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.
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.
> 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.
We're implementing the gdpr. It comes into force at the end of may, before we leave the EU. Our information commissioner is very keen on the legislation.
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.
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.
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.
Fortunately, having sane data protection laws gives you things like being able to rescind an agreement like that at any time. Then the party that collects the data has to inform any third parties of the change and all of them have to delete your data.
> 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.
Is it personal information? AFAIK the facebook T&C states that as soon as you put information into facebook it is their data. You're giving something away freely an then complaining about how the recipient uses it.
Facebook may have broken some laws and they are definitely a scummy company, but the onus is still on people not to give away their private data.
The law of the land says assault and murder are illegal but it's still a good idea to take self defense lessons and to avoid areas with a heightened risk. In a perfect world you can rely on the law of the land but in the real world you can't. A world where you data is traveling in and out of multiple jurisdictions around the world is even further from perfect.
None of which recovers your earlier statements. If a person beats you up, they are liable to penalty of law and you are entitled to complain - no matter where you were or what self defence training you'd taken, or that they'd buried a clause in a hard-to-understand and unavoidable contract for a service they'd offered you that said "we can randomly beat you up".
The person will be prosecuted, but you'll still have been beaten up. Unless you change you're behavior there is a good likelyhood that you'll get beaten up again.
Justice may be served but it's still not as good as not having been beaten up in the first place.
The application of legal penalties should be deterrent enough. If they are not, they should be made more severe.
The whole reason we have laws is to help people protect other people. If we expected everyone to protect themselves, we'd have no use for law. This is exactly why victim blaming is pointless and stupid.
No laws will ever be strict enough to prevent crime, the countries with the harshest laws in the world still suffer from it.
Legal penalties don't matter to people not thinking far enough ahead for them to enter the equation. They don't matter to people who think they can get away with breaking the law (much easier for electronic crime) and they don't matter to people who think they are above the law, which may be he case here.
Harsher penalties can even be counter-productive. If you're on death row for killing one person then you better make sure you kill any potential witnesses, the penalty is the same either way.
> This is exactly why victim blaming is pointless and stupid.
Fine, I'm being pointless and stupid. But if you don't care who you're giving your data too then don't expect me to care next time it ends up with someone you didn't want.
Sure, legal penalties don't stop people who don't believe in them. But we believe in legal penalties, so we put people in prisons. Even if they don't believe in them.
>then don't expect me to care next time it ends up with someone you didn't want.
You say that until someone gives your information away for you. Then you'll be crying about how unfair it is that nobody else protected you. Possibly from threats you didn't even know existed.
So we make it illegal, punishable by the death penalty, let's think about how that plays out. Facebook might be destoryed, Zuckerburg might be strung up, but what happens after that?
Some company in Nigeria starts a funny website with quizzes like "what telly tubby are you?" that convinces your friends and family to provide data. The let them upload photos so they can be photoshopped onto the telletubbies for a good laugh. Now that company in a different jurisdiction is building up profile data. They'll build crappy android apps to track GPS data. There won't be one of them, there will be many and they will buy and sell data, accumulating it into bigger and bigger data sets. This isn't even a hypothetical, it's been happening in the west for a long time.
Do you want to attack the root of the issue or keep chopping heads off the hydra?
Fine, I'm being pointless and stupid. But if you don't care who you're giving your data too then don't expect me to care next time it ends up with someone you didn't want.
I’ve never had a Facebook account, yet friends and family do, and through them they can get info on me. You don’t have to care though, and I’ll just get with not caring about you. Meanwhile the public at large is starting to care, and your attitude won’t impress them any more than it does me.
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.
Assuming Zuck being summoned is related to Cambridge Analytica, do you have any data on this that you can share?
I assumed the data was closer to, for example: seeing that a person worked in a low-wage position (or that their likes would suggest that), and serving them an ad about how Trump would bring more jobs to the US.
>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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
Ignoring scale of emotional reaction here for a moment, do you believe that the actual on-the-ground outcomes of this will be greater or lesser in scope than the Snowden files? I feel like there was a lot of bluster about the government tracking private citizens illegally but nothing really happened. Conversely, this time the wrong political candidate won using social media data, and now we might get some valuable privacy regulation.
