Social media: Government intervention possible

Technology giants Google, Facebook and Twitter have said they would not oppose the introduction of a regulator to monitor their platforms.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons science and technology committee inquiry into the impact of social media and screen use on young people’s health, the companies acknowledged that future regulation was likely.

Last month, media regulator Ofcom released a document outlining how its practices could be moulded to regulate social media firms.

Karim Palant, Facebook’s public policy manager in the UK, told the committee Ofcom’s intervention was “thoughtful” in moving the debate forward.

“Our chief executives have talked about the fact that some regulations are going to be inevitable,” he said.

“I think it has to be principle-based, so it has to start from ‘what are the harms that we’re trying to address?’.”

Google’s child safety lead for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Claire Lilley, said:“My plea would be that if we do go down the route of regulating, we really need, in this space, to take into account the views of children and young people in a way that hasn’t been taken into account so far.”

The three companies defended their work to promote and enhance the safety of younger users, including partnerships with child safety charities and the introduction of wellbeing features such as those that track and limit screen time.

Each confirmed it was increasing the number of moderators it has looking at content, as well as using more artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools to spot and remove content.