Call to make tech firms liable
LONDON: Tech firms like Facebook should be made liable for “harmful and misleading” material on their websites and pay a levy so they can be regulated, said British lawmakers, warning of a crisis in democracy due to misuse of personal data.
Facebook has increasingly become a focus of the media committee’s inquiry into “fake news” after the data of 87 million users was improperly accessed by British-headquartered consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook executives had said on Wednesday its profit margins would plummet for several years due to the cost of improving privacy safeguards and slowing usage in its top advertising markets. The news wiped over US$120 billion (RM487.2 billion) off the company’s share price.
At the same time, the company is coming under concerted regulatory scrutiny in Britain, the United States and the European Union.
“Companies like Facebook made it easy for developers to scrape user data and to deploy it in other campaigns without their knowledge or consent,” said Damian Collins, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, yesterday.
“They must be made responsible, and liable, for the way in which harmful and misleading content is shared on their sites.”
The report was first published online on Friday by Dominic Cummings, who ran the officially designated Vote Leave campaign in the EU referendum.
The standards of accuracy and impartiality which tech companies were held to could be based on regulator the Office of Communications’s rules for television and radio, said the lawmakers.
British broadcasters, whether publicly or privately owned, must generally stick to strict rules on political balance and factual accuracy, overseen by a regulator.