The EU just botched its big chance to grill Mark Zuckerberg

After 26 minutes of answering EU lawmakers’ questions with an uninterrupted monologue, hitting all the talking points he wanted to hit, Mark Zuckerberg called time.

The Facebook CEO was in Brussels Tuesday to face questions from members of the European Parliament over fake news and data mining on the platform, as part of his apology tour. The MPs couldn’t wait to get at him, having promised a much tougher grilling than he faced from Congress last month.

Instead he walked away unscathed as angry MEPs berated him for failing to directly answer any of their questions about Europe’s new privacy rules, political transparency, and the possibility of an antitrust investigation.

The problem was the format.

First, Zuckerberg was permitted an opening statement where he apologized for Facebook’s failings in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where scads of user data was mined for political purposes, and promised to do better.

Then a dozen lawmakers were each given three minutes to grandstand and ask rambling questions. Finally, with less than 15 minutes of the hearing’s allotted time left, Zuckerberg was given the floor.

But instead of answering each question directly, Zuckerberg cherry-picked the high-level themes he wanted to address, including cyberbullying, fake news, election transparency, and competition. In each case, Zuckerberg rehashed previous comments and blog posts, offering little in the way of new information.

Then Zuckerberg turned to Antonio Tajani, president of the European Parliament and chair of the meeting, and said: “I want to be sensitive to the time. We are 15 minutes over the scheduled meeting.”

At that point, the lawmakers reacted furiously, demanding that Zuckerberg answer their specific questions rather than just talk about themes.

Belgian MEP Philippe Lamberts pointed out that he had asked six binary questions needing yes or no answers, and not a single one had been answered.

Guy Verhofstadt, another Belgian lawmaker, had asked Zuckerberg about the company’s competition and whether it felt it had a direct competitor — following up a question first posed by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham last month.

“How do you want to be remembered?” Verhofstadt asked. “As one of the three Internet giants together with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? Or as a failed genius who created a #digital monster destroying our democracies?”

Zuckerberg fudged his response, saying the average person uses eight tools to communicate and there are dozens of companies challenging Facebook every day and forcing it to change to remain relevant.

Verhofstadt also posed the question of whether there needs to be an antitrust investigation launched in relation to Facebook’s dominant market position, repeating the questions at the end of the hearing as Zuckerberg was departing.

Zuckerberg also faced multiple questions about Europe’s strict new privacy laws, known as the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which come into force on Friday.

Zuckerberg avoided answering questions about why Facebook moved 1.5 billion users’ data from Europe to the U.S. to avoid GDPR regulations, but promised the company would be compliant with the new rules come Friday.

In the end, Zuckerberg agreed to have his team give written responses to the lawmakers’ specific questions — though they are still working on responses to questions in Congress last month.

Damian Collins, a U.K. lawmaker who has three times attempted to get Zuckerberg to address his committee in the British parliament, voiced his frustration at what he saw as a lost opportunity.

“What a missed opportunity for proper scrutiny on many crucial questions raised by the MEPs,” Collins said in a statement. “Questions were blatantly dodged…I echo the clear frustration of colleagues in the room who felt the discussion was shut down. It is time that Mr Zuckerberg agreed to appear in front of the DCMS committee to provide Facebook users the answers they deserve.”