I followed Facebook labelled ‘digital gangsters’ by report on fake news by David Pegg to find Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report published, which does have a link to Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report, an eleventy-one page pout labeling Facebook “digital gangsters” (pages 43 and 91, if you are interested).
The report recommends Parliament respond to the invention of the movable type printing press:
MPs conclude: “[Printing presses] cannot hide behind the claim of being merely a ‘platform’ and maintain that they have no responsibility themselves in regulating the content [they produce].” (alternative history edits added)
Further, the printing press has enable broadsheets, without indentifying the sources of their content, to put democracy at risk:
“Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major [broad sheets and newspapers] we use everyday. Much of this is directed from agencies working in foreign countries, including Russia.
For obscure reasons, the report calls for changing the current practice of foreign players interfering in elections and governments of others, saying:
“The UK is clearly vulnerable to covert digital influence campaigns and the Government should be conducting analysis to understand the extent of the targeting of voters, by foreign players, during past elections.” The Government should consider whether current legislation to protect the electoral process from malign influence is sufficient. Legislation should be explicit on the illegal influencing of the democratic process by foreign players.
The UK, its allies and enemies have been interfering in each others’ elections, governments and internal affairs for centuries. The rush to insulate the UK and its long time partner in interference, the United States, from “illegal interference” is a radical departure from current international norms.
On the whole, the report struts and pouts as only a UK parliament committee, spurned by Mark Zuckerberg, not once, not twice, but three times, can.
There’s no new information in the report but more repetition that can be stacked up and then cited to make questionable claims less so. Oh, that’s one of the alleged tactics of disinformation isn’t it?
Can we say that “disinformation,” “interference,” and “influencing” are in the eye of the beholder?
PS: The only legislation I would support for social media platform is the prohibition of any terms of service that bar any content. Social media platforms should be truly content neutral. If you can digitize it, it should be posted. Filtering is the answer to offensive content. Users have no right to censor what other readers choose to consume.
