On Monday, A damning report was released which revealed that after years of self-regulation, these companies were unable to protect users data and privacy, or from disinformation. In reaction to this, the UK parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) final report recommended an independent regulator be set up (like UK's Ofcom or the FCC), and a compulsory code of ethics for social media companies was must be formed.
This is seen as a move to provide legal powers with the ability to fine these companies if they fail to act on harmful or illegal content on their platforms, a responsibility they have abandoned.
The report reads "Social media companies cannot hide behind the claim of being merely a ‘platform’ and maintain that they have no responsibility themselves in regulating the content of their sites." The committee also recommended electoral laws be overhauled, so that it's clear who is paying for political campaigns on digital platforms.
Although Facebook has been working on transparency on political, but it's very far from perfect, as evidenced by an openDemocracy investigation on the mysterious money funding pro-Brexit campaigns.
The committee also criticised Facebook for its data sharing practices, where it gave deeper access to users' data for partners who had special deals with Facebook, which they regard as against user privacy settings. The report reads
From the Six4Three case documents, it is clear that spending substantial sums with Facebook, as a condition of maintaining preferential access to personal data, was part and parcel of the company’s strategy of platform development as it embraced the mobile advertising world. And that this approach was driven from the highest level.
The committee has also shown their discontent with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of "showing contempt" to the committee, after he failed to show up to a hearing of international lawmakers last November.
DCMS chair, Damian Collins MP, said in an online statement
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, evidence uncovered by my Committee shows he still has questions to answer yet he’s continued to duck them, refusing to respond to our invitations directly or sending representatives who don’t have the right information.
As reported by
mashable, Facebook's UK public policy manager Karim Palant said the company shared the committee's "concerns about false news and election integrity," and is pleased to have made a "significant contribution" to the committee.
He stated "We are open to meaningful regulation and support the committee's recommendation for electoral law reform ... We also support effective privacy legislation that holds companies to high standards in their use of data and transparency for users.” Palant said while Facebook still has more to do, the social media giant was not the same company it was a year ago.
He said the company has tripled the size of the team working on detecting bad content, as well as investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect abuse.
