False news survey calls for social media levy to defend democracy – TechCrunch

A British parliamentary committee that conducted a multi-month investigation into the impact of online misinformation on the political campaign – and on democracy itself – issued a preliminary report outlining "significant risks" common values ​​and integrity of our democratic institutions.

Calls for "urgent action" by the government and regulators to "strengthen resilience against misinformation and misinformation in our democratic system"

. regarding the use of data, the manipulation of our data and the targeting of pernicious views, "warns the DCMS committee. "In particular, we have heard evidence of attempts by the Russian state to influence elections in the United States and the United Kingdom through social media, efforts of private companies to do the same, and the EU Referendum Act in their use of social media. "

The survey, which was designed and started in the previous British Parliament – before its relaunch in the autumn of 2017, after the June general elections – found in the middle of one of the major scandals of the modern era, revelations about the extent of misinformation and abuse of data on social networks and allegations of election violence and aches have mushroomed, especially in recent months (although concerns have been steadily increasing since the 2016 US presidential election and revelations about the craft industry fake suppliers news was pitched to feed US voters, in addition to the activity of Troll Kremlin farms.)

Yet the Facebook-Camb ridge Analytica saga of misuse of data (which has snowballed into a major global scandal in March) is only one of the components of the committee 's investigation. They have therefore decided to publish several reports – the first recommending urgent actions for the government and regulators, which will be followed by another report covering the "expanded mandate" of the investigation and including a closer look on the role of advertising. (This last report is expected to land in the fall.)

For the time being, the committee proposes "principled recommendations" designed to be "adaptable enough to cope with technological developments fast ". .

Among a very long list of recommendations are:

