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Legislation can't protect people from their own stupidity, Gnther Oettinger told the European Parliament during his confirmation hearing

Members of the European Parliament during Gnther Oettinger's evaluation hearing.

Gnther Oettinger, the European Union's proposed Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, gave a disappointing performance at his confirmation hearing, dodging questions and calling the victims of a recent data breach "dumb."

Critics said Oettinger's remarks about the celebrities whose iCloud accounts were compromised, allowing hackers to release nude photos of them, showed he was unfit for the job of shoring up public confidence in the Internet.

During the three-hour confirmation hearing before Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) late Monday, Oettinger said he couldn't believe the public lamentations over the nude celebrity photo incident.

"If someone is dumb enough to as a celebrity take a nude photo of themselves and put it online, they surely can't expect us to protect them.I mean, stupidity is something you cannot -- or only partly -- save people from," he said.

Though he said his remark was only "semi-serious," it certainly rubbed people the wrong way.

What happened to these celebrities happens to regular people every day, but it just doesn't make the news, said Julia Reda, MEP for the European Pirate Party.

"If you manage to look beyond the tabloid celebrity/sex angle, the statement is unbelievable: The person applying to be in charge of shoring up trust in the Internet so that Europeans do more business online justvictim-blamed people whose personal data was accessed and spread without authorization," Reda said.

"There are many lessons to be learned from the celebrity photo incident that are politically relevant, for example about cloud security, digital literacy, software usability, and society's sexism.It's only to those unfamiliar with any of these topics that it's just a half-joke," she said. "Oettinger is seriously calling into question whether he is qualified for the job of shaping the EU's digital society for the next five years."

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Hacked celebrities 'dumb', says proposed EU digital commissioner