Thank $DEITY that the UK Is leaving the EU now so it will be at most able to show a threatening finger to Facebook or block it completely. /s
Here come the riled MPs (it's private, huh), Facebook's a digital 'gangster' ('disingen-u-ous'). Zuckerberg he is a failure (on sharing data)
Tech titans like Facebook, itself described as a "digital gangster", continually fail to address the risks their platforms pose to democracy – so the British government should regulate, MPs have said. The House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has been conducting an inquiry into "fake news" – which it …
COMMENTS
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Monday 18th February 2019 09:57 GMT Dan 55
Now, will the government act...
... or will it be buried, like it seems anything to do with the Leave campaign and foreign funding has.
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Tuesday 19th February 2019 10:19 GMT Clunking Fist
Re: Now, will the government act...
But Soros didn't fund the leave campaign...
See what I did there.
Still, it's happening all over the world. Trump (hawk spit) is investigated for 2 years, every Stone overturned. Some beetles squashed like, err, bugs. But Clinton's insecure server and inexplicable enrichment "nothing to see, move along". Mr C's links to pervs, not investigated. "Move along sir". Nice.
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Monday 18th February 2019 10:20 GMT Harry Stottle
The Hypocritic Oath
Just one of many I screamed at the radio.
Difficult to reign in my rage on hearing this story and the unquestioning BBC "Today" toadying of its proponents on this morning's show.
Let's make it clear from the start that I recognise the reality of the problem they identify. Fake news, disinformation, targeted propaganda etc are all widespread evils not just hosted by the internet's big beasts but engineered as income streams.
But for senior politicians to come out swinging about this issue is about as egregious as Hitler complaining about Stalinist purges.
Someone needs to do a PhD on this shit but my starting hypothesis would be that, if we could find an objective way to measure Fake news and Disinformation and track it to its sources, the single largest contributors, throughout human history, have always been governments or those aspiring to govern.
I was going to list examples but I doubt if any fellow Reg readers need them.
I'll just comment on why the BBC and UK Parliament are so happily aligned on this issue. They both have a vested interest in portraying themselves as the gold standard of verifiable political fact. Commercial upstarts like Fakebook have no business muscling in on their pitch. A biblical quote featuring motes and eyes comes to mind...
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Monday 18th February 2019 11:34 GMT Teiwaz
Re: The Hypocritic Oath
Quite.
Any judgements on fake news should start with the main wielders, the politicians and (what at least has been known since the early eighties as) spin.
Colouring bad news to lessen the worst aspects has a certain fair enough, but what was ankle deep has now reached the hocks, and they wallow contentedly in it, oinking incessantly as they ingest it and crap it out on the public.
Facebook is a monster of a gossip mill, I was going to say totally without ethics, but knowing how it started, a touch more negative than positive. However it's the everyday humdrum citizen who buys into it, even feeds the monster.
Those most up in arms about it, traditonal purveyors of news, and politicians with a claim to the last word of authority (albeit laughably sometimes) are those feeling most threatened, and that's never a good arbiter of necessary action.
If a stronger ethical regulatory body is needed anywhere, it's in politics.
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Tuesday 19th February 2019 09:05 GMT Fading
Re: The Hypocritic Oath
That's why it is insidious - effectively it is a restatement of the logical fallacy "argumentum ab auctoritate". The push to identify the "who" is an attempt to discredit the message by the implication that the source is untrustworthy, The message itself needs to be dissected with critical thought to determine its validity not merely attempting to discount the source.
Improving logical reasoning and critical thought is the way forward but this would be as much a threat to politicians and the MSM as it would fake news.
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Monday 18th February 2019 10:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Setup a platform tax!!!
Tax each "platform" on the number of users!
1) More tax revenues from tax-dodging companies
2) Less fake accounts, and less boasting about user number increase to deceive advertisers
3) Platforms would increase users accountability to get rid of some
4) User data will be given a value
5) It will balance competion
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Monday 18th February 2019 11:53 GMT WilliamBurke
Re: Setup a platform tax!!!
Well, SOMEBODY has to finance public services. At the moment it's you and me. Not FB, Google or Amazon.
Apart from this, it would probably be easier to stick to current methods of corporation and income tax, but stop them from relocating profits to their favourite jurisdiction. And criminal behaviour should be prosecuted under criminal law: don't just fine the companies. Go after the directors and managers who are responsible for breaking the law.
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Tuesday 19th February 2019 09:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Setup a platform tax!!!
Well, SOMEBODY has to finance public services. At the moment it's you and me. Not FB, Google or Amazon.
Well, for the most part it is you and me that use and benefit from public services. Corporations benefit from the rule of law and access to fair courts, but since they're already taxed on buildings and employees, as well as collecting consumer and employee-liability taxes, the argument that they're not paying their fair share is a bit odd.
All that is at issue here is that big tech companies exploit international trade agreements and weak transfer pricing rules to avoid corporation tax on their profits. I agree it is not a desired outcome, but even if you "fix" this problem, we're talking about a tax that is about 6% of government receipts, and raking in another few hundred million each from MS, FB, Google, Amazon won't shirt that percentage.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have measures to change the anomalous taxation outcomes, merely observing that ultimately it is ALWAYS you and I that pay for government spending (whether it gets laundered through a corporation or not), and that this anomaly really is a drop in the ocean of government spending.
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Monday 18th February 2019 12:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Setup a platform tax!!!
Sorry you didn't understand it was a tongue-in-cheek message suggesting a way to cut the "platform finger" those companies hide behind.
They are not "platforms", and especially they are not "neutral platforms". They are really ads and influencers businesses built on data slurping- including allowing users to upload contents to lure more users in for slurping and collect more data.
It they keep on pretending they are a just a "platform", yes, I would introduce a "platform tax" - why not? If I can be taxed based on the square feet occupied by my company, why a "platform" can't be taxed by its number of users?
It would also have the benefits I outlined.
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Monday 18th February 2019 12:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
So do we expect MP's and their parties that use these platforms for campaigning to pass laws stopping themselves from using underhand tactics or targeting voters?
I would say not very likely if their housing laws when most of them own rental properties is anything to go by.
Gesture politics at best.
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Monday 18th February 2019 13:23 GMT SVV
Regulate the algorithms?
How on Earth do they umagine they will do this? The sort of recursive graph traversal code that Facebook et al are based upn is actually fairly simple algorithmically. It is only when combined with the vast amounts of connected data that its effectivate power emerges. So this idea that the regulators will be able to sneak a peek at the awesome super powerful secret formula and tame the evil beast is rather ridiculaous in my opinion.The algtorithms work the same whether they're detecting a personal political leaning or an interest in vinatge steam engines, with the same ad targeting code then deciding to send you either a lie filled bit of political propoganda or a promotion for a fun day out n the Chigley heriitage steam railway according to the data they've got from you.
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Monday 18th February 2019 18:32 GMT Dan 55
Re: Regulate the algorithms?
You don't need to regulate the algorithms, just the output.
If it recommends flat earth videos or Alex Jones, drop that output, tell the machine learning algorithm it's been naughty so it'll recommend it less in the future, and go back to get another recommendation.
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Monday 18th February 2019 18:09 GMT Adrian 4
Tech?
Why do they call these 'tech companies' ?
Facebook isn't a tech company. It doesn't sell tech. It develops some poorly considered algorithms to support its main business, which is selling the personal data of its victims.
Google is an advertising company.
Amazon is a shopfront (except for its AWS arm, which is tech).