). It is completely within any country's power to make and enforce laws that companies operating in their jurisdiction have to follow, so they should really start there.

sjwright4• 7 years ago

I would agree with you if Facebook were only passively present in other countries by virtue of the internet being inherently global. But Facebook is a massive company with a physical presence, an enormous financial presence, and is a political presence in Canada, UK, Australia, and probably all of the G7 countries.

Rupert Murdoch was obliged to front up to the UK Parliament. Zuckerberg is no less obliged here.

paxys2• 7 years ago

Sure, but you can say the same for most other countries outside the G7 as well. After Canada it would be India summoning him, then Brazil, then Israel, Turkey, Japan, Mexico and countless others. Where do you draw the line? Should flying around the world answering to politicians be his full-time job, or should he be able to actually run his company and let local executives handle such problems?

dleslie• 7 years ago

any country in the world can summon him

Any country _where Facebook operates_.

If you're operating a business in a country then expect to be beholden to that country's laws.

The internet isn't a get-out-of-jurisdictional-rules-free card.

sjwright4• 7 years ago

If Zuckerberg doesn't appear, Canada should retaliate financially by putting a tariff on Facebook ad sales from Canadian advertisers. (And they could donate 100% of the tariff revenues to some non-profit that invests in local journalism.)

Waterluvian• 7 years ago

That got me thinking. Has Canada tariffed anything that wasn't in response to tariffs?

lstamour2• 7 years ago

Just like how China doesn’t pay the tariff, it’s US importers who do, in this case Facebook doesn’t pay the tariff, it’s Canadian advertisers that would, on top of whatever Facebook is asking for. It would only hurt Facebook if you applied a fine or tax directly to their Canadian profits or prevented them from doing business in Canada, and even then... with other countries, the sway is, “you’re a citizen of our country, you have to follow the law, it’s easier that way” but if you’re not actually a citizen, have legal defense and possible substitutions in place, and ultimately, the only penalty is likely a slap on the wrist and a request you somehow further can’t ignore, well... it comes back to other countries on their own don’t have sway if the US or host nation doesn’t make the same request and you don’t have immediate travel plans to that country (and, of course, the country follows rule of law and/or you’re protected by your host country’s legal system...) That said, anyone in the country making such a request that works for an affected company would have to follow the laws of that host country over company dictates, or face legal consequences...

reasonablemann• 7 years ago

And Canadian advertisers might choose a cheaper alternative to FB as a result.

ThrustVectoring• 7 years ago

Many taxes can get passed onto the buyer of the taxed good, but I'm not convinced that digital advertising is one of them. Roughly speaking, digital advertisers like Facebook and Google end up selling 100% of their inventory of views at a price set by the value of the conversions driven to the ad buyers. Adding a tax in this model forces advertisers to lower bids in order to remain profitable, which then forces the advertising platform to lower prices to continue selling 100% of their inventory.

This is the same economic modeling behind the incidence of land-value taxes falling on landlords, not renters. When you're taxing a product of fixed size that is priced at whatever the market will bear, taxes get taken out of the owners' economic rents.

aetherson• 7 years ago

Is Canada allowed to do that? The United States wouldn't be: it's a bill of attainder.

The government donating to specific non-profits is sketchy as hell, too. Both of your solutions sounds like considerably more serious problems than Zuckerberg refusing to appear.

tdhoot• 7 years ago

Even in America there has been a recent troubling trend towards Department of Justice settlements being used to direct money to specific non-profits [0]. There was an effort to outlaw these settlements but it seems to have gone nowhere.

[0] https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/305055-refo...

sjwright4• 7 years ago

As philwelch said elsewhere, it could be implemented as a normal tax and have much the same effect—as long as the legislation could be sufficiently narrowed to social media e.g. “sites where the content is predominantly generated by its customers.”

philwelch• 7 years ago

I think there's a free trade agreement (formerly NAFTA but they rebranded it) that gets in the way of Canada being able to arbitrarily set tariffs on the United States (let alone on one particular US company).

However, I don't know that Canada has any large social media companies, so they can just make it a normal tax and possibly get away with it.

sumedh• 7 years ago

What if the Canadian company uses shell company in the US to place the ads?

sys_64738• 7 years ago

Surely they could only hold their own citizens in contempt of parliament for those who work for Facebook Canada? It seems overreaching to expect a foreign CEO of a parent company not incorporated in that parliament's jurisdiction to make such a demand of Zuck.

tjpnz2• 7 years ago

"Right now we're focused on engaging in meaningful dialogue with the committee and look forward to answering their questions."

This has got to be the most vacuous piece of bullshit I've read in a long time. They're just taking the piss at this point.

shiado• 7 years ago

Canada wants to defer totalitarian speech control as the responsibility of companies, but as long as Canadians can connect to servers outside of Canada, the government will not get their wish. If they were serious about censoring the internet they would go full China and build a great maple firewall.

