The Federal government is already investigating Facebook. Now the question is, how far will she go to adjust it.
Facebook founder and CEO mark Zuckerberg, speaking before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday in Cambridge analyst scandal and exposure of the platform role in spreading Russian disinformation during the 2016 presidential campaign to answer questions about Facebook’s past, current and future actions.
But what Facebook will do on its own, will probably not be enough. Calls have grown for the government to try to rein in social media giant. Even Zuckerberg admitted it may be time for regulators to intervene.
Europe is taking some pretty major steps to reduce Facebook the big and technology in General. In the United States, where politicians have not traditionally sought to regulate the technology, it’s a little more complicated.
Regulating Facebook is a difficult balancing act, several specialists and assistants Capitol hill, said in an interview. The company does not survive one scandal is two: one about Russian disinformation and fake news, and no user privacy and data security.
No easy answers about where responsibility begins and ends with Facebook for sharing to its platform. In the US there is the first amendment. When clamping on the fact that on social media, the government is really more bound than, say, Facebook or Twitter through their terms of service.
“The idea that they can do and what they should do is a dividing line,” Michelle de mooy, Director of privacy and data in the Center for democracy and technology, told me.
Facebook may face “exciting” Federal order
Congress and the Federal agencies are already considering several ways to rein in Facebook. Perhaps the most important is investigation that is already underway: the Federal Trade Commission is investigating the possible misuse of personal information in the scandal Cambridge Analytics, which included data from 87 million users. On the question whether Facebook violated a 2011 agreement with the ftc on charges it deceived consumers about their privacy.
The settlement required Facebook to give consumers “clear and prominent notice” and obtain their consent before sharing their information. And it barred the company from making any further deceptive privacy statement.
If the FTC finds Facebook not to violate the 2011 agreement, he may be in deep trouble.
“If there was a violation, and assume that there was, the FTC is in such a situation, it is very difficult to break, if he wants,” said former FTC Commissioner bill Kovacic. “The potential for the imposition of fines in accordance with the status quo is going to be extraordinary”.
He said that every violation of an existing settlement may be punished with a fine in the $ 40,000 — per day per user. One of disgruntled users within a month, this is a potential fine of $ 1.2 million. And compounded among potentially tens of millions of users for weeks and months, the amount will be astronomical. “Now, the FTC said, here is a check for $1 trillion?’ No. But in addition, they can impose a civil penalty exciting?” Said Kovacic.
He said that the FTC must go through the Ministry of justice to pursue a civil penalty, and it is unclear what will be the result. And, of course, we don’t know what else the FTC would find, if anything. But the investigation can be high. “I think that this Header: largest fine imposed on a company in the history of state regulation,” said Kovacic. “To attract the attention of [Facebook] and others in the industry”.
De owl warned that the results of the ftc investigation may not be so satisfying for harm to customers, even if that blockbuster is fine. “The problem with that is that the FTC does not do it publicly,” she said. “If they come to the conclusion that there was a violation that was unfair and deceptive practice, we still don’t know why they came to this conclusion.”
Congress wants more power
Senator Roy blunt (R-MO) is expected to take over Shelby as the Chairman of the Committee on rules and supporters of the bill hope that it will Express more interest in her, a democratic aide told me.
After Cambridge Analytics and continued information flow from Facebook for what Russia did in 2016, public outcry may also lead the unwillingness of legislators should be more open to action.
An honest act ad would require social media companies to reveal which groups of political advertising and to make reasonable efforts to ensure that foreign governments and did not buy advertising on their platforms. On Friday, Zuckerberg came out in support of honest act ad post in Facebook, saying that will “raise the bar for all political advertising on the Internet.” Twitter announced its support for the legislation on Tuesday.
In the same post, Zuckerberg said that Facebook will require political persuasion advertisers to establish their identity and whereabouts. Anyone who wants to manage a political or thematic ad needs to be tested and Facebook will label ads and who paid for them. Facebook announced a similar requirement of authorization for the announcement of elections in October.
