UK lawmaker Damian Collins fires back at Zuckerberg

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Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc. attends the Viva Tech start-up and technology gathering at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2018 in Paris, France.

A British lawmaker fired back at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Friday, saying the social media company’s statements on privacy must be consistent with its practices behind closed doors.

In a statement to CNBC, British politician Damian Collins, an outspoken Facebook critic, said it would be understandable if people do not trust Zuckerberg’s “sudden change of heart” in advocating for more privacy on the company’s platforms.

Zuckerberg published a 3,000-word post on Wednesday outlining a more “privacy-focused” future for the social media giant that included measures like encrypted messages.

“Rather than a manifesto for privacy, his statement could easily become an excuse for Facebook to dodge responsibility for acting against harmful content and the accounts that promote it,” Collins said.

Collins, from the ruling Conservative Party, is chair of the U.K. Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which recently completed an 18-month investigation into Facebook and other social media companies for their role in spreading “fake news” and disinformation. In a report published in February, the committee accused Facebook of “intentionally and knowingly” violating U.K. data privacy and anti-competition laws.

“As we said in our report on Disinformation and ‘Fake News,’ Facebook’s business model to date is based on a blatant disregard for people’s personal data and privacy and ruthlessly crushing other competitor apps,” Collins said in the statement Friday.

Facebook said at the time it had made a “significant contribution” to the investigation, with a spokesperson adding the company still had more to do on this issue but was not the same firm it was a year ago.