London — Facebook intentionally breached data privacy and competition law and should, with other big tech companies, be subject to a new regulator to protect democracy and citizens’ rights, British MPs say.
In a damning report that singled out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for what it said is a failure of leadership and personal responsibility, the British parliament’s digital, culture, media and sport committee said tech companies have proved ineffective in stopping harmful content on their platforms.
This includes disinformation, attempts by foreign countries to influence elections, and risks to personal data.
“We need a radical shift in the balance of power between the platforms and the people,” committee chair Damian Collins said.
Collins said the age of inadequate self-regulation must end, following an 18-month investigation that concluded Facebook “intentionally and knowingly violated both data privacy and anticompetition laws”.
“The rights of the citizen need to be established in statute, by requiring the tech companies to adhere to a code of conduct written into law by parliament, and overseen by an independent regulator,” he said.
Facebook rejected the suggestion it breached data protection and competition laws, and said it shares the committee’s concerns about false news and election integrity.
“We are open to meaningful regulation and support the committee’s recommendation for electoral law reform,” Facebook’s UK public policy manager, Karim Palant, said.
“We also support effective privacy legislation that holds companies to high standards in their use of data and transparency for users.”
Legislators in Europe and the US are scrambling to get to grips with the risks posed by big tech companies regulating the platforms used by billions of people.
Germany has been at the forefront of the backlash against Facebook, fuelled by 2019’s Cambridge Analytica scandal in which tens of millions of Facebook profiles were harvested without their users’ consent. Earlier in February, it ordered Facebook to curb its data collection practices in the country.
US senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill in January aimed at giving Americans more control over data collected by online companies such as Facebook and Alphabet’s Google. The British committee does not propose legislation, but does have the power to summon witnesses for its investigations.
Zuckerberg no show
Facebook became the focus of its inquiry after whistleblower Christopher Wylie alleged that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica obtained the data of millions of users of the social network.
Zuckerberg apologised in 2018 for a “breach of trust” over the scandal. But he refused to appear three times before British MPs, a stance that showed “contempt” towards parliament and the members of nine legislatures from around the world, the committee 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 times misleading answers to our questions,” Collins said.
“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.”
Facebook, however, said it has co-operated with the investigation by answering more than 700 questions and putting forward four senior executives to give evidence.
It said it has made substantial changes, including the authorisation of every political advert, and it is investing heavily in identifying abusive content.
“While we still have more to do, we are not the same company we were a year ago,” Palant said.
The committee said it has identified major threats to society from the dominance of companies such as Facebook — which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram — Google and Twitter.
Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised adverts from unidentifiable sources, they said, and social media platforms are failing to act against harmful content and to respect the privacy of users.
Companies such as Facebook are also using their size to bully smaller firms that rely on social media platforms to reach customers, it said.
Reuters
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