U.S. lawmaker says Facebook cannot be trusted to regulate itself

[webfact]

U.S. lawmaker says Facebook cannot be trusted to regulate itself

 

FILE PHOTO: The entrance sign to Facebook headquarters is seen in Menlo Park, California, October 10, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. Representative David Cicilline, expected to become the next chairman of House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel, said on Wednesday that Facebook Inc cannot be trusted to regulate itself and Congress should take action.

 

Cicilline, citing a report in the New York Times on Facebook's efforts to deal with a series of crises, said on Twitter: "This staggering report makes clear that @Facebook executives will always put their massive profits ahead of the interests of their customers."

 

"It is long past time for us to take action," he said.

 

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said a year ago that the company would put its "community" before profit, and it has doubled its staff focused on safety and security issues since then. Spending also has increased on developing automated tools to catch propaganda and material that violates the company's posting policies.

 

Other initiatives have brought increased transparency about the administrators of pages and purchasers of ads on Facebook. Some critics, including lawmakers and users, still contend that Facebook's bolstered systems and processes are prone to errors and that only laws will result in better performance.

 

The New York Times said Zuckerberg and the company's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, ignored warning signs that the social media company could be "exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe." And when the warning signs became evident, they "sought to conceal them from public view." (https://nyti.ms/2OJWpnc)

 

"We’ve known for some time that @Facebook chose to turn a blind eye to the spread of hate speech and Russian propaganda on its platform," said Cicilline, who will likely take the reins of the subcommittee on regulatory reform, commercial and antitrust law when the new, Democratic-controlled Congress is seated in January.

 

"Now we know that once they knew the truth, top @Facebook executives did everything they could to hide it from the public by using a playbook of suppressing opposition and propagating conspiracy theories," he said.

 

"Next January, Congress should get to work enacting new laws to hold concentrated economic power to account, address the corrupting influence of corporate money in our democracy, and restore the rights of Americans," Cicilline said.

 

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-11-15

[lovelomsak]

I simply cannot understand how some thing posted on the internet can disrupt elections? 

  Or why can viral propaganda not just be read or ignored?

  And hate posts just not read. 

  Let people be people and chose what you read and post.

  If people post hate let them post just no one respond to it and they may learn and change.

  Freedoms are freedoms plain and simple. Freedom for a person to express themselves is necessary,no matter if it is accepted or not. Take away the freedoms and people will try harder to be heard. That is the seed for violence and social disorder.which we are seeing more each passing day. 

  

[billd766]

I cannot understand what business it is of the USA.

 

If you don't like the contents of Facebook then don't use it.

 

Much the same as POTUS using a Twitter account really.

[rudi49jr]

5 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

I simply cannot understand how some thing posted on the internet can disrupt elections? 

  Or why can viral propaganda not just be read or ignored?

  And hate posts just not read. 

  Let people be people and chose what you read and post.

  If people post hate let them post just no one respond to it and they may learn and change.

  Freedoms are freedoms plain and simple. Freedom for a person to express themselves is necessary,no matter if it is accepted or not. Take away the freedoms and people will try harder to be heard. That is the seed for violence and social disorder.which we are seeing more each passing day. 

  

The thing is that when you read enough of that crap people start believing in 'alternative facts' and all that nonsense. There are now at least two 'troll factories' in Russia and their sole aim is to create as much mayhem and discord in the western world as possible. Many if not all of the things they post are fabrications, yet millions of people in the west gobble it up and think it is all true what they read and see.

[connda]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

Democratic U.S. Representative David Cicilline, expected to become the next chairman of House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel, said on Wednesday that Facebook Inc cannot be trusted to regulate itself and Congress should take action.

Wow.  Finally, Democrats coming back to their senses.  Perhaps she's old-school. Kudos!

[johnnybangkok]

6 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

I simply cannot understand how some thing posted on the internet can disrupt elections? 

  Or why can viral propaganda not just be read or ignored?

  And hate posts just not read. 

  Let people be people and chose what you read and post.

  If people post hate let them post just no one respond to it and they may learn and change.

  Freedoms are freedoms plain and simple. Freedom for a person to express themselves is necessary,no matter if it is accepted or not. Take away the freedoms and people will try harder to be heard. That is the seed for violence and social disorder.which we are seeing more each passing day. 

  

You cannot understand how some thing posted on the internet can disrupt elections? Well obviously it does otherwise Russia (and China to a large extent) wouldn't have gone to the lengths it did in providing 'fake news' that influenced the American elections and undermines democracy at every turn. 

I agree there is a very thin line between what should be considered freedom of speech and what would be considered as authoritarian censorship, but there is just too much at stake these days to ignore the fact that a lot of people cannot differentiate between fact and fiction and don't go away and do their own research, but instead happily buy into anything that confirms their own biased narrative.

The sensible suggestion that has been put to the likes of Facebook is all articles come with a 'fact checked' sign or at the very least an indication of who is paying for it (you see it in political ads in America all the time) but despite FB's vast wealth, it chooses not to adapt sensible checks and balances, preferring to not police it's own site in favour of just racking up the dollars.

A happy balance can be reached but it means FB putting more money into something that doesn't generate it revenue, hence why David Cicilline is rightly on the war path.   

    

[lovelomsak]

1 hour ago, rudi49jr said:

The thing is that when you read enough of that crap people start believing in 'alternative facts' and all that nonsense. There are now at least two 'troll factories' in Russia and their sole aim is to create as much mayhem and discord in the western world as possible. Many if not all of the things they post are fabrications, yet millions of people in the west gobble it up and think it is all true what they read and see.

What you say has some truth to it. But and a big but is that censorship can be used as a political tool as any TV member knows. 

  So who will judge the judges of what can be censored or not. Political parties who have the most power at the time in the position to judge what can be said and what cannot be said will inform as to what is good for them to have people know. Well keeping out what may effect them negatively.

   It is an aid to keep people ill informed and sheep.

  Things can be removed before any one reads it and never be known. Well it could be very relevent to some thing very important. But perhaps goes against the agenda's of those who have the power to delete the info.

 Simple suppression of freedom of speech hidden behind a thin veil of Russia cyber war.

  Not to be political but I see it is a Democrat that is pushing this.

Edited November 15, 2018 by lovelomsak

[John1012]

What is hate speech? I keep asking for a definition, but nobody has one. Alternative facts...they are everywhere in the news media, by partially reporting an incident MSM can alter the perception of the actual incident. I rarely take the data reported by MSM as the total truth, it seems news reporting has ceased to be factual and has now been replaced by reporters/editorsn personal interpretation. There seems to be a fear of reporting facts in case those facts OFFEND an individual or group, so what information can we trust? I use the internet to try and keep informed, as many different sources as possible. 

[Srikcir]

4 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

But and a big but is that censorship can be used as a political tool as any TV member knows. 

Part of the solution may not be so much a censorship that will carry political bias but a transparency as from whom the message is being delivered (ie., by a foreign party operating with foreign State funds).

Also have better security over customer data that discourages/prevents unauthorized targeted messages (ie., down to an individual level).