Protect privacy on social media

The following is an excerpt from an editorial in Newsday.

Some U.S. senators who grilled Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday apparently have never been on Facebook.

But after the tsunami of revelations about Russian infiltration of Facebook’s platform in the 2016 presidential election and the misuse of user data by Cambridge Analytica, these members of Congress finally have woken up to the urgency to protect the personal information collected by giant social media platforms.

Regulation is needed. Everyone knows it. Facebook has proved time and again that the government cannot leave that task to it and others like Instagram and Twitter.

The tipping point for this week’s grilling of Zuckerberg was recent news that Cambridge, the British firm that received nearly $6 million (U.S.) from Donald Trump's campaign, improperly gained access to the data of 87 million Facebook users to develop psychological profiles for targeting voters.

Regulations should reflect basic principles. Users should have to agree to allow their data to be collected and shared. There should be limits on how data are shared with companies and how they use the information. Europe is ahead of us, with privacy rules set to take effect in May. Congress must decide whether it also likes the European stick — fines of up to 4 per cent of global revenue for companies that misuse users’ data.

The law, it is said, is always behind the technology. It’s time for our government to catch up.