UK Parliamentary Committee Recommends Levy on Social Media to Defend Against Fake News

[ImNotARobot]

The committee has been performing a months-long investigation into the impact online information has on politics and democracy as a whole. Yesterday it published its preliminary report, and in it, among many other things, the committee recommends placing a levy on social media and tech companies to fund an effort in eliminating online misinformation. I feel the article explains it best:

Quote

[It is] a levy on social media and tech giants to fund expanding a “major investment” in the UK’s data watchdog so the body is able to “attract and employ more technically-skilled engineers who not only can analyse current technologies, but have the capacity to predict future technologies” — with the tech company levy operating in “a similar vein to the way in which the banking sector pays for the upkeep of the Financial Conduct Authority”. Additionally, the committee also wants the government put forward proposals for an educational levy to be raised by social media companies, “to finance a comprehensive educational framework (developed by charities and non-governmental organisations) and based online”. “Digital literacy should be the fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths,” the committee writes. “The DCMS Department should co-ordinate with the Department for Education, in highlighting proposals to include digital literacy, as part of the Physical, Social, Health and Economic curriculum (PSHE). The social media educational levy should be used, in part, by the government, to finance this additional part of the curriculum.” It also wants to see a rolling unified public awareness initiative, part-funded by a tech company levy, to “set the context of social media content, explain to people what their rights over their data are… and set out ways in which people can interact with political campaigning on social media. “The public should be made more aware of their ability to report digital campaigning that they think is misleading, or unlawful,” it adds.

In addition to this recommendation, they also make several others, some of which are also highlighted in the article (linked below), including such things as:

• "A major increase in the maximum fine that can be levied by the Electoral Commission"
• "A ban on micro-targeted political advertising to lookalikes online"
• Forming a whole new regulatory category for tech companies
• The establishment of a “digital Atlantic Charter as a new mechanism to reassure users that their digital rights are guaranteed”
• The establishment of a global "Code of Ethics" for tech companies
• Subjecting tech companies to security and algorithmic auditing
• Requiring tech companies to disclose the targeting used for digital advertisements
• Establishing "clear legal liability for tech companies to act against harmful and illegal content on their platforms"

There are others that I have not listed here, but I want to point out that last bullet point as particularly concerning. It sounds very reminiscent of the recent attempt by the EU to enact the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (i.e. that law that would hold sites liable for their users' content, thus undermining the open Internet). While this particular report is aimed at reducing misinformation and fake news rather than the sharing of copyrighted material, the negative impact would be the same. Holding site owners liable for user generated / posted content provides a number of barriers for smaller sites and companies that are unable to devote vast resources to monitoring every corner of their platform all the time.

 

In addition to the above, the committee also goes on to call out Facebook directly several times, calling again on Mark Zuckerberg to appear as a witness in front of parliament, as well as accusing Facebook of not doing enough to stop the spread of hate against the Rohingya ethnic minority in Burma. The report even goes so far as to blame Facebook's actions for "undermining the UK’s international aid efforts in [Burma]."

 

I strongly recommend reading the source article for more information, though it is quite long.

 

Original Source: (TechCrunch) https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/30/fake-news-inquiry-calls-for-social-media-levy-to-defend-democracy/

[HarryNyquist]

Remember in the other thread I said the EU copyright crap wasn't dead? This will be how they disguise it to ram it through.

[AntiTrust]

Fantastic idea and should be done everywhere. 

[sazrocks]

51 minutes ago, ImNotARobot said:

Subjecting tech companies to security and algorithmic auditing

Considering this is the same country that wants to ban end-to-end encryption, this is a horrible, horrible idea.

55 minutes ago, ImNotARobot said:

Establishing "clear legal liability for tech companies to act against harmful and illegal content on their platforms"

Are you kidding me? We already went over how idiotic this is with the EU copyright crap.

31 minutes ago, AntiTrust said:

Fantastic idea and should be done everywhere. 

No. Absolutely not. There may be some good ideas in there (as in, I haven't had the time to evaluate each and every one of the points yet) but the bad ones completely offset the good.

[asus killer]

1 hour ago, HarryNyquist said:

Remember in the other thread I said the EU copyright crap wasn't dead? This will be how they disguise it to ram it through.

UK is leaving the EU in a couple of months. Nobody in the EU cares what they think anymore. The EU has it's problems but come on this is just hate. You could have easily blamed China or the US for this, would have maid as much sense 

[AntiTrust]

1 hour ago, sazrocks said:

No. Absolutely not. There may be some good ideas in there (as in, I haven't had the time to evaluate each and every one of the points yet) but the bad ones completely offset the good.

