The testimony of Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, to the European Parliament regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which is scheduled to be held Tuesday afternoon, will be broadcast live.
Zuckerberg agreed to the ‘live’ webfeed after talking to the president of the parliament, Antonio Tajani. The proceedings were earlier scheduled to take place behind closed doors.
“Great news for EU citizens,” Tajani said in a Twitter post. “I thank him for the respect shown” to parliament.
In April, the 34-year old Zuckerberg had given a similar testimony before the US Senate. In the proceedings on Tuesday he will try and explain how Facebook data from as many as 2.7 million Europeans could have passed to Cambridge Analytica. The UK-based consulting firm, which has shut shop since then, may have collected data of approximatley 87 million Facebook users and used it for Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign and elections in other countries.
Facebook said in a statement that it was “looking forward to the meeting and happy for it to be live streamed.” Previously, Zuckerberg was to give a presentation in private. That move had been widely criticized by many including Vera Jourova, EU Justice Commissioner in charge of the EU’s new privacy rules.
Zuckerberg’s testimony last month to the US Congress was broadcast live.