Facebook should no longer be allowed to govern itself and
it’s time for the government to step in as the cop on the beat,
according to a new parliamentary report released tonight by the United
Kingdom.
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee of
the UK Parliament has published its final report after more than 18
months of investigation into Facebook and its privacy practices. Members
of Parliament (MPs) have requested that social media companies be
required to remove “harmful” or “illegal” content on their platforms and
be held liable for it according to a compulsory code of ethics, a
policy that has been hotly contested in the US.
This new report lays the groundwork for further
legislation that could officially codify these requests into law. “Our
inquiry over the last year has identified three big threats to our
society,” Damian Collins, DCMS chair who has led this investigation
said. “The challenge for the year ahead is to start to fix them; we
cannot delay any longer.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The committee also requested that the government reform
some of its own laws involving political advertising and asks that it
further investigate foreign influences in political campaigns.
“Among the countless innocuous postings of celebrations
and holiday snaps, some malicious forces use Facebook to threaten and
harass others, to publish revenge porn, to disseminate hate speech and
propaganda of all kinds, and to influence elections and democratic
processes,” the report says. “Much of which Facebook, and other social
media companies, are either unable or unwilling to prevent.”
In the committee’s interim report last summer, it called for a code of ethics in which all tech companies would agree to uphold.
After months of contentious parliamentary inquiries, the committee now
recommends an even stronger measure, requesting that platforms be
subject to a Compulsory Code of Ethics that would be overseen by an
independent regulator. According to the MPs, that regulator should have
the ability to pursue legal action if companies like Facebook refused to
remove the unlawful content.
This same public body, according to the lawmakers, should
be given statutory powers that would allow it to obtain any information
from social media platforms that could be relevant to any inquiries.
These authorities could range from being allowed access into algorithms
or security mechanisms.
The committee was personally critical of Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg, who has refused public requests to answer the members’
questions, per the report. “Even if Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t believe he
is accountable to the UK Parliament, he is to the billions of Facebook
users across the world,” the committee wrote. “Mark Zuckerberg
continually fails to show the levels of leadership and personal
responsibility that should be expected from someone who sits at the top
of one of the world’s biggest companies.”
Last week, it was reported that a US regulatory body,
the Federal Trade Commission, is in negotiations with Facebook to levy a
multi-billion dollar fine as a consequence of its deceptive privacy
practices following Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now, it appears the UK
is preparing to take its own measures to rein in the platform’s power.
“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,” Collins said.