The best outcome would be privacy from both private and government, but if I had to choose I'd pick privacy from government. It appears I'm either in the significant minority or it's just easier to kick private corporations than it is to kick the government.
It's a matter of being ~abused. With analytics, many large companies are so powerful they can manipulate my emotions and decisions. Effectively they can choose what I will do.
It's true that people and small companies have always done that, but I'm on a relatively level playing field with them. With these massive corporations, I can do pretty close to nothing about it.
And in many cases we're talking about companies so big they're as powerful or more powerful that whole countries.
The government could arrest someone I love and hold them under administrative detention because they'd decided "type of person X" is bad for the Party. But Facebook manipulate people's emotions - someone with that kind of power could encourage those who they don't like to commit suicide or acts of terror.
It's not obvious to me that 1984 would have be different if we realised that the Party was democratically elected every four years and had merely manipulated everyone using a private service into voluntarily acting that way.
There's an important difference between corporations and governments. Corporations rarely get a monopoly and in the event that they do they don't last forever. Once a government gets power it almost always keeps it forever.
Consumer tech corporations, do seem to end up with monopolies — and they'll fight, lobby, and pay (through acquisitions) to keep them. It's a complete red-herring to argue that they don't last forever since that's utterly irrelevant to the impact they can have while they are around.
Google's been around for almost 20 years now, FB didn't kill it. FB has been around for 14 years and can sway elections.
If you want privacy from government, then you'll only get it if you can be private from corporations. They basically run things anyway via lobbyists.
You're basically saying that you don't believe advertising (or influence) works at all — which is bullshit.
CBS and its ilk probably made a big difference compared to what was there before (radio?) and FB has has made an even bigger impact since (specifically with respect to scale and ability for fine-grained targeting).
>You're basically saying that you don't believe advertising (or influence) works at all — which is bullshit.
No I'm not. I'm acknowledging that advertising has always worked.
>CBS and its ilk probably made a big difference compared to what was there before (radio?) and FB has has made an even bigger impact since (specifically with respect to scale and ability for fine-grained targeting).
I think you're over-estimating FB's ability to impact elections compared to being one of only 3 television channels. Particularly given the fact that we're not really talking about FB itself impacting the election, but competing parties utilizing the semi-neutral FB platform to advertise.
Perspective is everything I guess. For the issues I care about most the difference between those US Presidents is largely cosmetic. So I would have presented them as evidence in my favor.
Good question. Saying "I for one am grateful that these services target me with relevant ads" is like saying I'm grateful for only seeing what I want to see, and not what I need to see.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
It is a request. There's no sanction associated with not turning up, but that means Facebook doesn't get a say in what the legislative response to this is. For example, maybe a ban on political advertising on Facebook.
Not as of now. Though until very recently, you also needed to have at least some personnel physically present in a location if you wanted to conduct business there.
As that changed, thanks to the internet, those rules might need to change as well.
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.
> 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 BBC does not use the noun “summons” at all, it uses, in the headline, the verb participle “summoned”, which typically does not mean “issued a summons”.
> To clarify, something that is 'summoned' is ordered.
That is an overly narrow definition; “summoned” is broader than “ordered”.
Google's excellent, OED-based search-integrated dictionary has, as the first definition of “summon”, “authoritatively or urgently call on (someone) to be present, especially as a defendant or witness in a law court”; you seem to want to limit the term to cases where the call is made authoritatively but not those where it is merely made urgently.
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.
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.
It is just a rehash of an old Hollywood cliché: "college is just sex and booze":
* A bus full of hot girls arriving to be used for sex
* A programming competition where the crowd cheers at each line of coded Python. The coders drink a shot to commemorate. Hint: try to program under alcohol influence.
* The hero hacks one site in one night when drunk and in 2 hours it crashes the network
* All nerds are socially inept and incapable of getting girlfriends but still Zuck has smart psychological insights about what the site needs to succeed.
* Teenagers outsmarting experienced lawyers with witty responses.
* Sex, booze and testosterone is what drives every man.
Did we even see the same movie? We're talking about the social network, right? The movie lauded nearly universally, winning and nominated for all sorts of awards (including best picture!) by every organization in every category? The movie regularly voted as one of the best films of the last 18 years?
