
Matt blackout
Taming Facebook, Issue 1490

The digital, culture, media and sport committee published its report on “fake news” this week, with chair Damian Collins complaining: “Evidence uncovered… shows he still has questions to answer yet he’s continued to duck them, refusing to respond to our invitations directly or sending representatives who don’t have the right information.”
Zuckerberg has snubbed Collins’s committee multiple times and also declined to attend an international grand committee, with MPs from several countries concerned about his company’s practices.
Blacked out
However, during Matt Hancock’s brief stint as culture secretary, he achieved a tête-à-tête at a tech conference they were both speaking at in Paris last May. Whether they discussed any of the committee’s concerns – from dark ads to data privacy, Cambridge Analytica to foreign interference in elections – isn’t public knowledge. The culture department is about as transparent as Facebook and is withholding all details of the meeting.
Campaigners from Spinwatch therefore requested correspondence between Matthew Gould (the department’s director-general for digital and media policy) and Facebook’s lobbyists regarding the meeting. They received 13 redacted pages – almost entirely blacked out!
More top stories in the latest issue:
THE ART OF POLITICS
Special report on the questionable commercial record of Tory treasurer Ehud Sheleg and his business ties to some of Russia’s more unsavoury characters.
GARDEN TOOLS
Why, at the Evening Standard and Today programme, the vast waste of money that was London’s Garden Bridge project wasn’t considered newsworthy.
FLAILING GRAYLING
Rail columnist Dr B Ching on how much public money it costs to keep one hopeless transport secretary (Chris Grayling) in office.
WATERWORLD
The water companies say they’re doing everything possible to avoid restricting supplies if there’s is another dry summer. But who can believe them?
CHINA WATCH
China’s thriving organ transplant industry is now suspected of new horrors: harvesting organs from living prisoners of conscience.
EYE TOLD YOU SO…
The resignation of De Montfort university’s fat cat vice-chancellor is no surprise to Eye readers – but questions remain about his business dealings.