Mark Zuckerberg: OK, Fine, Regulate Facebook
Facebook manager Mark Zuckerberg – whose company has turned a blind eye to controversy over everything from users privacy and data breaches of extremist content enhancement and literal genocide which of late responded to growing criticism of the technology sector by requesting more outside regulation in an op-ed in the Washington Post (and on its own personal Facebook page) on Saturday.
Zuckerberg broke down the areas where he now says that regulation can be useful in four sections: malicious content, choice integrity, privacy and data portability. Exactly surprising, he offered specifications of what it might look like.
At the first harmful content, Zuckerberg wrote that the platforms are facing a "responsibility to keep people safe with our services" and that "internet companies should be responsible for enforcing harmful content standards." He also said that to do so Effectively, Facebook must be able to identify and eliminate violent or hateful speech, but also called "a more standardized approach" across the industry that includes third-party monitoring: [19659006] An idea is that third-party agencies should set standards for the distribution of malicious content and measure companies against these standards. Regulation can set baselines for what is prohibited and requires companies to build systems to keep harmful content to a minimum.
Seeing as it took Facebook years to admit that white nationalism and white separatism is actually the same as white supremacy, self-control of content decisions is probably not that bad an idea.
As for election integrity, Zuckerberg said the company has already taken steps to force political ad buyers to verify their real identities and create a political ad database, but suggested that what is really needed is a … total overhaul of the campaign finance environment :
… It's not always easy to decide whether an ad is political. Our systems would be more effective if regulation created common standards to verify political actors.
Online political advertising laws focus mainly on candidates and elections, rather than fragmented political issues where we have seen more attempts at disruption. Some laws apply only during elections, although information campaigns are non-stop. And there are also important questions about how political campaigns use data and targeting. We believe that legislation should be updated to reflect the reality of the threats and set standards for the entire industry.
These are all things that are probably true, but also avoid the question of why Facebook is vulnerable to political movements in the first place, as well as whether the entire Facebook information economy is actually the problem. Particularly, at least in the US, these changes will involve a massive revision of campaign funding and information laws that are unable to emerge for years if it does at any time in the visible future.
It is also the fact that the company has historically tried its best to be exempt from ad notification rules, and has generally become confused in ethical issues surrounding advertising, such as how to relax the Department of Housing and Urban Development just to do so. It is possible for housing discrimination.
With regard to privacy, Zuckerberg asked the US to pass legislation similar to the EU troubleshooting general data protection regulation, which he said he prefers to become a "common global framework" (as opposed to a patchwork of laws in each nation). He also demanded data portability, which he described as the free flow of information between services – even though he referred to Facebook Login as an example, which is actually a way the company has expanded its tracking charts over the web than anything to protect user rights:
If you share data with a service, you should be able to move it to another. This gives people choices and allows developers to innovate and compete.
This is important for the Internet – and for creating services that people want. That's why we built our development platform. True data portability should look like how people use our platform to sign in to an app than the existing ways you can download an archive of your information. However, this requires clear rules on who is responsible for protecting information as it moves between services.
(As TechCrunch noted, Facebook itself has drawn its feet on data portability, and only allows users to export friend lists in a way that makes it difficult to find them on other social networks.)
Still, this is a major switch from A year ago, when Zuckerberg was publicly on the fence as to whether regulation was necessary, GDPR described as well in principle, but only for Europe, and proposed self-regulation was the better approach. What seems to have changed in the meantime is that the external political pressure on Facebook has continued to mount: That and other technical companies have faced an increasingly hostile reception from the public and elected officials, including regulatory threats and talk of anti-terrorism action. . An example: The Australian government threatens to pass laws in the wake of the Facebook-life Christchurch massacre that would land platform copies in prison and impose significant fines if they did not act quickly to remove terrorist content.
In other words, Zuckerberg et al. maybe now think that GDPR-like rules, as well as others about content moderation issues, are inevitable and it is best for Facebook to get past the bandwagon.
Take, for example, Phillip Morris, the cigarette titan that came out In favor of regulation in the tobacco industry: One paper in BMJs Tobacco Control described the intention to "reinforce its legitimacy, redefine itself as socially responsible and change the legal environment." Facebook is clearly at a much lower level of malice than the cigarette industry, but in general, industries do not speak for regulation unless it either helps the bottom line or helps them avoid harsher regulations. Please note that Facebook has been rectifying its army of lobbyists in DC, which may come pretty well if there is a time when legislators decide what to do about it. As Bloomberg noted,
Facebook has an incentive to play a strong role in the debate on technology companies' data acquisition. The company's rapid revenue growth and billions of dollars in profits are driven by gathering many data points around their customers and making it easily accessible to advertisers.
