Minister won’t rule out laws to regulate Twitter
NEW LAWS to regulate social media networks remain a possibility, the Secretary of State for digital told MPs on Wednesday, as questions around online abuse, privacy and disinformation campaigns continue to plague internet giants.
While companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google have taken greater steps to talk about the issues publicly, Matt Hancock said “legislative options to insist on the transparency of platforms” cannot be ruled out.
“Finally the penny seems to be dropping among the leaders of the social media platforms that they have a responsibility,” said Mr Hancock, giving evidence before the parliamentary inquiry into fake news.
“And, boy, do they have a responsibility, or we will impose that responsibility on them.”
On Tuesday new evidence emerged that Twitter accounts operated by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency had targeted the UK between 2015 and 2017. Mr Hancock stressed that the Government would wait for the recommendations of the inquiry before considering any further action.
On the question of Russian disinformation campaigns in the UK, Mr Hancock repeated the Government’s position that there has been no evidence such campaigns have affected recent elections or referendums.
“We’ve clearly seen activity from Russia directed at many Western democracies and that includes here in the UK,” he said.
The new research revealed this week, which combined data from UK researchers with a database released by NBC News, dwarfed evidence presented by Twitter to MPs in February.
At least 154 accounts sent more than 2,400 tweets discussing Brexit, the 2017 general election and issues of immigration, analysis of the new data found.
Twitter had previously told MPs it had found 49 Internet Research Agency-linked accounts had posted nearly 1,000 tweets during the Brexit campaign.
Very little is known about how many people saw or interacted with the messages from either analysis, which are likely to be only a small window on the full scale of the activity.
Damian Collins, chair of the inquiry, said he would be asking Twitter to look again for evidence of Russian accounts targeting the UK.
“Social media companies have a duty of care, especially to children, but to all of their users,” said Mr Hancock yesterday.