The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica fiasco is still inducing ripples across the technology community, as Facebook’s Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been invited to another meeting.
Privacy concerns have swamped Facebook since it acknowledged last month that information about millions of users wrongly ended up in the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, a firm that counted U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral campaign among its clients.
Last week, Zuckerberg spent about 10 hours in front of Congress over the course of two days, answering questions about how Facebook handles content and user privacy, resulting in calls by some lawmakers for new regulation of social media.
Following this, Andrus Ansip, the European Union’s Digital Chief will meet Zuckerberg in San Francisco on Tuesday. Zuckerberg has also been asked to speak before the European Parliament to explain how Facebook data for European citizens may have been misused.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg spoke to Ansip’s justice counterpart last week in what was described as an open and constructive discussion.
Facebook shares were up 0.3 percent to $165.08 at 12:20 p.m. in New York. They have fallen about 11 percent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal erupted last month.
The Brussels-based commission said Ansip would also meet with Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai, Twitter General Counsel Sean Edgett and Netflix General Counsel David Hyman in individual meetings to talk about data protection, online privacy, illegal content, disinformation campaigns, digital copyright and artificial intelligence.
On part of testimonies made so far, Facebook said it had “nothing to share on the details of the meeting” and it often hosts politicians at its head office to discuss a range of subjects, while Cambridge Analytica acknowledged that all data acquired had been deleted.
