Facebook 'open to meaningful regulation' after damning fake news report

Facebook has claimed it is open to "meaningful regulation" from British MPs after a damning report accused it of behaving like a "digital gangster" in the online world.

The Parliamentary inquiry into fake news has claimed that Facebook "intentionally and knowingly" violated data privacy and anti competition laws and called for new regulatory powers to launch legal action against companies breaching code.

Karim Palant, UK public policy manager at Facebook, admitted that the company has more work to do but claimed it is "not the same company we were a year ago".

He said the company has already made "substantial changes" ahead of the implementation of future regulation in the UK.

"We're not waiting," he said. "Every political ad on Facebook has to be authorised, state who is paying for it and then is stored in a searchable archive for 7 years.

"No other channel for political advertising is as transparent and offers the tools that we do."

The remarks come as it emerged that Jeremy Wright, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and Digital Minister Margot James are set to visit the US this week to discuss how leading tech companies should take more responsibility to make the internet safer.

Mr Palant claims that Facebook has tripled the size of the team working to detect and protect users from bad content to 30,000 people, and invested heavily in machine learning, artificial intelligence and computer vision technology to help prevent this type of abuse.

Facebook launched its fact-checking service in the UK earlier this year after deleting billions of offensive posts and spam in just six months. The website also deleted hundreds of accounts in 2018 that it said were maliciously spreading disinformation or appeared to be part of malicious fake news campaigns.

The Parliamentary inquiry into "fake news" led by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee launched 18 months ago to address the potential for social media to be misused to sway elections.

It followed concerns that Russia meddled with the 2016 US presidential election and the UK referendum to leave the EU.

In the damning report that singled out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for what it said was a failure of leadership and personal responsibility, the DCMS said tech firms had proved ineffective in stopping harmful content on their platforms.

"We need a radical shift in the balance of power between the platforms and the people," committee chairman Damian Collins said.

Collins said the age of inadequate self-regulation must end and concluded Facebook had "intentionally and knowingly violated both data privacy and anti-competition laws."

"The rights of the citizen need to be established in statute, by requiring the tech companies to adhere to a code of conduct written into law by Parliament, and overseen by an independent regulator," he said.

The committee said current electoral law was “not fit for purpose,” in regulating political advertising, having failed to reflect a move away from billboards and leaflets to online micro-targeted campaigning.

It recommended clear banners on all paid-for political advertisements and videos, identifying the source and the advertiser, with greater account taken of the impact of social media.

It called for an investigation into potential foreign influence in past elections including the referendum on EU membership, and a review of electoral legislation to protect future elections.

Parliamentary committee reports are intended to influence government policy, but are not binding.