
Zuckerberg summoned to House Of Commons inquiry - sjcsjc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43474760
======
forkLding
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
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
> 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/](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.

~~~
Kpourdeilami
Didn’t the third party collect data after users gave explicit permission to
the third party app to use their data? From my understanding, users didn’t
read the short text explaining the information the third party would receive
before pressing the “okay” button.

~~~
Angostura
Users gave the app permission. The app also harvested the data of their
Facebook Friends, who hadn't given permission.

~~~
thomasfortes
They should take a lesson from the spotify API, friend listening feeds are out
of reach for third party apps.

Since facebook apps request these fields so much, they could implement it as
an opt-in/out checkbox "Do you want your data to be accessible by 3rd party
apps without your consent through your friends?"

This way, if an app request friends access, they would get data only from the
ones that allowed it.

It probably would remove a lot of value that can be extracted from their
users, but facebook itself would still have all this data to use internally to
target ads and they would limit the amount of data that can be exfiltrated to
malicious 3rd parties without the consent of users.

~~~
azernik
Facebook already made this change; however, they changed these things _after_
the data was fetched and stored.

~~~
thomasfortes
Thanks for the info, I was not aware of that.

Good for them to make this change, bad for them because it was after the data
was collected for abuse.

~~~
azernik
I think the takeaway is that these decisions are irreversible; it's very hard
to recall data you've shared, so you need to err on the side of sharing
_less_.

------
MistahKoala
'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...](https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-
committees/culture-media-and-
sport/180320%20Chair%20to%20Mark%20Zuckerberg%20re%20oral%20evidence.pdf)

~~~
labster
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.

~~~
hannibalhorn
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...

~~~
jeswin
If you've compromised the details of millions of citizens, then summoning the
CEO doesn't seem inappropriate.

------
jcoffland
> 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.

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

~~~
robjan
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.

~~~
Angostura
It's almost as if the journalism is decoupled from the commercial arm.

------
sol_remmy
Ongoing discussion at:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16626318](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16626318)

------
philfrasty
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?

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

~~~
djsumdog
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.

~~~
danso
> _this type of Data Sharing has been known about in our community for years._

> _why are we making such a big deal of it now? One whistle blower?_

The "we" who are making a "big deal of it now" is _not_ the HN community.

> _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._

It is far out if you have a limited view of current events and how the world
works. Zuckerberg is already eating shit from all sides in America, including
questioning by Sen. Wyden [0]. So who are these "unknown actors" who have the
power to control not just the U.S. Senate, but a totally separate governmental
body? And why the hell would these "unknown actors" risk organizing that kind
of conspiracy when it is completely _unneeded_? Don't you think that pulling
strings at that level has some costs and baggage associated with it? But
"unknown actors" are willing to risk it to add a little more bad PR to someone
who is not even yet near the initial stages of a candidacy?

Why is that all more reasonable than the boring explanation that: most people
don't know the details about Facebook's data hoarding/sharing, and now that
high-profile investigations have come to light, people are more inclined to be
pissed than complacent? That's how politics and public outrage work. It hasn't
even been a week since another U.S. Senator proposed legislation and wrote a
similarly angry letter to United Airlines because a dumbass flight attendant
caused a puppy to die [1]. Where's the conspiracy behind that?

[0] [https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-
quest...](https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-questions-
facebook-on-misuse-of-users-private-information)

[1] [https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/politics/dog-death-united-
ken...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/politics/dog-death-united-kennedy-
letter/index.html)

------
fwgwgwgch
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)

~~~
TallGuyShort
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.

~~~
vidarh
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.

~~~
giobox
What you've written is what UK constitutional lawyers would refer to as a
"Dicey" or "Dicean" (named after the British legal scholar most associated
with the principle of UK Parliamentary Sovereignty) view of how Parliamentary
Sovereignty works.

The reality is somewhat more complex once you consider the UK's treaty
obligations, many of which are hard to reconcile with "pure" Dicean
sovereignty, but it's a good starting point. As a counter example, the UK
can't practically legislate in a manner that breaches the ECHR (European
Convention on Human Rights - completely unrelated to the EU). Similarly, while
still a member of the EU the UK, like all EU members, has to accept the
primacy of EU legislation over domestic statutes in the areas in which the EU
has the competence to make laws.

Studying the uneasy relationship between dicey style sovereignty and EU
legislation (hello "Factortame" cases...) was a core component of a law degree
in the UK for the past few decades, I assume this will change shortly given
recent history!

~~~
vidarh
The treaties do not change the underlying principle, though. They change the
application of them, in that the only way for parliament to breach the ECHR
for example would be to leave the treaty, but that is no different from other
laws - the only things that is different is the complexity of the process of
doing so.

So, yes, it's more complex. I don't think anyone would suggest parliament
_would_ just rewrite arbitrary laws on a whim, because there are complex
dependencies (hello Brexit). The point is there is no legal hindrance to it,
and that is almost unique (I write "almost", but I don't know of a single
other country where parliament has so unfettered power - I'd love examples).

