Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will appear before the European parliament, says its president Antonio Tajani.
The entrepreneur will answer questions about the way it handled and shared the personal data of its users following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
“Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and founder, has accepted our invitation,” Tajani wrote in a tweet.
“Our citizens deserve a full and detailed explanation. I welcome Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to appear in person before the representatives of 500 million Europeans,” Tajani wrote in an attached statement.
A similar UK committee has repeatedly requested that the Facebook CEO appear to discuss the issues, but on three separate occasions Zuckerberg declined, instead offering one of his executives.
“Parliament’s priority is to ensure the proper functioning of the digital market, with a high level of protection for personal data, effective rules on copyright and the protection of consumer rights,” wrote Tajani.
“Web giants must be responsible for the content they publish, including blatantly false news and illegal content.”
Why Zuckerberg chose to decline to appear in the UK – the country in which the scandal first broke – is unclear, but unlike his questioning in the US, this EU meeting will be held behind closed doors with political group leaders.
However Zuckerberg will be questioned by the chair of the UK parliament’s justice and home affairs committee, Claude Moraes, as he is a British Labour MEP.