
Zuckerberg and Sandberg will defy Canadian subpoena, risking contempt vote - maximilianburke
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/27/tech/zuckerberg-contempt-canada/index.html
======
crazygringo
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?

~~~
mikeash
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.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
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.

~~~
edoceo
> I do not think

But, the Canadian government thinks it.

They don't just call up folks on whim. Cost of doing business for FB. CEO
gotta do CEO things, which includes the occasional inconvenience of answering
a few questions from the Government.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
> But, the Canadian government thinks it. ... CEO gotta do CEO things ...

Apparently he doesn't, though. What the Canadian government thinks matters
only to the degree that they have the power to compel their desired behavior,
and the will to use that power.

Also, I contend the Canadian government doesn't think there's a just purpose
in him showing up. Whether any of the politicians will admit it, I'm sure they
are aware that no productive purpose will be served by Zuckerberg's
attendance, besides their own political self-aggrandizement. They do not need
his input on any proposed policy. They don't need information from him that
cannot equally well be acquired from a lieutenant or through a letter. To be
clear, I'm not saying these politicians are corrupt or anything. They are
doing what is rational from their perspectives. Scoring points against
Zuckerberg is a win, since a few constituents would really like it and anyone
else won't care either way. But rational, goal-seeking behavior and just
behavior are often different things.

On the other hand, Zuckerberg is also doing what is rational from his
perspective. To give in to this request would probably cost him dearly in time
going forward as every politician in the world looking for a distraction would
be knocking at his door. Like us all, he has a limited amount of time on this
Earth. I doubt he has much desire to spend it as a whipping boy for foreign
governments, and so he cannot accede to the request unless Canada ups the
ante.

------
CosmicShadow
"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.

------
paxys
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.

~~~
sjwright
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.

~~~
paxys
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?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
All of those governments have the sovereignty to order him to appear.

And they probably mostly lack the jurisdiction to coerced him to appear, while
having the jurisdiction to impose whatever penalties they see fit for his non-
appearance.

Personally, I think it would be amusing if all the major countries had
outstanding warrants for Mark Zuckerberg’s arrest, and imposed strict privacy
regulations upon Facebook et al.

------
sjwright
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.)

~~~
lstamour
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...

~~~
ThrustVectoring
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.

~~~
lstamour
This logic assumes transparent pricing and that bids from international
companies not subject to the tax won’t take over Canadian bids forcing prices
back up to where they were... and I bet multinational organizations would
avoid the tax by having US services bid for them. If the tax is on ads shown
to Canadians rather than ads paid by Canadian companies, I don’t see how the
government can force it short of banning Facebook altogether.

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tjpnz
>"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.

------
Traster
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.

~~~
StreamBright
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.

~~~
cameronbrown
So mass censorship, then?

~~~
StreamBright
Why do you think that blocking Facebook is censorship? You are not blocking a
particular book or post, you are blocking a company that disregards privacy
many ways, filtering the internet according their internal policy that is not
accessible to the outside world while selling user data to the highest bidder.

~~~
cameronbrown
Why do you think blocking [Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc..] is censorship?
Filtering the internet according China's internal policy that is not
accessible to the outside world..

You see my point?

It should be consumers and NOT government who decides what products and
services are allowed to be used, especially with regards to information.
Transparency regulations I can get behind but mass blocking is fundamentally
wrong - it takes power out of the hands of regular people.

The government shouldn't have that power to begin with in my opinion.

~~~
StreamBright
No, I was talking about blocking Facebook. I do not support blocking Amazon,
there is no reason for it. China rightfully blocked Facebook, I think the 2016
US election made this clear for everybody. Unless you like Russian
interference with election of course. Heroin is banned for the same reason as
Facebook should be, people cannot handle it and it has very damaging
implications for society as a whole. I think the rule of law should govern a
society that is accessible for everybody, unlike Facebook internal policies.

~~~
cameronbrown
China bans those companies to 'protect social unity', a valid moral argument
from a certain point of view. They don't block these things to benefit
citizens.

You just compared a website to heroin. Next you'll be comparing Pokémon Go to
organised crime.

I completely refuse to believe people lack so much agency that they aren't
responsible for the content they consume.

They can't handle it? It's a website dude. Say what you want about privacy
issues but this is a nonsensical argument.

------
gruez
>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.

~~~
SapporoChris
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.

~~~
devoply
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.

~~~
Mirioron
You underestimate the disruption the banning of Facebook would have. It really
isn't easy to replace a service where the main attraction is the people using
the service. It'll take years for anything considerable to pop up even if the
alternative is ready the moment Facebook closes.

~~~
devoply
I don't understand what vital function facbeook serves that people could not
use other fallback tools like e-mail to deal with their issues in its absence
until something else pops up. Ad dollars would go to other local media sources
that facebook is essentially killing.

~~~
ben_w
Everyone _here_ knows how those alternatives work, but we’re unusual. I think
(I’m not a chemist) it’s like being on a chemistry forum expressing surprise
about a ban on <generic drug example> when it’s “easy” to make the stuff at
home.

We’re blocking JavaScript as a security precaution when normal people often
still use 123456 as their password.

I still think banning Facebook would be a net win, but it’s not zero cost.

~~~
anoncake
> Everyone here knows how those alternatives work, but we’re unusual.

I think you underestimate the average user. Most do know how e-mail, forums
and instant messengers work. Those that don't will learn.

~~~
ben_w
> Those that don't will learn.

Sure. What’s the cost of learning?

I have many examples of even smart people not knowing what tech can do. I’m
still regularly blowing people’s minds with the AR mode in Google Translate,
and the tech behind that is 8.5 years old now.

This isn’t even a new phenomena — back when I was a kid all the adults joked
about needing someone under the age of 14 to work the VCR and stop digital
clocks flashing 12:00 forever. The jokes didn’t stop until VCRs stopped being
a thing.

~~~
anoncake
Not that high. People may not know what tech can do but they do know that tech
can do the things Facebook does. Using separate services may be less
convenient than something like Facebook (or would be if Facebook's UX wasn't
horrible) but it isn't really harder. If Facebook gets replaced by another
monolith, using it won't even be more inconvenient.

------
brandon272
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI4cBp5DfZc)

------
shiado
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.

------
CosmicShadow
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.

------
sys_64738
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.

------
Causality1
Facebook has no datacenters in Canada. Canada has no more legal authority over
Facebook's activities than Kim John Un or Ronald McDonald does.

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

~~~
tus87
What activities do they do in Canada?

~~~
hulahoof
Provide advertising services, which I'm sure they happily exchange for $CAD

~~~
Causality1
Arguably that's Canadian companies doing business in America, not the other
way around.

~~~
anoncake
Either way, Canada has jurisdiction.