• a tax on social media and technology giants to fund a "major investment" in the data monitoring system from the United Kingdom. " attract and employ more technically qualified engineers who not only can analyze current technologies, but have the ability to predict future technologies" – with the tax on technological societies operating in " a similar to the way the banking industry finances the maintenance of the Financial Conduct Authority ". In addition, the committee also wants the government to make proposals for social media companies raise an educational levy, "to fund a comprehensive educational framework (developed by charities and non-governmental organizations) and based online." "Digital literacy should be the fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and mathematics," the committee wrote. "The DCMS Department should coordinate with the Department of Education, highlighting proposals to include digital literacy, as part of the Physical, Social, Health and Economics (PSHE) curriculum. The educational levy on social media should be used, in part, by the government to finance this extra part of the school curriculum. "He also wants to see a unified public awareness initiative, partially funded by a tax on technology companies , "set the context for social media content, explain to people what their rights are on their data … and define ways in which people can interact with political campaigns on social media. "The public should be more aware of its ability to report on digital campaigns that it deems to be misleading or illegal", he adds
• amendments to the British Electoral Law to reflect the use of news technologies – with the support of the committee. The proposal of the Electoral Commission that " the entire election campaign should have easily accessible digital access requirements, including information about the editorial organization and who is legally responsible spending, so that it is obvious at some point. look that sponsored this campaign material, thus aligning advertisements and online messages on physically published leaflets, circulars and advertisements ". It also suggests that the government "consider the possibility of clearly and durably banning all paid advertising and political videos, indicating the source and facilitating the identification by users of what is in the advertisements and the 39; advertiser. " And urges the government to carry out "a complete overhaul of the current rules and regulations regarding political work during the elections and referendums, including: the increase in the length of the period regulated ; definitions of what constitutes a political campaign; absolute transparency of online political campaign; an introduced category for digital expenditure on the countryside ; to reduce the delay in transmitting declarations to the Electoral Commission (the current time for large political organizations is six months) "
• the Electoral Commission to establish a code for advertising through social media during election periods "taking into consideration whether such activity should be restricted during the regulated period, organizations or campaigns registered with the Commission". He also calls on the Commission to propose "stricter requirements so that major donors can demonstrate the source of their donations", and supports his suggestion of a change in the rules covering political spending in order to limit the amounts that 39, a person may give
• to significant increase of the maximum fine which may be levied by the Commission (currently just £ 20,000) – saying that this should rather be based on a [19659007] percentage of turnover. He also suggests that the corps should have the possibility of remitting cases to the Crown Prosecution Service, before their investigations are completed; and urges the government to consider giving it the power to compel organizations that it does not specifically regulate, including technology companies and individuals, to provide relevant information to their investigations, subject to the approval of the government. a regular procedure. [19459038]] – "require that all political advertising work be listed for public display, so that even if the work does not require regulation, it is accountable, clear and transparent to all". It therefore wants the government to review UK legislation to ensure that the digital campaign is defined to include online advertisements that use political terminology, but are not sponsored by a specific political party.
• Political advertising to look-alikes online and a minimum limit for the number of voters sent individual political messages to be agreed at the national level. The committee also suggests that the Electoral Commission and the ICO should consider the ethics of Facebook or other social media companies that sell political ads to advertisers during the regulated period, saying that they should consider whether users should have the right to refuse to be included in similar hearings
• a recommendation for formulate a new regulatory category for technological enterprises which is not necessarily […] a platform or a publisher, and which "tightens the responsibilities of technological enterprises"
• a suggestion that the government considers (as part of an existing review of digital advertising) if advertising standards the agency could regulate advertising digital. "We recommend that this process establish a clear legal responsibility for technology companies to take action against harmful and illegal content on their platforms ," the committee wrote. "This should include both the content that has been referred to them by users for their removal, and any other content that should have been easily identifiable to technology companies." In these cases, not acting on behalf of technology companies could expose them to legal proceedings brought either by a public regulatory body or by individuals or organizations that have suffered from this content freely available on social media. "
• another suggestion that the government plans to establish a "Charter of the Digital Atlantic as a new mechanism to reassure users that their digital rights [sont] guaranteed" – the Committee also fears that the United Kingdom is fearing an opening of privacy after its departure from the EU, when US companies will able to transfer the data of British citizens to the United States without the protection of the EU. GDPR framework (as the UK will then be a third country)
• a suggestion that a professional "World Code of Ethics" should be developed by tech in collaboration with international governments, academics and other "interested parties" (including the World Summit Information Society ), in order to "draft in writing what is and what is not acceptable to users on social media, with possible liabilities for companies and for people working for these companies, including technical engineers involved in the creation of software for companies "." New products should be tested to ensure that products are suitable for their use and do not constitute a danger to users or society ", he suggests. "The code of ethics should be the backbone of the work of technology companies, and should be continually referred to the development of new technologies and algorithms. If companies do not respect their own code of ethics, the UK government should introduce regulations to make these ethical rules mandatory. "
• the committee also suggests that the government avoids using the term (false and confusing)" false news "- and instead proposes an agreed definition of the words" misinformation "and" misinformation ". research on the methods by which misinformation and misinformation are created and disseminated on the Internet, including support for fact-checking "We recommend that the government initiate an expert working group to create a credible annotation of the standards, so that people can see, at a glance, the level of verification of a site.This would help people to decide the level of compliance. importance they attach to these sites, "writes
• a suggestion that technology companies should be subject to the security check and algorithms – with the drafting of the committee: All As corporate finances are audited and controlled, the same type of audit and control must be performed on the non-financial aspects of technology companies, including their security mechanisms and algorithms, to ensure that They work responsibly. The government should provide the appropriate body with the power to audit these companies, including algorithmic verification, and reiterate that the powers of the OIC should be substantially strengthened in this regard. The Committee also suggests that the Competition and Contracts Authority is planning to conduct an audit of the operation of the advertising market on social media (given the risk of false accounts leading to advertising fraud) [19659060] an obligation for to make a full disclosure of the targeting used in the context of advertising transparency . The committee says that technology companies must also address the issue of shell companies and "other professional attempts to hide the identity in advertising ads."

How will the government respond to the committee's list of recommendations to clean online political advertising? , although the issue of Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns was at least raised publicly by the prime minister last year. Even though Theresa May was a little more discreet about the revelations about misuse of referendum data and violations of electoral laws.

While the committee uses the term "technology companies" in its report to refer to several companies, Facebook criticizes, the committee accusing the company of being misleading by omission and actively seeking to impede the company 's progress. investigation.

