Facebook: ‘No plans’ for Zuckerberg to testify in UK despite summons threat

Facebook says Mark Zuckerberg has “no plans” to testify before the U.K. Parliament despite a lawmaker’s threat to formally summon the social media giant’s CEO to answer questions on the company’s data practices.

“While Mr Zuckerberg has no plans to meet with the committee or travel to the UK at the present time we continue to fully recognize the seriousness of these issues and remain committed to working with you to provide any additional relevant information you require for your inquiry into fake news,” Rebecca Stimson, Facebook’s U.K. public policy chief, wrote in a letter to Parliament.

Damian Collins, chairman of a House of Commons committee on internet companies, had demanded that Zuckerberg testify after Facebook’s chief technology officer answered questions on a data scandal in which a political consultancy improperly obtained information on 87 million of the social network’s users.

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In her letter, Stimson provided responses to a list of questions that Collins sent after his panel’s hearing on the incident. Collins said Tuesday that Stimson’s response was “disappointing.”

“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,” the lawmaker said in a statement.

He added that the committee would be willing to take Zuckerberg’s testimony through video link if the CEO is unwilling to travel to the U.K.. Collins did not say if he would follow through on his threat of issuing formal summons for Zuckerberg.