Mark Zuckerberg came to Brussels looking to make friends. European officials responded: no thanks.
This time, the Facebook CEO focused on high-level policymakers, meeting with Margrethe Vestager, the region's competition chief, as well as Věra Jourová, the Commission's vice president in charge of fundamental rights and election integrity.
Brussels will publish new policies around artificial intelligence, the use of data and how the region will approach the global digital economy — efforts that will lead to years of hard-fought lobbying before final rules are passed. His idea would be for Facebook not to be treated like telecoms firms that just carry content, with no accountability for that material, nor like traditional publishers, which have control over such content. It comes amid a growing drumbeat on both sides of the Atlantic for social media companies to be held more responsible for what users posts online, including hate speech, terrorist content and other harmful material.
Breton also dismissed Zuckerberg's proposal for a third status for Facebook that would fall between telecom provider and publisher while expressing skepticism at the idea of one single EU regulator. Taking the stage alongside the Facebook chief executive, the French official cut off the tech boss from speaking, something that Zuckerberg is not accustomed to.Like Google and Microsoft before it, Facebook has often misjudged how to interact with policymakers in Brussels.
Clegg, who has spent much of his first year at Facebook visiting national EU capitals, attended many of Zuckerberg's meetings in Brussels on Monday, often hovering in the back. The former British lawmaker also met with Didier Reynders, the Commission's justice commissioner. "They had a good exchange of current issues in the digital sector," Vestager and Zuckerberg said in a joint statement.
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