She also reiterated her call – for something like the fifth time at this stage – to the testimony of founder Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook has provided several witnesses to the committee, including its technical director, but Zuckerberg has declined his requests, he appears even by video link. (And even if he found time for a few hours in front of the European Parliament in May.)

The committee writes:

We have undertaken fifteen correspondence exchanges with Facebook, and two sessions of oral testimonies, in an attempt to obtain some of the information that they held, including information regarding user data, foreign interference and details of so-called "dark ads" that had reached Facebook users. Facebook has always answered questions by giving the minimum amount of information possible, and routinely failed to provide relevant information to the survey unless it had been specifically requested. He provided witnesses who were unwilling or unable to provide complete answers to the Committee's questions. That's why the Committee continued to press for Mark Zuckerberg to appear as a witness because, by his own admission, he is the one who decides what is happening on Facebook.

…

non-passive platforms on which users enter content; they reward what is most engaging, because engagement is part of their economic model and their growth strategy. They greatly benefited using this model. This manipulation of sites by technological companies must be made more transparent. Facebook has all information. Those who are outside the company have none, unless Facebook chooses to publish it. Facebook was reluctant to share information with the Committee, which does not bode well for future transparency . We ask, again, Mr. Zuckerberg to come to the Committee to answer the outstanding questions to which Facebook has not adequately responded to date.

The committee suggests that the British Act slander 2013 means Facebook and other social media companies have the duty to publish and follow transparent rules – arguing that the law provides that "if a user is defamed on social media, and the individual incriminated can not be identified, the responsibility lies on the platform" .

"We urge the government to examine the effectiveness of these provisions and to monitor technology companies to ensure that they comply [ ] to the court orders in the United Kingdom the details of the source of the disputed content – including the advertisements – at guarantee that they function in accordance with the law or any code of Ethics or future conduct of the industry. Tech companies also have the responsibility to ensure full disclosure of the source of any political advertising that they carry, "adds

The committee particularly condemns the actions of Facebook in Burma (as elsewhere many others have also been), condemning the failure of the company to prevent his platform from being used to spread hatred and to fuel violence against the Rohingya ethnic minority – and citing the equally damning assessment of the UN.

"Facebook has hindered our company's efforts throughout this investigation.It is as if it thought the problem would go away if it did not share information about the problem and only reacted when it did. was pressed.Many times we heard about Facebook about mistakes made and then (sometimes) rectified, rather than designing the product ethically from the beginning of the process.Facebook has a "Code of Conduct Which emphasizes the principles that Facebook's staff do its job and states that employees must "act legally, honestly, ethically and in the best interests of the company while performing tasks on behalf of Facebook". Facebook has fallen well below this norm in Burma, "says the committee

The committee also blames Facebook's actions directly for undermining UK's international aid efforts in the country. incitement to hatred against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma, through its "Free Basics" service. It provides people with free access to mobile phones at no cost to data, but is also responsible for spreading misinformation and propaganda. Facebook's technical director, Mike Schroepfer, described the situation in Burma as "horrible", but Facebook can not show us that he did anything to stop the spread of misinformation against the Rohingya minority [19659095] on Facebook, much of which is disseminated through fake accounts – and the ethnic cleansing that followed, the success of DFID's aid programs [the UK Department for International Development] could be drastically reduced, depending on the qualifications They have established to succeed. Facebook's activity is jeopardizing international aid to Burma, including the work of the British government. Facebook releases a dangerous product for consumers and deeply unethical. We urge the government to show how seriously it takes Facebook's apparent collusion in spreading misinformation in Burma at the earliest opportunity. This is another example of Facebook that has not taken responsibility for the misuse of its platform.

We contacted Facebook for a response to the committee's report, and in an email – assigned to Richard Allan, Vice-President –

The Committee raised some important issues and we were pleased to be able to contribute to their work .

We share their goal of ensuring that political advertising is fair and transparent and that electoral changes are necessary. . We have already made all advertising on Facebook more transparent. We provide more information on the pages behind each ad and you can now see all the ads on a Facebook page, even if they are not for you. We are working on ways to authenticate and tag political ads in the UK and create an archive of those ads that anyone can search for. We will work closely with the government and the UK Electoral Commission to develop these new transparency tools.