I don't recognize a single one of your bullet points as being about my experience of the movie. The whole conceit was that a brilliant technical expert's unexpected success pushes him into a world he is not emotionally or socially prepared to handle, and ultimately his arrogance and hubris leaves him alone and unhappy as he pushes away the people in his life one by one, ending SPOILER ALERT
beautifully with him quietly desperately refreshing his ex's facebook page alone, starting to recognize how much he regrets everything that he has lost in his pursuit for wealth and power...
Most of the movie isn't about college, or sex, or booze. If you had to could you have broken a site from that era in 2 hours? I'd be shocked if you couldn't. Lots of these sites would die when they get a little too much traffic. Some sites still do today. Security was an afterthought back then. Zuck had a girlfriend, and his friends do just fine. The lawyers are dealing with so much wealth and power in the hands of people who are so young and emotionally immature and they handle it exactly how I'd expect them to.
Zuck in the movie is driven by a lust for wealth and power, which is a universal theme in basically every story in human history.
> The movie lauded nearly universally, winning and nominated for all sorts of awards (including best picture!)
Yes it is the same movie. If the judgement of the entertainment industry and public were any measure of quality then "Big Bang Theory" should be an excelent show, when in truth it is just a childish nerd version of those blackface movies from early 20th century. Millions loved it? Millions are wrong.
> I don't recognize a single one of your bullet points as being about my experience of the movie.
I just described scenes. Watch the movie you'll see those scenes.
I don't see the "brilliance" you describe, just a lot of clichés in fast montage to blur out the shallowness.
I found it particularly bizarre that social media had become such an important aspect of our lives as to demand a “creation myth” account of its inception.
The only thing I enjoyed about that movie were the Elo formulae and the soundtrack (the metal rendition of Grieg’s In The Hall Of The Mountain King that runs behind the rowing race is particularly good, as is the track titled “Painted Sun in Abstract”).
>> I found it particularly bizarre that social media had become such an important aspect of our lives as to demand a “creation myth” account of its inception.
The 'creation myth' already existed, and just like the 'creation myth' of Apple, what we get down the road is the badly-watered-down, Hollywood version of the 'broken telephone' conversation about the myth...which is a lot of degrees of separation from the truth.
And the problem is, people are going into the theatre expecting certain events to happen based off of entirely fictional past events.
>> The only thing I enjoyed about that movie were the Elo formulae and the soundtrack (the metal rendition of Grieg’s In The Hall Of The Mountain King that runs behind the rowing race is particularly good, as is the track titled “Painted Sun in Abstract”).
I think everyone can agree if there's an upside to that film it's certainly Reznor's soundtrack. :-)
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?
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.
> 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?
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)
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.
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?
It's incredibly rare that warrants are issued at all; since the late 18th century, it's a Speaker's Warrant that's used (and enforced by the Serjeant-at-Arms of the House; prior to that no warrant was needed at all). They are formally issued by the House, and not Parliament as a whole.
Non-subjects can be compelled, most recently Rupert Murdoch in 2011 (wrt the News International wiretapping scandal), which along with his son James was AFAIK the last time a Speaker's Warrant to summon witnesses was issued.
There's nothing to stop a person who has been summoned from entering the country. Unlike an arrest warrant, the Speaker's warrant is more 'bark' without 'bite'. Because the coercive powers of Parliament are seldom used, it's unclear just where those powers derive from or how they can be practicably exercised and enforced.
As for Commonwealth countries... they have judiciaries independent* of the UK. If the subject was to visit an EU member state, the execution of a European Arrest Warrant would be a more feasible possibility, although I would think it's fairly remote (I mention it to put the Commonwealth point into perspective).
*Some Commonwealth realms (two or three, off the top of my head?) retain the Privy Council as part of their constitutional and judicial arrangements.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
Chris Cox and Mike Schroepfer are going, which is a very reasonable set: both are very knowledgeable, articulate speakers. I’m not sure how much of a scalping MPs will want it to be. I’m afraid that British politicians don’t appreciate Mark’s stance that his lieutenants understand the situation better.
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.
> 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.