Yep it is, the only problem is its about a decade late 

[PlayStation 2]

Yeah, this can't end well at all.

See: Tommy Robinson and Lauren Southern

[suicidalfranco]

ahahahahah

boi this can't end wrong at all...

 

BAHAHAHAHAHAH

 

shit, my sides are killing me. This is just too funny to watch.

 

[TimeOmnivore]

2 hours ago, ImNotARobot said:

Establishing "clear legal liability for tech companies to act against harmful and illegal content on their platforms"

Fuck this part especially - for two main reasons. One being that expecting (particularly large) sites to be able preemptively monitor every piece of content that is uploaded without said sites going bankrupt is about as realistic as walking on the sun without getting burned. And, possibly more importantly, two: the use of the word 'harmful' alongside 'illegal'; given what I've seen of the UK's propositions and attempts at law on just this forum alone, I sure as hell don't want them being the determining factor on what's considered 'harmful' - nor do I trust any other agency with that definition either - they'd probably try to fine sites for normal pornography or swearing or some other equally benign shit.

 

Governments don't seem to understand that if they wanted the internet to be restricted and within their purview, they needed to have done that several decades ago when it was in its infancy - it's far too late now, and any and all attempts to restrict the way people use and/or access the internet at this point will only be met with vitriol and rejection by the masses.

[Morgan Everett]

23 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Yeah, this can't end well at all.

See: Tommy Robinson and Lauren Southern

Why do those people imply that these ideas can’t end well?

[sazrocks]

27 minutes ago, AntiTrust said:

Yep it is, the only problem is its about a decade late 

You want encryption to have government backdoors!? Are you insane?

Please watch this: 

 

[PlayStation 2]

29 minutes ago, Morgan Everett said:

Why do those people imply that these ideas can’t end well?

The former was imprisoned for exposing various Muslim grooming gangs throughout, I believe London and the latter was banned from entering the United Kingdom on the grounds of “hate speech” from her Twitter page. 

 

They're going to leverage this protection as grounds to ban speech they don’t like, just like they’ve done before and then someone has to save them from their own damage. History repeats itself. 

[Commodus]

8 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

The former was imprisoned for exposing various Muslim grooming gangs throughout, I believe London and the latter was banned from entering the United Kingdom on the grounds of “hate speech” from her Twitter page. 

 

They're going to leverage this protection as grounds to ban speech they don’t like, just like they’ve done before and then someone has to save them from their own damage. History repeats itself. 

Actually, Robinson was imprisoned for contempt of court, not exposing the gangs; they were already in the public spotlight.  He's also been convicted of fraud, illegally entering the US (ironic given his ideology), assault, threats... basically, he's the sort who knowingly flouts the law and then feigns outrage when the government actually enforces the law.

[Morgan Everett]

1 minute ago, Commodus said:

Actually, Robinson was imprisoned for contempt of court, not exposing the gangs; they were already in the public spotlight.  He's also been convicted of fraud, illegally entering the US (ironic given his ideology), assault, threats... basically, he's the sort who knowingly flouts the law and then feigns outrage when the government actually enforces the law.

It's also worth adding that he admitted to the contempt, and this is not disputed in his subsequent appeal.

[Thaldor]

Oh, Big Britannica on it again eh. Banning end-to-end encryption, building extremely expensive porn pass system, banning any porn that isn't in "the norms", now this and next "UK wants to create it's own internet".

 

I would love to see how North Britain decides what is misinformation and fake news. Of course there's clear examples like flat earth and lizard people, but then there are grey stuff like quite many parts of 9/11 that has some actually proof behind it (I don't even care who did it, but I would really much like to know how you vaporize steel) and then there is the very dark corner of "political correctness" aka. misinformation and fake news that are spread by the government to manipulate the population (I don't want to give any examples, but for the sake of argument some actual modern government propaganda example: Finnish YLE broadcasted a document about 420 when there was a huge public debate to legalize it and public opinion was "dangerously" turning into legalizing it, what makes this one document pure propaganda, it was a BBC document that anyone could search from the net and broadcasted version had 10 minutes cut out of it because "timetable" and by an "accident" those 10 minutes were the part of the document that discussed about the positive side of 420 use and it's use as medication and to add it the document was aired oddly at the prime time). First one is quite easy, but the rest... oh boy, is the Big Brother England up for a jolly good time, I just hope they don't spill their tea on the laps of the rest of the world.

