Nigel Farage next, who describes himself as the EU’s largest Facebook user, before – as he teased – launching into an attack on Facebook as a biased, partial platform.
“What is absolutely true is that since January this year, you’ve changed your algorithms, and it’s led to a substantial drop to views and engagements for those who’ve got right-of-centre political opinions. On average, we’re down about 25% over the course of this year.
“I’m not talking about extremism,” Farage says. “What interests me is, who decides what is acceptable? Who are these third-party fact-checkers? Why is there no transparency in this process?
“I’m beginning to wonder whether we need a social media bill of rights to basically protect free speech. Would you accept that Facebook is not a platform for all ideas, one that is not impartial?”
Gabriele Zimmer, a German socialist, is the first to ask a question in a language other than English. She criticises Zuckerberg for the closed nature of the meeting, before turning to the way the site has, she says, degraded since it was formed.
“These platforms have changed. There’s a lot more fake news, the communities have gotten smaller, you have a very narrow view of the world.
“If we look at the situation in Germany, that can be compensated in public debate – but for people in other parts of the world, this can be deadly. We have seen these cases on Facebook that have lead to the deaths of people. Can the Facebook business model be changed and brought back to its initial mission as a communication platform?”
She then cites Goethe as an example, somehow, before noting that Facebook’s verbal support of GDPR isn’t in concert with the company moving 1.5bn people out of the regulation’s remit.
She adds that “Facebook was founded as a ‘hot or not’ platform,” before asking whether that means the company can really support women’s rights.
(Tajani adds that Zuckerberg came when invited, and the meeting was public as agreed.)
Next, Guy Verhofstadt, who says he knows Zuckerberg through Dave Eggers’ “The Circle”, a book about a malicious, all-powerful tech company.
The difference, he notes, is that Zuckerberg isn’t all-powerful. “I think this is your 14th, 15th apology … This year you’ve apologised three times already. Are you capable to fix it? There has to be clearly a problem. The only way I can see to fix it is to have public regulation. It’s a bit like the banks in ’07, ’08: they said, ‘Oh, we’ll regulate ourselves,’ but they didn’t.”
On to questions: Verhofstadt picks up on the recent transfer of non-European users outside of the reach of GDPR, and asks if we can trust that Facebook will actually obey GDPR. “Will you compensate European Facebook users, as required by GDPR?”
As for Facebook’s monopoly, he describes Zuckerberg pointing to Apple and Google as competitors as like a car company saying, “We don’t have a monopoly, you can take a train or a plane!” He asks whether Facebook would be willing to split off Messenger and WhatsApp, or keep Instagram.
“I really think we have a big problem here. You have to ask yourself how will you be remembered – as one of the three big internet giants, with Jobs and Gates, or as an internet monster?”
Britain’s Syed Kamall up next. He reassures Zuckerberg that they aren’t here to try and crush a successful business, but notes concerns, particularly around the company’s gathering of data on non-Facebook users.
“I know that by having my own Facebook account, I take some responsibility … but if I don’t have a Facebook account, is the only way to stop Facebook collecting my data by staying off the internet altogether? Is it morally acceptable to collect non-Facebook users’ data without them knowing what you do with it?”
Next, German social democrat Udo Bullmann. “Are you ready to completely comply with the new regulation in Europe within the next three days?” Bullmann asks. “Can you guarantee Facebook is in line with the new rules, and that Facebook won’t sell data to third parties without proper consent?
“How can you guarantee that no manipulation of the forthcoming vote will happen? In which way will you adapt your business model to ensure that can happen?”
Bullmann’s questions, he says, are about “the right of self-government of nations.”
On to the questions: oddly, every MEP will ask their questions first, then Zuckerberg will answer them all at the end.
“Is Cambridge Analytica an isolated case? Can you guarantee that another scandal will not happen in three, six, nine months’ time?” asks German MEP Manfred Weber. Then: “Did you personally make the decision in 2015 to not notify your users?”
“Between Europe and America, we have a different understanding of what is allowed and not allowed to publish,” Weber adds. “I see a lot of member states at the moment asking Facebook to voluntarily ban messages [such as glorification of nazisim]”, he says, adding that “asking” should be “telling”.
And finally, directly: can Zuckerberg name a competitor? Would he describe Facebook as a monopoly? “Can you convince me not to break up Facebook?”
“Facebook plays a positive role in elections around the world by helping leaders like you connect directly with voters,” Zuckerberg says. “I am determined to keep building tools that bring people together in meaningful ways.”
“We’re very committed to Europe,” he adds. Dublin is the international headquarters, London the largest non-US engineering corps, Paris a chunk of the AI workforce. By the end of this year, the company will employ more than 10,000 Europeans, he says.
“Now let’s turn to elections,” Zuckerberg says. “In 2016, we were too slow to identify Russian interference on Facebook in the US presidential election. At the time we were more focused on traditional cyberattacks.
“Since then, we’ve made significant investments to make this sort of attack harder to do on Facebook. We’ve done a better job since 2016, including in the French elections, the German elections, and the Alabama special election.”
Zuckerberg cites the company’s tracking and removal of fake accounts, as well as its removal of the ways in which fake news spammers can make money, as examples of changes that have improved Facebook’s ecosystem.
He also brings up Facebook’s recent creation of advertising transparency tools, promising that they will launch globally this summer.
GDPR next. “We’ve always shared these values … and now we’re going even further to comply with these strong new rules. We’re making the same controls and settings available to people from around the world.”
Zuckerberg teases the company’s forthcoming “clear history” setting, which will let users remove Facebook’s profiling and browser tracking.