We also invest heavily in human resources and technology to prevent our services from containing bad content. We removed 2.5 million hate speech and disabled 583 million fake accounts globally during the first quarter of 2018 – largely before anyone reported it to Facebook. By using technology such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and computer vision, we can detect more bad content and act faster.

The statement makes no mention of Burma. Nor is the committee's suggestion that social media companies should pay to defend democracy and civil society against the damaging excesses of their tools.

On Thursday, deploying its latest transparency features, Facebook announced that users could now see the ads that a page is showing on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and its network of partners "even if these ads are not you not shown. "

To do this, users must login to Facebook, visit any page and select "Info and Announcements". "You'll see creative ads and copies, and you'll be able to report any suspicious item by clicking" Report Announcement, "he added.

He also reports a feature" More info about pages "that users can use to get more details A page like recent name changes and the date it was created

" The vast majority of Facebook ads are run by legitimate organizations – It is a small business looking for new clients, or a politician running for office.But we have seen that bad actors can also abuse our products, "wrote Facebook, adding that the features announced" are just the beginning "of his efforts" to improve "and" root out the abuses ".

The commission's interim report was postponed at the end of the week following the initial embargo following the Brexite-led drama – after British Brexit campaign director Dominic Cummings deliberately broke the law. Embargo by publishing the report on his blog in order to produce his own response before the report is widely covered by the media.

Last week, the Electoral Commission issued its own report after a multi-month survey of Brexit campaign expenses. The monitoring body concluded that Vote Leave violated the UK election law by spending heavily through a joint working agreement with another Brexit support campaign (BeLeave) – an arrangement by which 500,000 euros of targeted Facebook advertising were coordinated by Vote Leave in the final days of the campaign while she had already reached her spending limit (Facebook finally released some of the advertisements of the 2016 Brexit campaign that had been micro-targeted to British voters via its platform to the committee, which published these advertisements last week.The Vote Leave ads (until then 'dark') show that the official Brexit campaign generates fake news with ads that, for example, claim that Turkey is about to join the EU and flood the UK with millions of migrants; spread the pretend Ionly debunked that the UK would be able to spend £ 350m more per week on the NHS when it left the EU.

In general, whistle-blowing racism seems to have been the preferred "persuasion" tactic by Vote Leave for the choice of targeted ads – and thanks to Facebook's advertising platform, no one other than the intended recipients of each advertisement would have been likely to see the messages.

the committee's report after his failure to appear before him to answer questions, despite several summonses (including an unprecedented motion by the House of Commons ordering him to appear – which he nevertheless ignored)

"Mr. Cummings' scornful behavior is unprecedented. the history of investigations of this committee and highlights concerns about the difficulties of strengthening cooperation with parliamentary oversight in the modern era, "he writes, adding," We will come back to this issue in our report to the fall and think it's one "

On his blog, Cummings claims that the committee offered him that they knew he could not do; slams his investigation as "false news"; moans abundantly that the committee consists of Staying to support the deputies; and argues that the investigation should be under oath – as his main defense appears to be that key campaign whistleblowers lie (despite former Cambridge Analytica employee Chris Wylie and the former treasurer of BeLeave Shahmir Sanni having provided extensive documentary evidence to the evidence that the Electoral Commission and the data monitoring body of the UK, the ICO, have found convincing enough to announce some of the most significant fines heavy that they can inflict – in the latter case, the ICO announced its intention to impose a maximum fine on Facebook.The data watchdog continues to investigate multiple aspects of which is an extremely complex online business history (technically and politically), and earlier this month commissioner Elizabeth Denham called for an "ethical pause" on the use of the platforms of pu online blicity for micro-voting voters with political messages, arguing – as does the DCMS committee – that there are very real and very serious risks to democratic processes.

There is much, much more self-punishment on Cummings' blog for anyone who wants to get hurt by reading. But also keep in mind the harsh criticism of the Electoral Commission on the Voted Vote campaign, in particular – for the fact that it is not so much a lack of cooperation with its investigation as a intentional obstruction. (See: Pages 12 and 13 of the Report of the Commission.)