Top Intel Democratic Senate Proposes Steps to Counter Influence Campaigns on Social Media

The best-known technology mogul of the Senate a set of 20 legislative proposals to combat the proliferation of disinformation campaigns on social media platforms, as the panel prepares to examine the practices of these companies during the hearings of the next weeks.

Senator Mark R. Warner's Proposals (D-Va.), Compiled in a White Paper Published Monday by Axios, Include Initiatives to Keep Platforms Legally Responsible for Preventing the Broadcasting of False Audio and Video Files on Their Sites , to give users ownership of their data and require their consent. access to this information, and to commit new funds to the Federal Trade Commission and the media education campaigns.

Without Law Bills Going To The Horizon And The Senate Should Be Busy With Fiscal Struggles And Confidence In The Fall, It Is Likely That Warner's More Ambitious Proposals Become Law before the mid-term elections in November. But the proposals are a potential model for lawmakers on the intelligence committee who, in a few days, will challenge experts and, in September, will topple the leaders of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to identify areas in which the Federal government should intervene platforms to be used for other fraudulent and exploitative campaigns. The Senate Intelligence Committee has not yet held a public hearing with these officials, although Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has testified before other committees of the House and Senate in the spring. .

[‘Your user agreement sucks’: Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate grilling, in 10 key moments]

"The speed with which these products grew up in our social, political and economic life has, in many ways, overshadowed the shortcomings of their creators by anticipating the harmful effects of their use," reads the political document. from Warner. "The government has not been able to adapt and has been unable or unwilling to adequately address the impacts of these trends on privacy, competition and public discourse."

In his article, Warner recognizes that legislators face a first hurdle. "Seems unwilling to address the issue" of establishing an inter-agency, government-wide approach to addressing attacks on electoral and other infrastructure. Last week, Trump chaired a meeting focused on electoral security with members of the National Security Council – but did not approve or order his administration to pursue specific actions in the future.

But it is also unclear how Republican lawmakers will approve initiatives proposed by a Democrat during a high-stakes political season. One of Warner's proposals, an obligation to disclose the backers of online advertisements, has been around for months under the name Honest Ads Act – and only one of his 30 co-sponsors is a Republican: Senator John McCain (R -Ariz.), Who Washington, DC for several months, is receiving treatment for a serious form of brain cancer.

Some of Warner's proposals reflect demands that have been made elsewhere around Congress, such as his calls to improve national defenses against intrusions to establish a "deterrence doctrine" to spell out the steps that the United States will take in response to cyberattacks.

But others are considering a new legal conceptualization of social media companies, as entities with a fiduciary duty to their users and only temporary custodians. content and information that users might have the right to take with them from one platform to another, just like the portability of phone numbers from one company to the other. Warner imagines laws that would allow algorithms checks of social media companies, as well as laws on "the public interest" that would allow experts and academics to examine how companies are using the data that they have. they collect.

Warner shows a preference for safeguarding the interests of government, academic innovators and small businesses in an environment where mainstream social media and technology giants increasingly control "critical" technologies – such as digital mapping . He proposed establishing thresholds beyond which technology giants should provide equitable, though not free, access to such technology; The white paper also offers academics and small businesses exclusive access to federal databases "that even the largest platforms are pushing the Trump administration to open."

Warner's proposals n & rsquo; However stop to advocate a reduction in federal regulation. undermine the economic model of social media companies – beyond the responsibility of the company to identify bots and unauthorized accounts, as well as the geographical origin of messages and accounts on their platforms .

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