… Zuckerberg this year has been working to hit Facebook's critical issues as major issues for the Internet as a whole, not just affecting his company. His willingness to embrace regulation can take the harder questions out of Facebook's hands, or at least give the company more time to solve them.
The Zuckerberg counterpart also what is probably the most potent criticism of Facebook: That it and its cousins in Silicon Valley such as Google and Amazon are so big, so powerful, and so rooted that the right regulatory answer is breaking them up in The Facebook case, it may mean that you spin out subsidiaries such as WhatsApp and Instagram, or at least cut out bits. On it, not a look.
Mark Zuckerbergs discover in its entirety below:
Technology is a big part of our lives, and companies like Facebook have huge responsibilities. Every day, we make decisions about which speech is harmful, what means political advertising, and how to prevent sophisticated cyber attacks. These are important for keeping the community safe. But if we started from scratch, we would not ask the companies to do these judgments alone.
I think we need a more active role for governments and regulators. By updating the rules of the internet, we can preserve what is best about it – the freedom that people express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things – while protecting society from wider injuries.
From what I have learned, I think we need new regulation in four areas: malicious content, choice integrity, privacy and data portability.
First, malicious content. Facebook gives everyone a way to use their voice, and it creates real benefits – from sharing experiences with growing movements. As part of this, we have a responsibility to keep people safe from our services. That means deciding what counts as terrorist propaganda, hate speech and more. We constantly review our policies with experts, but on our scale we will always make mistakes and decisions that people do not agree with.
Lawmakers often tell me that we have too much power over speech, and honestly I agree. I have come to believe that we should not make so many important decisions on speech alone. So we create an independent body so people can appeal our decisions. We also work with governments, including French officials, to ensure the effectiveness of content review systems.
Internet companies should be responsible for enforcing malicious content standards. It is impossible to remove all harmful content from the Internet, but when people use dozens of different sharing services – all with their own policies and processes – we need a more standardized approach.
One idea is that third-party agencies should set standards governing the distribution of malicious content and measure companies against these standards. Regulation can set basic lines for what is prohibited and require companies to build systems to keep malicious content to a minimum.
Facebook is already publishing transparency reports on how effectively we remove malicious content. I believe that every major internet service should do this quarterly because it is just as important as financial reporting. When we understand the prevalence of harmful content, we can see which companies are better and where we should set the baselines.
Second, legislation is important to protect elections. Facebook has already made significant changes to political ads: Advertisers in many countries need to verify their identities before buying political ads. We have built a searchable archive that shows who pays for ads, what other ads they ran, and what audience saw the ads. However, deciding whether an ad is political is not always straightforward. Our systems would be more effective if regulation created common standards to verify political actors.
Online political advertising laws focus mainly on candidates and elections, rather than fragmented political issues where we have seen more attempts at disruption. Some laws apply only during elections, although information campaigns are non-stop. And there are also important questions about how political campaigns use data and targeting. We believe that legislation should be updated to reflect the reality of the threats and set standards for the entire industry.
Third, effective privacy and data protection need a globally harmonized framework. People around the world have called for comprehensive privacy regulation in line with the EU's general data protection regulation, and I agree. I think it would be good for the Internet if several countries adopted regulation like GDPR as a common framework.
New privacy regulations in the United States and around the world should build on the protection GDPR offers. It should protect your right to choose how your information is used – while allowing companies to use information for security purposes and to provide services. It should not require data to be stored locally, which will make it more vulnerable to unauthorized access. And it should establish a way to keep companies like Facebook accountable by imposing sanctions when we make mistakes.
I also believe in a common global framework – rather than regulation that varies considerably from country to state – will ensure that the internet does not break it, entrepreneurs can build products that serve everyone, and everyone gets the same protection.
As legislators adopt new privacy rules, I hope they can answer some of the questions that GDPR leaves open. We need clear rules when information can be used to serve public interest and how it should apply to new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Finally, regulation should ensure the principle of data portability. If you share data with a service, you should be able to move it to another. This gives people choices and allows developers to innovate and compete.
This is important for the internet – and for creating services that people want. That's why we built our development platform. True data portability should look like how people use our platform to sign in to an app than the existing ways you can download an archive of your information. However, this requires clear rules on who is responsible for protecting information as it moves between services.
This also needs regular standards. Therefore, we support a standard data transfer format and open source Data Transfer Project.
I think Facebook is responsible for solving these issues, and I look forward to discussing them with lawmakers worldwide. We've built sophisticated systems to find malicious content, stop election interference, and make your ads more transparent. But people should not trust some companies that take care of these problems by themselves. We should have a broader debate on what we want as a society and how regulation can help. These four areas are important, but of course there is more to discuss.
The rules of the internet allowed a generation of entrepreneurs to build services that changed the world and created a lot of value in people's lives. It is time to update these rules to define clear responsibilities for people, businesses, and governments in the future.
[Washington Post]