Meanwhile, the California legislature seeks to suppress bots. The democratic state Senator Bob Hertzberg and democratic State Assembly member mark Levine both introduced legislation that would require social platforms like Facebook and Twitter to determine automated accounts — in fact, a kind of sticker that says “I bot”.
“They built the car and they allowed the Russians to get into it, gave them the keys and let them go speeding on the highway. And then they ruined that car in our democracy,” Levin told me recently. “Such a great technician should take responsibility for the software that they create.”
In November, California voters will have the opportunity to vote for California consumers, the privacy Act, a legislative initiative that will require companies to disclose what information they collect and how they share and sell, and to give people the right to tell business what they can and can’t do with their data. Facebook, Google, at&T, Verizon and comcast against him.
The Federal election Commission is also considering amending its rules to make a statement about political communication, including advocacy and fundraising online. In late March, he released two alternative proposals on this issue.
Also in March, a bipartisan group of 37 state attorneys sent a letter to Zuckerberg “demand response” on the practice of business and the protection of privacy.
There’s a lot that can be on the table, but it is not clear whether it will be
What else can the Federal government? A lot of proposals floating around, including introducing new guidelines for transparency and data portability (the ability of users, in fact, own your data, remove it, and take it from one platform to another), adjustments of the law on the social media platforms liable for content users, and even potentially adopt comprehensive legislation on privacy.
One of the possibilities is broad legislation related to bots, perhaps to sample the best of online ticket sales act (more commonly known as bots are), and in 2016 the law is designed to prevent ticket scalping and computer programs to cover large number of tickets in online sales.
Other more strict standards of confidentiality. The Obama administration proposed a privacy bill of rights, outlining the rights of consumers to control their personal data and requirements for transparency and security. Failed to get twice the consensus, and if that privacy were moving in the opposite direction: President Donald trump in 2017, signed a law repealing the FCC’s protection of privacy for Internet users.
“Efforts to establish privacy standards were ignored or even cancelled,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (d-NJ), senior member of the Committee of the house Zuckerberg will testify on Wednesday.
Supporters of a new comprehensive privacy in the United States, I hope that revelations about methods Facebook can insist on more radical changes. “What became clear here is that this is not simply a matter of consumer protection,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, an Internet freedom advocate and the Director of the ranking digital rights, the initiative for the study of global standards in the field of freedom of expression and privacy in the digital space. “Privacy protection is a matter of national security.”
“The idea of Congress passing baseline privacy law is what we stood for,” de mooy said. “This is a good time to talk about what actually looks”.
Supporters of greater regulation for Facebook also propose to expand the powers of the FTC and easing some restrictions on its jurisdiction. “The FTC has no authority to non-profit organizations, has no authority over common carriers such as telecommunications or transport, airlines, banks,” said Kovacic. “To be truly effective the national privacy regulator, you need to have a wide range of powers in relation to everything that threatens the consumer in all contexts”.
Another option would be to revise section 230 of the Law on decency, law of 1996, which provides for the exemption from liability of online platforms for Content generated by users. In fact, the law says that Facebook Is like a library, not a newspaper — if you go to the library and check out books on how to build a bomb, the library is not responsible for it. If a newspaper publishes an article telling about how to do it and encouraging it that’s another story.
Congress just passed legislation that rolls back parts of article 230 cases of trafficking, which could potentially open the door to further interference with the law. Proponents of section 230 warn that it could open a Pandora’s box of threats to Internet freedom and actually have the opposite effect of what is intended, in the case of the bill on sex trafficking encourages illegal activities, even in the dark corners of the Internet.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-or), who wrote section 230, warned that the change is going to “punch a hole in the legal framework of the open Internet” in his speech in the Senate. One assistant of the Congress said he believes that section 230 would become “the Central point of the debate” about what the Internet looks like for the next few years.
