Zuckerberg only deals superficially with questions from the European Parliament

During a hearing with the European Parliament Tuesday evening, Mark Zuckerberg mainly reiterated the apologies and promises he made before the US Senate in April. He did not respond to new questions or only superficially.

The hearing could be followed live on the European Parliament’s website and Facebook page. During the hearing, Zuckerberg mainly emphasized previously announced measures to prevent a repeat of a scandal like the one with Cambridge Analytica.

Members of the European Parliament were given the opportunity to ask a question in succession during the hearing, after which the Facebook director was given the floor and had to formulate an answer to all questions in one fell swoop. This answer largely consisted of a repetition of points he also mentioned in his introductory speech and did not elaborate much on the questions.

At the end of his answer, Zuckerberg asked if there were any unanswered questions. People from various quarters shouted that they still wanted an explanation about the practice of keeping shadow profiles, virtual profiles of users who have not created an account on Facebook. Zuckerberg, however, did not answer the questions and instead said that Facebook is going to come up with a function to delete all data that Facebook has collected from a user.

Other questions Zuckerberg did not address were about how much Facebook exchanges information between its applications, such as between Facebook and WhatsApp, and whether there will be a way for users to avoid targeted ads.

Zuckerberg promised to come up with written answers to these “more technical questions” after the hearing. The Facebook director indicated that he could have these answers ready within a few days.