Hah, that’d be ironic – the UK is of course still a full member of the EU but for them to push any agenda but brexit can’t very well be good for negotiations, nor the public perception of it all, can it?
I’m German, and love watching the U.K. getting raked over the coals with regards to Brexit.
But that should not have any impact on cooperation in such areas where the U.K. and the rest of the EU have a long history of friendship.
Facebook, as well as Russia’s murders and chemical weapons attacks, are a problem for all. The U.K. should and will get the solidarity of all rule-of-law countries, both as a matter of friendship and self-interest.
>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?
They could find you in contempt, which would matter if you ever visited the UK.
The risk for Facebook is that the public are increasingly frustrated with big companies not paying their fair share of tax. Some people will say "but they're only paying what the law says they have to pay". Those people are failing to understand the British cultural value of "not taking the piss". Not attending would be saying "FU", and that's likely to add to the pressure to make these large companies pay more tax.
They may summon you, but would have no means/authority by which to compel attendance or impose punishment. Further, it's seen as more of a soft power:
> [I]t remains unclear what sanctions it would have at its disposal. 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.
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.
The UK is still an influential country, and data protection laws here have teeth. The risk for Facebook is that stronger regulations adopted in the UK may spread to other countries.
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.
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.
>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.
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".
It's patently obvious to the layperson that the product available at facebook.com in the UK is largely directed by the parent company that is responsible for the facebook.com product globally.
If they're at the "just having a talk" level, they still want to talk to the people who set direction over the relevant parts of Facebook. Which is less obvious, but is still Facebook Inc.
I'll grant that Facebook UK is probably involved with advising the parent company about local laws. However, assume hypothetically that any and all privacy or data protection laws are repealed in the UK tomorrow. Who do you think would set the marching orders for what data is acquired in the UK, and how it is used? Facebook UK?
If Facehook UK existed for more reasons than having a legal entity to handle the UK affairs of Facebook Inc, I'd agree with you. Say, for example, if Facebook UK owned a newstand magazine edited in London and sold primary in England. In that case, if parliament wanted to talk about the magazine then Facebook UK would be the right entity to talk to first.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)")
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.
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.
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.
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!
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).
That is largely a change in how parliamentary sovereignty is applied, not an abandonment of the principle. Parliament has placed other bodies over itself in specific areas, but this is not irrevocable or remove Parliament's ability to reestablish itself in a period of supremacy. Specifically, per Denning in Macarthys v Smith (often cited alongside Factortame):
> If the time should come when our Parliament deliberately passes an Act with the intention of repudiating the [EU] Treaty or any provision in it or intentionally of acting inconsistently with it and says so in express terms then I should have thought that it would be the duty of our courts to follow the statute of our Parliament.
or see Thoburn v SCC which established that constitutional statutes (such as those establishing the primacy of EU law) are only protected from _implied_ repeal.
>In the UK, a central principle is that parliament is entirely sovereign. //
Not entirely sovereign, legally the Sovereign is advised by parliament, the government is hers, and she signs acts in to law according to her whim ... of course the power resides in a delicate balance and the legal situation belies the complexity of the true power structure.
This is sort of true, but only in extremely limited cases.
It is a constitutional convention that the monarch will follow the advice of ministers other than when exercising reserve powers, and ministers have extremely limited constitutional flexibility in terms of advicing the monarch to give assent. The monarchs power to refuse royal assent for bills is not part of the reserve powers other than in very limited circumstances (she can delay assent in the case of "near revolutionary" conditions; she can in theory refuse assent on advice of ministers, last exercised by Queen Anne in 1708; she can refuse assent on bills that directly relate to her reserve powers themselves, or her property).
So while on paper she "signs acts into law according to her whim", if she fails to sign laws outside that very narrow scope, she'll have violated a constitutional convention that has been a settled part of UK constitutional law for something like two centuries.
This would not just be outrageous, but would be subject to legal challenge, as notably, it has been established since 1611, and not challenged by a monarch since 1688, that the judiciary has the power to restrict the royal prerogative, and the judiciary in the UK has centuries of history of taking a very dim view on monarchs trying to reclaim powers that have been de facto transferred to parliament. Odds are she'd find herself having the power legally stripped from her at best, at worst it'd be the end of the monarchy.
