Facebook should make rules tougher when it’s about news online, said the U.K. government. After Cambridge Analytica scandal, the MPs draw attention to the social media like Facebook and election campaigns to protect democracy in the digital age, ITV reported.
The UK parliamentary committee has recommended in a scathing report on fake news, data misuse and interference by Russia. The recommendation follows the Cambridge Analytica data scandal earlier this year. The London-based data analytics firms and tech giant Facebook were at the centre of a dispute over the harvesting and use of personal data of users but both firms deny any wrongdoing during the US 2016 presidential elections.
While PM Theresa May has pledged to address the issue in a so-called White Paper to be released in the fall, the House of Commons’ interim report said democracy is facing a crisis because the combination of data analysis and social media allows campaigns to target voters with messages of hate without their consent. The social media Facebook hasn’t done enough to protect personal information and remove harmful content, the committee said.
“The light of transparency must be allowed to shine on their operations and they must be made responsible, and liable, for the way in which harmful and misleading content is shared on their sites,”
committee’s statement reads.
The volume of disinformation on the internet is unbelievable, and Tory MP Damian Collins underlines people struggle to identify “fake news”. Thus, democracy doesn’t work when the parliamentary asks for tougher rules on the social media.
On Sunday, MPs in their committee report said the issue threatens democracy and called for tougher social network regulation. According to Labour, a government “needs to wake up to the new challenges we face and finally update electoral laws”. In other words, all political communications carried online would need to clearly identify who they were published by.
