UK Culture Sec To Meet Zuckerberg At His California Office

The Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg is reported to meet the UK’s culture secretary, Jeremy Wright in California. Zuckerberg, for the last eighteen months, had not showed up before any parliamentary committee investigating into the allegations of failure of the social network. The family of Molly Russell, a British teenager, has claimed that Facebook was the reason behind her death. They accused Facebook for containing materials which glorified suicide on their Instagram site.

Mr. Wright said that in the 30 minutes of time allotted by Zuckerberg, they are planning to discuss about the prevention of online harm. The Department of Culture, Media and Sports is expected to publish a report within a few weeks, which is said to include inputs from various tech companies. Margot James, Minister for Digital and Culture, is also expected to have talks with Google, YouTube, Apple, Pinterest, Twitter, Tinder and Snap. Mr. Wright said that this proposal would be a model for other companies like Facebook and so there was every reason for all these companies to cooperate with them.

Mark Zuckerberg did not address the DCMS committee throughout the investigation, which resulted in an unfavorable report published earlier. The report said that the company violated competition and data privacy rules. They even went to the extent of describing the company as a digital gangster. Mr. Wright said ample time had been given to the social media companies to better and regulate themselves and that this period of time has now ended.

The reports from BBC said that Nick Clegg, UK deputy prime minister, will not be seen attending this meeting. Mr. Clegg had formerly talked of his wish to have co-regulation with the government however it was not very pleasing to Mr. Wright. He further said that if a regulation on the part of social media companies was required, then only the government could produce that.