Minister: Hold tech giants to account

THE Culture Secretary said yesterday that tech titans must be held to account, vowing to ‘protect the free speech and journalism that underpin our democracy’.

Oliver dowden pledged to prevent digital giants such as Facebook from ‘exploiting their dominance’ to the detriment of the public and businesses with new laws.

Positioning the UK at the forefront of global efforts to curb the companies’ power, he said he would try to build an international consensus around the UK’s plans at the G7 summit in Cornwall in June.

His tough talk was prompted by Facebook’s decision to block news on its platform in Australia in protest over legislation that would have forced it to pay media companies for their content.

Earlier, Google had threatened to withdraw its search engine from the country.

‘Protect free speech and journalism’

But the giants backed down after Canberra agreed to revise the laws.

The news prompted the daily Mail’s owner, Lord Rothermere, to accuse the digital giants of holding publishers to ransom and to declare the Australian ‘surrender’ a ‘bad day for democracy’.

Mr dowden held a meeting with Sir Nick Clegg, a Facebook vice-president, on Thursday. He told the former deputy prime minister that the UK would not shy away from introducing new laws to protect the public and businesses.

Mr dowden said the UK was committed to supporting Press sustainability and had not ruled out any options for creating a ‘pro-competition’ regime for digital markets. He said he aims to protect ‘the free speech and journalism that underpin our democracy and precious liberties’.

A Facebook spokesman said that in the UK the firm has struck commercial deals ‘with almost every major publisher’.