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Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony to the European Parliament on Tuesday on the Cambridge Analytica scandal will be broadcast live on the internet.
Zuckerberg agreed to the web feed after talks with president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani. The proceedings, scheduled for the late afternoon in Brussels, were to take place behind closed doors.
"Great news for EU citizens," Tajani said in a Twitter post.
Tajani thanked Zuckerberg for the "respect shown" to parliament.
Zuckerberg will try to explain how Facebook data from as many as 2.7 million Europeans could have been passed to Cambridge Analytica. The UK consulting firm may have collected the data of some 87 million Facebook users and their friends for use by Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign. The revelation has been called a game changer in the world of data protection, as regulators seek to raise awareness about how to secure information.
Facebook said in a statement that it was "looking forward to the meeting and happy for it to be live streamed".
The previous plan to have Zuckerberg give a presentation in private had been widely criticised by EU officials, including EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova, who is in charge of the bloc’s new privacy rules.
"EU citizens have been most affected by the recent scandal and deserve to hear the truth," Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian member of the parliament, said in a Twitter post seeking questions for Zuckerberg from his followers.
The 34-year-old Zuckerberg’s testimony to US Congress last month was broadcast live, and widely followed by the media and advocates for tougher data-privacy measures.
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