Matt blackout
Taming Facebook, Issue 1490 WHILE MPs fume that Mark Zuckerberg refuses to answer their questions face-to-face, transparency campaigners have unearthed one minister who managed to secure an interview with the elusive Facebook boss.

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!