A final report by a British parliamentary committee which spent months last year investigating online political disinformation makes very uncomfortable reading for Facebook — with the company singled out for “disingenuous” and “bad faith” responses to democratic concerns about the misuse of people’s data. In the report, published today, the committee has also called for […]
View More UK parliament calls for antitrust, data abuse probe of FacebookCategory: Mike Schroepfer
Facebook urged to offer an API for political ad transparency research
Facebook has been called upon to provide good faith researchers with an API to enable them to study how political ads are spreading and being amplified on its platform. A coalition of European academics, technologists and human and digital rights groups, led by Mozilla, has signed an open letter to the company demanding far greater […]
View More Facebook urged to offer an API for political ad transparency researchUK parliament seizes cache of internal Facebook documents to further privacy probe
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may yet regret underestimating a UK parliamentary committee that’s been investigating the democracy-denting impact of online disinformation for the best part of this year — and whose repeat requests for facetime he’s just as repeatedly snubbed. In the latest high gear change, reported in yesterday’s Observer, the committee has used parliamentary powers […]
View More UK parliament seizes cache of internal Facebook documents to further privacy probeFacebook rolls out checks for UK political ads
Facebook has announced it rolled out a system of checks on political ads run on its platform in the UK which requires advertisers to verify their identity and location to try to make it harder for foreign actors to meddle in domestic elections and referenda. This follows similar rollouts of political ad transparency tools in […]
View More Facebook rolls out checks for UK political adsFake news inquiry calls for social media levy to defend democracy
A UK parliamentary committee which has been running a multi-month investigation into the impact of online disinformation on political campaigning — and on democracy itself — has published a preliminary report highlighting what it describes as “significant concerns” over the risks to “shared values and the integrity of our democratic institutions”. It’s calling for “urgent […]
View More Fake news inquiry calls for social media levy to defend democracyZuckerberg again snubs UK parliament over call to testify
Facebook has once again eschewed a direct request from the UK parliament for its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to testify to a committee investigating online disinformation — without rustling up so much as a fig-leaf-sized excuse to explain why the founder of one of the world’s most used technology platforms can’t squeeze a video call into […]
View More Zuckerberg again snubs UK parliament over call to testifyUK parliament’s call for Zuckerberg to testify goes next level
The UK parliament has issued an impressive ultimatum to Facebook in a last ditch attempt to get Mark Zuckerberg to take its questions: Come and give evidence voluntarily or next time you fly to the UK you’ll get a formal summons to appear. “Following reports that he will be giving evidence to the European Parliament […]
View More UK parliament’s call for Zuckerberg to testify goes next levelFacebook’s dark ads problem is systemic
Facebook’s admission to the UK parliament this week that it had unearthed unquantified thousands of dark fake ads after investigating fakes bearing the face and name of well-known consumer advice personality, Martin Lewis, underscores the massive challenge for its platform on this front. Lewis is suing the company for defamation over its failure to stop bogus […]
View More Facebook’s dark ads problem is systemicWhat we learned from Facebook’s latest data misuse grilling
Facebook’s CTO Mike Schroepfer has just undergone almost five hours of often forensic and frequently awkward questions from members of a UK parliament committee that’s investigating online disinformation, and whose members have been further fired up by misinformation they claim Facebook gave it. The veteran senior exec, who’s clocked up a decade at the company, also […]
View More What we learned from Facebook’s latest data misuse grillingZuckerberg refuses UK parliament summons over Fb data misuse
So much for ‘We are accountable‘; Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declined a summons from a UK parliamentary committee that’s investigating how social media data is being used, and — as recent revelations suggest misused — for political ad targeting. The DCMS committee wrote to Zuckerberg on March 20 — following newspaper reports based on […]
View More Zuckerberg refuses UK parliament summons over Fb data misuse