Mark Zuckerberg faces EU lawmakers, apologises once again for data scandal

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once again apologised for the data scandal involving his company as he appeared before the European Parliament on Tuesday. The European lawmakers fired a litany of questions at Zuckerberg on privacy, regulation, monopoly, General Data Protection Regulation, taxes, and more.

The format of the meeting was such that for majority of the 80 minutes EU politicians charged on Zuckerberg with lengthy questions and observations one after another, leaving little time for the Facebook chief to respond.

When Zuckerberg got the time to respond to the questions lobbed on him by the European leaders, he answered a select few. EU lawmakers were dissatisfied with Zuckerberg’s responses and complained about the “lack of substance” in the replies.

Philippe Lamberts, co-leader of the European Greens Party, said, “I asked six yes-or-no questions, and I got not a single answer.” And he later tweeted:

Reply from @MarkZuckerbergF lacking substance, @EP_President allowed this format allowing #Zuckerberg not touching substance

— Philippe Lamberts (@ph_lamberts) May 22, 2018

The European Union, which will implement the General Data Protection Regulations on May 25, is very concerned about who controls data and how it is collected and used. The lawmakers on Tuesday demanded answers from Zuckerberg on the efforts that Facebook is taking to comply to these regulations. 

On the topic of regulation, Zuckerberg said, “I don’t think the question here is whether or not there should be regulation, I think the question is: what is the right regulation?”

“Some sort of regulation is important and inevitable and the important thing is to get this right, and to make sure that we have regulatory frameworks that help protect people, that are flexible so that they allow for innovation, that doesn’t inadvertently prevent new technologies like AI from being able to develop, and of course to make sure that new start-ups; the next student sitting in a college dorm room like I was 14 years ago; doesn’t have an undue burden on being able to build the next great products,” he further added.