
House of Commons committee re-invites Mark Zuckerburg to appear [pdf] - organicmultiloc
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/180501-Chair-to-Rebecca-Stimson-Facebook-re-oral-evidence-follow-up.pdf
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turboturbo
I’m surprised that neither these questions nor those by U.S. Congress last
month include a request to provide an exhaustive list of all types of data
that Facebook has on its users, including data bought from third parties (e.g.
credit score) or acquired via subsidiaries (e.g. browser history from that
Vonavo VPN app). Or am I missing something, and is such a list available
somewhere?

~~~
edf13
It's Onavo

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saurik
(edit: When I wrote this, this thread was a link to the following Twitter
post, but of course that context was lost by Hacker News.)

[https://mobile.twitter.com/CommonsCMS/status/991302283920015...](https://mobile.twitter.com/CommonsCMS/status/991302283920015361)

Almost certainly more useful, providing not just the tiny bit of understanding
from this tweet and the full wording of the letter but also providing context
and reasons and, well, actual information (Twitter is so damned useless), is
this this article from the Parliament.

[https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-
a-z...](https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-
select/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/fake-news-post-facebook-
evidence-17-19/)

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Etheryte
I'm not that familiar with the UK legal sphere - how and why is this an
ultimatum and what happens if Zuckerberg doesn't appear before the committee?

~~~
cjg
[https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/contempt-
witn...](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/contempt-witnesses-
select-committees)

~~~
21
And the relevant bit (for persons under UK jurisdiction):

> Historically, those found guilty of contempts could be fined or imprisoned,
> but those sanctions have not been used by the Commons since 1666 and 1880
> respectively. For all sorts of practical, legal and constitutional reasons,
> it is highly doubtful that the modern House would seriously consider this.

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bertil
If they want answers on legal proceedings and advertising, they need to invite
the Chief counsel and Boz; Mark probably knows very little about either.

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jonbarker
Would be pretty useful to see Mr. Zuckerberg in a parliamentary style debate
(the motion, arguments for, arguments against, counterarguments on both sides,
and a vote). For examples of how to conduct this style of debate a great
podcast that follows this format is "Intelligence Squared". "The Motion" could
be "FB is good for society".

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mistermann
"MPs found the majority of Mr Schroepfer’s answers about Facebook’s business
practices, including their policies on the privacy and protection of users’
data and their relationship with Cambridge Analytica and associated companies,
to be unsatisfactory."

"Mr Schroepfer, who was appearing as a witness in the Committee’s inquiry into
Fake News, failed to answer fully on nearly 40 separate points, including.....

This is interesting, so are these like a rogue group of MP's who actually take
their job seriously and think government should return to its non-theatre
basis?

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mseebach
> This is interesting, so are these like a rogue group of MP's who actually
> take their job seriously and think government should return to its non-
> theatre basis?

This is possible, but the theatrical value of these (televised) hearings
shouldn't be underestimated.

~~~
mistermann
But if politicians asked _real_ questions and _demanded actual answers_ , the
theatrical value could be replaced by actual value, which is supposed to be
the point of the democratic process in the first place. As it is, more times
than not we are paying a massive number of very expensive people to engage in
theatre that no one wants to watch to produce results that often do more harm
than good, and are rarely resemble what the voting public wants.

