Carole Cadwalladr’s relentless pursuit of the bad acts committed by a host of bad actors around Brexit and the 2016 US presidential elections has some news for us from the British parliamentary inquiry, also attended by representatives from Canada, Germany, Belgium, and other countries, into Facebook. From the 4:30 PM GMT session:
Straight in: ‘Lord Allan’s answer this morning was false’ (About apps access to user data)
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
‘In short Facebook allowed developers to access users’ data time & time again.’
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
Charlie Angus (Canada): ‘You are testifying under oath that Facebook misrepresented themselves to this committee?’ ‘Correct.’
‘That is contempt of this committee’— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
Soltani: ‘I’ve worked on this issue for a decade. I was literally listening to the hearing this morning. And when companies make deliberately deceptive statements it gets under my skin’
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
Soltani: ‘643 docs likely critical to current FTC investigation’ (BIG deal. FTC has TEETH. Investigation live & ongoing)
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
This is in addition to this morning’s (Greenwich Mean Time) bombshells:
Explosive news from parliament today. Colins reveals Facebook knew in 2014 that Russia hacked users' data. Mueller's indictments show this was exactly when the Kremlin set up troll factory to target US voters. Why wasn't this disclosed to congress?? What else isn't it telling us? https://t.co/x2yzsb1fPo
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
On this, Facebook tells me, "the engineers who had flagged these initial concerns subsequently looked into this further and found no evidence of specific Russian activity."
Company didn't answer my question about whether a breach actually occurred. https://t.co/Mq6ibCL9O2
— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) November 27, 2018
Is Zuckerberg about to have a very, very bad several weeks? Why yes, yes he is!
#BREAK Damian Collins MP says he is hopeful he will be able to publish the secret internal Facebook documents in the next week
— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) November 27, 2018
Canadian Bob Zimmer: We represent 400 million. Let that sink in. We need to hear from the CEO. He made the decisions. There were so many questions that were not answered."
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
Paul Farrelly: "Has Facebook ever taken advice on possible RICO offences?"
Lord Allan: "Not that I'm aware of"— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
He's now got out the full flamethrower. "Does it occur to you that Facebook might have become of these bad actors?"
"No," said Lord Allan. "I don't believe we are." Even he doesn't sound quite sure any ore…— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
Lord Allan: "We can't turn the internet off."@DamianCollins: "The internet is not Facebook."
Final words. Hearing over. Pretty much sums it up.— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
For those who want to see her entire live tweetstorm of this morning’s hearings, you can start here:
Magnificent shade being thrown by parliament.
MP to Facebook's lobbyist, Lord Allan:
"Lord Allan you are a member of parliament. How do you think it looks that Mark Zuckerberg didn't turn up to to answer questions to parliament today?"
Lord Allan: "Not great." pic.twitter.com/mSwRHtmVm2— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018
Jason Kint’s starts here:
“Facebook still has questions to answer” link to unprecedented global committee hearing starting shortly. Facebook sent its lobbyist. We know questions will be precise at this point but we don’t know whether Facebook will come to answer. ICO certainly will. I’ll thread here. https://t.co/IK83wqEj1D
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) November 27, 2018
While the current administration may not care to do anything about this, especially given how much it has benefited the President, and the GOP majorities in the House and the Senate aren’t really interested either, the British, the Canadians, the Germans, the Belgians, the French, and the European Union are. And they will conduct the inquiries, criminal investigations, prosecutions, and ultimately create the regulation that will bring Zuckerberg and Sandberg and a whole host of other bad actors that have leveraged what Zuckerberg and Sandberg created to heel.
Do you know who in the US is paying close attention to the inquiries today in Parliament? Special Counsel Mueller and Congressman Adam Schiff.
Open thread!