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Former Harvard peer of Mark Zuckerberg questioned over claim of fake Facebook accounts

3 June 2019

Aaron Greenspan, who studied at Harvard at the same time as Mark Zuckerberg, will give evidence to the second meeting of the Sub-Committee on Disinformation as part of its on-going scrutiny of social media and how it is regulated.

Witness

Wednesday 5 June, Thatcher Room, Portcullis House

At 2.30pm

  • Aaron Greenspan, President and CEO of Think Computer Corporation

About the session

Earlier this year Greenspan published a report which claimed that more than half of Facebook's user accounts are fake. His estimate is based on a review of two reports by Facebook itself.

Campaigners estimate that 550 suspect Facebook pages and groups in European countries, followed by almost 32 million people, were operating during the run-up to the European elections on 23-26 May. Most of these pages promoted far-right or populist parties in the build-up to the EU elections.

Aaron Greenspan, currently President and CEO of Think Computer Corporation, reached a formal settlement with Facebook in a dispute under patent and trademark law ten years ago. The dispute centred on a web-based portal that he developed in 2003 called houseSYSTEM which included a feature called ‘the Face book'. 

The session will also consider his claim that he personally raised concerns with Mark Zuckerberg about a Facebook security flaw in 2005.

Further information

Image: Unsplash / Con Karampelas