In other words, in practice it is legal fiction that this power rests with the monarch - outside of the reserve powers it rests with the monarch only as long as she only exercises them in a ceremonial capacity in line with the wishes of parliament.
Even the reserve powers are retained mostly because they are exercised so incredibly rarely (e.g. some of them have not been attempted used for centuries) and/or have very limited effect (e.g. on the rare circumstances where the monarch has exercised her powers to choose whom to appoint as PM in modern history it was accepted because the decisions were in line with parliamentary reality, and because parliament could instantly overthrow said government if it did not agree with the choice), but the reserve powers are at least nominally actual powers that the monarch can with some caution actually exercise and get away with it. The rest of the royal prerogatives are not.
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.
No I'm South African - but I recently toured Westminster Palace and was told that laws are generally drafted and revised plenty in the House of Commons but are unable to move anything all the way through without the House of Lords at least rubber stamping it.
But this inquiry is still information gathering regardless, is it not? It's not of any prosecutorial nature, and it needn't be the actual leader of Facebook's UK entity if they don't believe that the UK entity has a ton of control over Facebook in general in all the ways it affects the UK.
edit: Holy shit, downvote storm - if I'm wrong about their legal authority, I'm wrong, but where are the other explanations for why that house is summoning Zuckerberg that contradict mine?
Our legal and government system isn't directly analogous to, for example, the separation of powers that exists in the US.
The House of Commons consists of elected MPs, and forms our primary legislative body. The typical process is for legislation to originate in the Commons where it's brought forward by the government of the day, go through various stages where it bounces back and forth between the Commons and the House of Lords, and then become law when it receives royal assent. The latter is almost entirely a formality these days, and while the Lords can and routinely does propose amendments to laws and can delay laws it isn't happy with, ultimately the Commons can overrule them if it really wants to. Various other possibilities for originating legislation exist, but they are rarer, and the Commons still ultimately wins disagreements if it chooses to.
Our administrative/executive government is not independently elected, but rather a Prime Minister is selected to form it. The PM is almost always the leader of a party that can command the support of the Commons, either with an outright majority for their party in its own right or through some sort of coalition or other partnership agreement. Consequently, the PM is usually an MP themselves. They then select, normally from among MPs and Lords, other people to form a Cabinet and take on the various senior positions in the government. In principle, the holders of these posts are all servants of the Crown for traditional reasons, but again that is essentially a formality today.
Aside from its direct legislative duties, Parliament (the Commons and Lords) also conducts a lot of work in committees like the one we're talking about today; arguably, this is where most of the real work actually happens, since these committees often provide the detailed scrutiny of new proposed legislation within their field as well, but more generally the work of the committees may guide both legislation and the actions of the government (that is, the executive/administrative element led by the PM).
In short, MPs are really the heart of our system of government, and being awkward when a parliamentary committee invites you to attend is not going to end well.
It's the other way around. The House of Lords can correct things, but nothing proceeds on their approval alone. Either House can override the other during normal proceedings, but via the Parliament Act the Commons can exert final say over the Lords.
The Commons, while technically not the Sovereign, is the sovereign body here. Being called in front of one of their committees is Serious Business in UK terms.
> unable to move anything all the way through without the House of Lords at least rubber stamping it
Under the Parliament Acts, other than narrow exceptions, the House of Lords can only delay bills. The Commons can pass most legislation without the consent of the Lords.
Oh you know what? I think I am thinking of the House of Lords - thanks. My point is more that it's information gathering anyway. There's no reason they have to deal with an official UK representative of the company - they want to speak to whoever they think is really the best insight / strongest influencer. And if that's Zuck and not the CEO of the UK legal entity, it's Zuck they talk to.
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.
When viewed in a certain light, maybe. But the monarch's hands are tied by parliament: while in theory the Queen may choose not to assent to a bill put before her, it's widely considered that freedom would be withdrawn if she actually tried to use it.
Much of what goes into the sausage-making that is the UK parliamentary system is there by custom, on the one hand because it would be legislatively expensive to modernise; on the other because no-one would ever agree on what to replace it with.
This is pretty much the case for any monarchy in europe these days.
