Facebook Faces Grilling on 'Fake News,' Zuckerberg Won't Go

Lawmakers from around the world were expected to question a top Facebook executive over "fake news" on Tuesday at a hearing that CEO Mark Zuckerberg refused to attend, NBC News reported.

Politicians and other top officials from at least seven countries will question Richard Allan, the company's vice president of policy solutions in London. Representatives from the U.K., Canada, Australia, Ireland, Argentina, Brazil, Singapore and Latvia invited Zuckerberg to give evidence, even by video link, but he declined.

The event is billed as the inaugural "Grand Committee on Disinformation.” It is organized by Damian Collins, the British lawmaker who chairs a parliamentary committee investigating disinformation and the use of people's data.

The committee turned up the heat by seizing confidential Facebook documents from the developer of a now-defunct bikini photo-searching app.