Cambridge Analytica: Assange offers testimony to committee, without being invited
This past week the attention of the technology world has been consumed by Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has graciously said that he’ll testify in front of the UK’s ‘fake news committee’.
There’s just one problem though, and that’s that the committee — or to use its full name, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee — never actually invited Assange to attend.
Assange originally said that he’d accepted a “request” to attend via video link yesterday, also via Twitter.
However, the official WikiLeaks Twitter account fired back with the dates on which they claim that Assange was approached to testify before the committee.
The DCMS has extended invitations for relevant parties to attend the committee to present evidence. Yesterday the committee’s chair, Damian Collins, called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speak about this “catastrophic failure of process” that has occurred.
Given that this is a scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, it’s not surprising that Assange hasn’t been invited to give evidence, but that hasn’t stopped the Wikileaks founder from making his offer.
Had he given evidence, this would have been done via video link from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he has been claiming asylum since 2010 after having been accused of rape in Sweden.
Sweden dropped the rape investigation last year, but the metropolitan Police say they’d still arrest Assange if he left the embassy.
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