One big stumbling block in the regulation of Facebook in America is the first amendment
Part of what explains why the US was so reluctant to adopt a Provision on the network and technology is the question of freedom of speech as provided by the Constitution of the United States. Simply put, there are big government just can’t control when it comes to what people do and say online.
“Since the starting point, we have to admit, especially here in the United States with the first amendment, there is a real limit that the rules that government action can do online Content,” said Emma Llanso, Director of the Center for data and technology, free expression project. “Of course there are things that are illegal content, so it is rather a zone where the rules may make sense, but much of what comes in a General discussion about this is outside the reach of government action from the get-go.”
An honest act announcements and guidelines of the FIC may be able to do something about political advertising and transparency online. But when it comes to police hatred, propaganda, and even fake news, it’s just another story.
And that’s where the companies themselves have come in. the U.S. Congress may not be able to keep people from bullying on the Internet, but the conditions of the Twitter service.
“People tend to confuse what the government may do with the fact that these individual companies can do,” said Karen Kornbluh, senior fellow for digital policy at the Council on foreign relations and former U.S. Ambassador to the organization for economic cooperation and development under the Obama administration. “This is not the first amendment for companies to remove misleading advertising, hate, or hoaxes.”
She added that companies often face political and financial pressure to remove or allow the the contents and should be more clear in their view about what they take and why.
Llanso said to get more transparency from platforms about their methods of moderation of Content, including number and volume of material that has been tagged and as removed, can help to shape policy prescriptions. “Until we get more information in the public discourse about how these platforms are shaping the information environment that they control, like, we’re talking about policy options in the dark.”
It agreed that given the limited scope of state control over freedom of speech, companies more freedom to the police that there. “Any platform that I can think of the policy content that is more restrictive than the first amendment would allow the government to do,” she said.
There are of course risks as much impetus on companies to act and turning them into the arbiters of what are and are not allowed online. McKinnon said she’s worried about the installation that transforms companies, “mainly in private judges, juries and executioners when it comes to online speech.”
But if Facebook, he says, wants to do better, it’s certainly a way. Last week, Zuckerberg told reporters that she currently has 15 000 people working on security issues and overview of content and plans to have 20,000 by the end of the year.
Garcia-Martinez, Antonio, who worked on targeted ads in Facebook from 2011 to 2013, said recently that Facebook has a lot of self-control and political advertising in particular uses a strategy similar to those he uses in other ad objects. Alcohol ads, for example, shows only users of a certain age in the United States, a different age in Spain, but not in Saudi Arabia where alcohol is illegal.
“Facebook is actually and programmatically find out what is alcohol ad, and then applies the business logic, arguing that it is acceptable,” Garcia-Martinez told me. “And if you break enough rules, the account will be frozen.”
The harsh truth is that the horse already left the barn
Testimony in Congress, Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives’ knows media blitz, perhaps, began to pay attention to the protection of confidentiality of data and information manipulation online. But there is a long way and much of what has been done, well done.
Facebook acknowledged that most of the information of its users available to third parties that it scans the messages and that it to keep almost all of their data forever. He just announced it has found additional evidence of the Russian accounts to Troll. Zuckerberg last week said that the disclosure of unseemly content will be “endless battle” and that you “will never fully solve security.”
“I think we’re going to dig in this hole, but it will take a few years,” Zuckerberg said recently, Ezra Klein of VOX. “I would like to address all these issues within three months or six months, but I just think the reality is that addressing some of these issues will take a longer period of time.”
The question, of course, a lot of data already, the 2016 election is already over, and consumer confidence in Facebook is already broken.
“There’s an element that’s too little, too late. But we still want Facebook to make some changes, and we’ll ask Zuckerberg some questions about what changes he is making. But we must also understand that much of this information is already there, and so should be thought about from the point of view of the legislation — what do we do, go ahead, but what we do in order that there?” Resp. Pallone said. “I don’t know that there is a simple answer there.”
Sourse: vox.com
