MPs call for urgent tightening of regulations on social media companies
A parliamentary committee has published its final report following an investigation into 'fake news', accusing Facebook of knowingly breaking privacy and competition laws and calling for stricter regulations to be imposed urgently.
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee published its final report into "Disinformation and fake news" on Monday, the culmination of an 18-month investigation.
Facebook's practices before and after the Cambridge Analytica scandal formed a large part of the inquiry, with the committee calling the social media platform a threat to society and saying its executives attempted to obstruct the probe.
Committee chair Damian Collins said: “We believe that in its evidence to the committee, Facebook has often deliberately sought to frustrate our work, by giving incomplete, disingenuous and at time misleading answers to our questions."
"These are issues that the major tech companies are well aware of, yet continually fail to address. The guiding principle of the 'move fast and break things' culture seems to be that it is better to apologise than ask permission,” he added.
The report also said that "companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like ‘digital gangsters’ in the online world, considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law.”
To stop fake news and the misuse of consumers' data, the report called for a "radical shift in the balance of power between social media platforms and people."
"Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised 'dark adverts' from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use every day," concluded the report.
"The big tech companies are failing in the duty of care they owe to their users to act against harmful content, and to respect their data privacy rights."
The report demanded:
- A compulsory code of ethics for tech companies, overseen by an independent regulator.
- That the regulator be given powers to launch legal action if companies breach the code.
- That the government reform current electoral laws and rules on overseas involvement in UK elections.
- That social media companies be forced to take down known sources of harmful content, including proven sources of disinformation.
- That tech companies operating in the UK to be taxed to help fund the work for the Information Commissioner's Office and any new regulator set up to oversee them.
In response, Facebook said: "We share the Committee's concerns about false news and election integrity and are pleased to have made a significant contribution to their investigation over the past 18 months, answering more than 700 questions and with four of our most senior executives giving evidence.
"We are open to meaningful regulation and support the committee's recommendation for electoral law reform. But we're not waiting. We have already made substantial changes so that every political ad on Facebook has to be authorised, state who is paying for it and then is stored in a searchable archive for seven years. No other channel for political advertising is as transparent and offers the tools that we do."