James Martin/ CNET.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the UK federal government simply played an international video game of chicken– and it appears like the UK may have lost?
On May 1, the UK threatened Zuckerberg with an official summons if he were to set foot on UK soil, in an effort to get Facebook’s CEO to personally affirm about the Cambridge Analytica scandal
But in a letter dated May 14 (PDF), Facebook’s UK head of public law, Rebecca Stimson, responded that Zuckerberg still “has no plans to meet with the committee or travel to the UK at the present time.”
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In response, UK Parliament Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee chair Damien Collins expressed his disappointment, writing:
“If Mark Zuckerberg truly recognises the ‘seriousness’ of these issues as they say they do, we would expect that he would want to appear in front of the Committee and answer questions that are of concern not only to Parliament, but Facebook’s tens of millions of users in this country.”
But Collins also pointed out the UK government is open to speaking with Zuckerberg over video chat. The Facebook CEO also refused Parliament’s previous invitation to give evidence either in person or via video link.Â
MP Collins’ office didn’t respond to a request for comment. Facebook pointed us back to Stimson’s letter when reached for comment.
Disclosure: Sean’s wife works for Facebook as an internal video producer.