Causality12• 7 years ago

Facebook has no datacenters in Canada. Canada has no more legal authority over Facebook's activities than Kim John Un or Ronald McDonald does.

anoncake8• 7 years ago

Of course Canada has the legal authority over Facebook's activities in Canada. Facebook not having any datacenters there just makes enforcement slightly harder.

tus872• 7 years ago

What activities do they do in Canada?

xxs2• 7 years ago

They do sell to Canadian companies, hence they are presented there.

Veen• 7 years ago

The reason Facebook doesn't have any Canadian data centers is that the Canadian government won't let them opt out of Canada's privacy laws.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/facebook-canada-data...

Traster• 7 years ago

People seem to be freaking out at the idea that companies can be subpoena'd by the governments of countries they operate in. What do you expect? That you can just sell your products in another country and not be answerable to their government? Do people realise this is basically an imperialist attitude?

Here's a tip: If you don't want to appear before dozens of government investigations, don't conduct dodgy business practices in hundreds of jurisdictions.

I would totally support putting various restrictions on Facebooks operations until Zuckerberg shows. Barring Facebook from storing any personal data on any Canadian citizen until it is in compliance with Canadian law.

StreamBright4• 7 years ago

Well I think the governments are not doing enough to stop Facebook. EU just passed GDPR last year but still, based on recent developments (like the Crossfit case) it should be obvious to everybody that FB is damaging to society on many levels. I would go even further with government actions and start to block their IP ranges on the national level.

cameronbrown6• 7 years ago

So mass censorship, then?

CosmicShadow4• 7 years ago

I can understand from a business perspective why FB would not want to bother sending their top 2 folks, and the doors it would open up and how they can just get away with it to deal with more "important" things. This is discussed in many comments.

From a personal perspective, and as a Canadian, I know the shit FB is pulling and the damages it is creating and can create and I feel powerless to stop it or make a difference. The best I could really hope to achieve as just some person is to petition my government to do something about it, and it would probably at best lead to something like a meeting with the most accountable people. I'm lucky in that they are already trying to do this, in conjunction with 9 other countries, so hooray!

Do I know that this may be useless or go nowhere, yes, could I really hope to get much more than this on my own, no. So it feels to me like this is our first step to making a difference or at least trying, and they still have the audacity to say "nah dawg, talk to these nobodies instead, but we are totally committed". As a person I'm really pissed and insulted. It says my best efforts real or imagined, are pointless and useless. It says I don't give a fuck about you or anyone in your Country/ies. It says you can work as hard as you want to rally people, 450M angry I's who just want answers and to see someone held accountable and at least show up to defend their actions, and you still don't care and will just deny them. It says nobody matters but us, get used to it you pleebs. It says that even when your COUNTRY is trying to stand up for you, even with all their power and clout can't get you to show up for a fucking meeting next door with 10 other countries, it says WOW, who do these people think they are, how dare you defy my highest body's request? How do you think I am going to feel about you after that?

If there was an oil spill or something like that, you'd see the CEO talking about it in front of the government on every news station, it's the job of the most accountable person to own up or at least show up and lie through their teeth or avoid questions like the plague, but they aren't even willing. I hope they get in deep shit and we take much harsher measures faster because of their non-cooperation.

Maybe that seems like a bit of a rant and it's more about feelings, but they are still valid and probably represent how a lot of people also feel. A lot of us have businesses, and we can see from both lenses, but we still have no power compared to them and we still have to live with them, and while we don't want to say things that could turn around and fuck us over if we ever get in that situation, but I guess shame on you if you do, so it doesn't really matter anyway.

* apologies to the "nobodies", you aren't nobody, but you aren't who we want.

brandon272• 7 years ago

Just a reminder that this isn't just Canada, it's an international committee representing countries totalling half a billion citizens. There's no question that Facebook does business in Canada or any of the other countries in question. Facebook is international and has set up satellite offices around the globe in order to have a presence in these countries. It was my understanding that their growth in these regions and others was hugely important to them.

I think this goes beyond the logistics of "is it reasonable for a CEO to bother meeting with legislators in every country in which it does business" and is a matter of whether Facebook is going to be answerable at all internationally, and what the optics look like of an American company doing business in other nations where it will not make top level executives available to answer important questions.

Does this mean that Facebook simply won't make its top level executives available to any other country? Is there a population threshold? Will Zuckerberg or Sandberg only meet with Presidents/Vice-Presidents, etc?

I can't help but feel like Facebook is held to a hugely different standard in these cases. I don't think people would think twice about expecting Mary Barra, for example, to travel to Canada to be answerable about GM vehicles being sold into Canadian territory if Canadian officials had concerns.

It also seems plain as day to me that Facebook's top brass simply do not want to answer these questions. They would rather send representatives to face the tough questions on their behalf, which are problematic on their own, leading to troubling and unsatisfying public exchanges [1].

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI4cBp5DfZc

Zuckerberg and Sandberg will defy Canadian subpoena, risking contempt vote

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