A majority of political leaders in the European Parliament Friday agreed to demand that Mark Zuckerberg testify in a meeting thats live-streamed, not held behind closed doors.
Those supportive of the move include the Greens, the liberal ALDE group, the Socialists & Democrats, the far-left GUE/NGL group and the far-right Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy, two officials involved in the discussion told POLITICO.
Liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt confirmed the call for a live feed on Twitter.
The request was sent to European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, who earlier this week secured leaders support to invite the Facebook CEO for a closed-door meeting.
Tajanis office said they were dealing with the request, adding they need to confirm it with group leaders.
The presidents office said that meetings of the Conference of Presidents — in front of whom Zuckerberg will appear — arent usually live-streamed and technical details would need to be worked out.
Facebook has yet to agree to the meeting being live-streamed.
The call to make the meeting available to a wider audience comes after public pressure on Parliament leaders. An online petition to make the meeting public, started shortly after Wednesdays announcement that Zuckerberg was headed to Brussels, had gathered more than 23,000 signatures at the time of writing.
The Facebook CEO heads to the Continent next week to sit down with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and meet with top officials at the European Parliament. Hell be grilled on the social medias firms handling of data in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
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