In Belgium for instance, the monarch has to sign all legislation into law. For personal reasons, could not sign a abortion bill drafted by the belgium parlement.
Because denying to sign the bill directly would results in basically the end of the monarchy, he decided to "resign" for a day, the cabinet assumed his powers, the bill got signed, and he was reinstated again.[0]
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.
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.
No, but they do have plenty of jurisdiction over business conducted in their country. Facebook is very dependent on a laissez-faire approach to privacy, and snubbing the House of Commons could put that at risk in the UK.
Is it likely the Facebook UK CEO will be able to tell them anything useful?
The UK Parliament can decide it has jurisdiction over whatever it likes. You're right that they won't be able to enforce it. But the question Zuckerberg has to ask himself is whether his testimony or his failure to appear will make MPs more predisposed against him and Facebook. Whether or not it's a good idea to snub a parliamentary inquiry in any given country will vary greatly, but generally it will at least be a good idea to give it some serious thought before turning them down.
The British Parliament is an institution that helped shape and construct the present international order, at one point holding jurisdiction over a quarter of the Earth's surface area.
Yeah, this guy is a US citizen, but he is the officer in charge of a multinational corporation that does business in and draws revenue from the UK and its dependents. Is he legally obligated to show up? Probably not. Would Parliament be able to enforce their decision if they decided he was legally obliged? Probably not, not in the case where they come up against the US though if he were resident in nearly any other country in the world though, they probably could.
International law relies on conventions agreed upon by nation-states, themselves a hodgepodge of various domestic and foreign interests. The only really big enforcement actor in the space is the United States Military, and so in cases where the United States Military isn't willing to take action for domestic reasons, international law basically means nothing.
So while Zuckerberg may not have to go himself, he probably should or just cut business ties with anybody in the UK now. They may not be able to force him by military might, but they can make his life difficult and Facebook's continued operations in the UK very very difficult.
Oh and do note that Facebook hosts British data globally, even if operations are conducted locally. In their position I would be going after the parent company, not the local stub unless I had to make a few examples out of the local stub to get the parent company's attention.
There's no international law that prevents the UK parliament - or anyone else - from declaring they wish any random person to appear before them.
I can do that too if I want.
Specific attempts at enforcing it may or may not have legal basis, but that's an entirely separate issue.
It's entirely up to Zuckerberg whether or not he decided to appear, but he will need to consider that if he doesn't he might find the UK parliament more likely to take actions that will hurt Facebook later on.
Unlike Parliament you're not bound by international conventions; though you may be bound like them (for the moment) by EU law.
The ECHR for example puts restrictions on impositions in to the private life of individuals. A demand to appear before Parliament without proper jurisdiction would appear a priori to be such an infringement.
Suggestions that "well Parliament can make things very difficult for him" whilst probably true should be given utmost contempt. Parliament should uphold the Rule of Law and not threaten people, even if it can.
I can't see any reason not to simply demand an officer of Facebook with executive powers be in attendance. Perhaps specified to be the person with management responsibility for data protection.
FWIW I'm very far from being a supporter of Zuckerberg, though am a user of Facebook.
Asking someone to show up is not an "imposition into the private life of individuals".
You call it a demand, and seem to believe it has some kind of legal force, but it does not. They're asking. They're asking firmly, but they're still just asking. It has no more legal force than if I were to ask.
> Suggestions that "well Parliament can make things very difficult for him" whilst probably true should be given utmost contempt. Parliament should uphold the Rule of Law and not threaten people, even if it can.
Parliament is the source of law in the UK. The way parliament can make things difficult for him is to make law. Nobody is suggesting they should threaten people, but it is their job to e.g. consider the impact of how businesses threat their users and if appropriate to pass laws regulating it. If Facebook when given an opportunity to present their side to parliament decides not to take that opportunity, they should not be surprised if such laws does not take their views into account.
Zuckerberg should be happy to be explicitly given the opportunity to present Facebook's side - they need not extend that courtesy. They could instead simply make their decisions without hearing Facebooks side of the story at all.
> I can't see any reason not to simply demand an officer of Facebook with executive powers be in attendance. Perhaps specified to be the person with management responsibility for data protection.
A very simple reason is that they may not believe said persons would be able to offer the same input.
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.