European Parliament President Antonio Tajani scolded European Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová for questioning a closed-door meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and MEPs, saying it is not her “job” to do so.
Jourová said on Twitter Wednesday that while she is glad Zuckerberg will come to Brussels to answer questions about privacy, it is a “pity” that “this will not be a public hearing.”
“There are more EU users on FB than there are in the US & Europeans deserve to know how their data is handled,” she tweeted.
Tajani fired back in a tweet that it was “a decision of the Conference of Presidents [senior MEPs]” to hold the closed-door session.
“It is not your job to control and criticize the @Europarl_EN.”
Zuckerberg will testify privately before a small group of the institutions most powerful MEPs next week about data protection in the wake of allegations that the firm Cambridge Analytica misused millions of Facebook users data. It will also come just over a month after he faced a marathon grilling at the U.S. Congress.
While the Brussels meeting is not open to the public, minutes will be taken. A lower-level Facebook manager will take the social media giants CEOs place during a public hearing with the civil liberties committee and other groups.
