UK MPs ask Facebook’s Zuckerberg to testify on data row

A British parliamentary committee on Tuesday asks Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to appear before it to explain in person claims that millions of users’ data were harvested for political campaigns.

Damian Collins, chairman of the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee, writes to Zuckerberg asking for his own account of “this catastrophic failure of process.”

The request is made as part of the committee’s ongoing investigation into fake news, which saw its members last month visit Washington for hearings with officials from Facebook and Twitter.

But it follows allegations that data from up to 50 million Facebook users were harvested by a British company, Cambridge Analytica, for use in the election campaign of US President Donald Trump in 2016.

“Following material published in the UK Guardian and The New York Times over the past few days, the committee would like to request that you appear before us to give oral evidence,” Collins writes.

Collins sets Zuckerberg a deadline of March 26 to reply.

— AFP