MP lashes out at Brexit flood claims
POLITICS: The Brexit campaign’s “false” suggestion that leaving the EU would give Britain more cash to spend on flood defences was yesterday criticised by a Yorkshire MP in a probe into fake news.
THE BREXIT campaign’s “false” suggestion that leaving the EU would give Britain more cash to spend on flood defences was yesterday criticised by a Yorkshire MP as a parliamentary committee warned that fake news has plunged democracy into crisis.
Rachel Reeves spoke out as MPs warned that voters were being manipulated by campaigns of hate and disinformation.
The behaviour of users is being “modified and changed” at the hands of social media companies and there is currently no sign of the practice ending, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee warned, as it called for new laws to be introduced to clamp down on the “Wild West” online world of social media.
The wide-ranging investigation shone a light on everything from Facebook’s apparent failures to stop the inciting of hatred against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar to the “intractability” of tech companies in recognising Russian meddling in elections.
It also looked at targeted Facebook adverts, including one used by Vote Leave during the 2016 referendum which highlighted the damage done by storms Eva and Desmond and suggested Britain would have more cash for flood defences if it left the EU.
Britain was awarded £50m from the EU solidarity fund to help it deal with 2015 floods, which caused devastation in Yorkshire.
However, the figure was lowered to £15m after debts, the UK rebate and the cost of bidding were taken into account. Leeds West MP Ms Reeves told
The Yorkshire Post: “The Vote Leave campaign told the people of Yorkshire that they could use the money that we pay to be members of being in the EU single market to instead pay for flood defences. But now we know that just like the money for the NHS this was a lie.
“Vote Leave peddled a load of myths and now in Leeds we are left with a second-rate flood defence scheme as the Government once again lets down the North .”
Former Vote Leave director Dominic Cummings has said in a foul-mouthed online post that the committee were “charlatans” and criticised the report.
DCMS Committee chairman Damian Collins said: “We are facing nothing less than a crisis in our democracy – based on the systematic manipulation of data to support the relentless targeting of citizens, without their consent, by campaigns of disinformation and messages of hate.
“In this inquiry we have pulled back the curtain on the secretive world of the tech giants, which have acted irresponsibly with the vast quantities of data they collect from their users.
“Despite concerns being raised, companies like Facebook made it easy for developers to scrape user data and to deploy it in other campaigns without their knowledge or consent.
“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.”
A Government spokesperson said it takes disinformation “very seriously” and was planning new online safety laws.