Mark Zuckerberg Invited To Speak In Front Of UK Parliament Again, With Canadian Help

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has traveled the globe in 2018 to answer leaders' questions about the social media site's protection of user data. On Wednesday, Zuckerberg got another invite, this time jointly from members of both U.K. and Canadian Parliament.

MP Damian Collins from the U.K.’s Conservative Party extended the invite via Twitter. He tweeted an image of a letter he co-signed with Canadian MP Bob Zimmer urging Zuckerberg to speak in front of a “special joint parliamentary hearing” on Nov. 27. The meeting of the “international grand committee” will focus on online disinformation campaigns, per the letter.

A U.K. data watchdog issued a small fine to Facebook for its role in the Cambridge Analytica incident last week.

Collins tried to get Zuckerberg to testify in the U.K. earlier this year, but Facebook sent CTO Mike Schroepfer instead. Collins told Zuckerberg to show up this time because the committee plans to “issue final reports on this issue” by the end of December. He called Zuckerberg’s testimony “overdue, and urgent.”

“No such joint hearing has ever been held,” Collins wrote. “Given your self-declared objective to ‘fix’ Facebook, and to prevent the platform’s malign use in world affairs and democratic process, we would like to give you the chance to appear at this hearing.”

The letter ended with a request that Zuckerberg respond by Nov. 7.

Zuckerberg personally testified to U.S. Congress and European Parliament but has turned down other invites. Aside from earlier invites to U.K. Parliament by Collins, Zuckerberg did not make a trip to Russia to speak to that country’s Federation Council after he was invited in May.

When Zuckerberg has made personal appearances, it has not always helped his case. Following his testimony in front of European Parliament, German parliament member Udo Bullman called the meeting a “farce” due to the format.