[AntiTrust]

2 hours ago, sazrocks said:

You want encryption to have government backdoors!? Are you insane?

Please watch this: 

 

There's no need for hyperbole and name calling. This thread isn't about government backdoors, it is about the establishment of a Levy to expand the UK's regulatory body so they can hire more knowledgeable people. 

 

Quote

a levy on social media and tech giants to fund expanding a “major investment” in the UK’s data watchdog so the body is able to “attract and employ more technically-skilled engineers who not only can analyse current technologies, but have the capacity to predict future technologies” — with the tech company levy operating in “a similar vein to the way in which the banking sector pays for the upkeep of the Financial Conduct Authority”.

Which is, I'll say again, a great idea that is way overdue. 

[Guest]

I think what people forget, to play devils advocate, is that we are entering into a very interesting part os history. Nothing like the internet has been here before and it's evolving at quite a rapid pace. It wasn't too long ago where the worst thing to happen on the internet was a cat holding a cheezburger the wrong way. 

 

From a parliamentary perspective, the internet is a communication array, which, like phone lines, can be tampered with and hacked - as well as all the Russian allegations and hypocrisy etc. It would seem from a more outside perspective (the internet would seem to be rather alien to someone in their 50s or 60s), that something that has the potential to spread propaganda - which is increasing quite a lot, should be controlled more. 

 

Now with this levy it seems the UK would like to employ people with more experience to handle the propaganda and fake news - because it is a concerning issue if it supposedly meddles with elections, to discuss the matter and act more appropriately. In essence they are asking for advice because they simply don't know. 

[AnonymousGuy]

I read this as "we just want to raise taxes on you to "save the children" but we'll actually just spend 99 cents of every new dollar on unrelated stuff".

[Okjoek]

This might actually not be a bad idea.

 

The way I see it the Government's job is to administer and represent, the tech companies are only there to make a profit with little regard for ethics or the people they may hurt. Here in the US these companies pay for the laws to be written their way as to prevent anything from being able to evolve to compete with them as they shaft the population.

 

Or can we just never have nice things 'cause "muh 1984" ?

[mr moose]

I like it,  as someone who has experienced political life before the internet,  I can assure you the internet and fake news is taking a toll on society.  You know how many people won't go and see a doctor now because some facebook guru has convinced them they are all evil money hungry devices of "big pharma"? Or the number of kids who's parents shove bleach up their ass trying to cure autism? What about the fact people who think google "is" the internet are also being mislead regarding political matters? 

 

Absolutely something has to be done, if we don't get educated people into the government and educate people,  the next generation of voters will only be voting for politicians who believe in aromatherapy and who are happy to sell short medical science in favor of acupuncture courses.

[TimeOmnivore]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You know how many people won't go and see a doctor now because some facebook guru has convinced them they are all evil money hungry devices of "big pharma"? Or the number of kids who's parents shove bleach up their ass trying to cure autism? What about the fact people who think google "is" the internet are also being mislead regarding political matters?

That just sounds like an education problem, rather than a problem with the internet itself. We absolutely need more educated people in government to help curb those problems you mentioned, but levying websites/companies while simultaneously trying to regulate internet content based on vague "ethics" and trying to shoehorn in liability for user-generated content is not the way to go about it.

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, TimeOmnivore said:

That just sounds like an education problem, rather than a problem with the internet itself. We absolutely need more educated people in government to help curb those problems you mentioned, but levying websites/companies while simultaneously trying to regulate internet content based on vague "ethics" and trying to shoehorn in liability for user-generated content is not the way to go about it.

Perhaps you have a better idea?  Websites like facebook have caused these issues, it is only fair websites like facebook pay to fix the damage.   Not sure how much experience you have had with culture, society and governance, but all money spent by the government comes from the people (either directly in taxes or indirectly through levies that get added to user costs), if you want them to educate people to fix a problem caused by Facebook then you either pay for it with taxes or you tax facebook and make their users pay for it.    I know what I prefer,  levy the contenders who allow this to be a problem.

[Brooksie359]

36 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Perhaps you have a better idea?  Websites like facebook have caused these issues, it is only fair websites like facebook pay to fix the damage.   Not sure how much experience you have had with culture, society and governance, but all money spent by the government comes from the people (either directly in taxes or indirectly through levies that get added to user costs), if you want them to educate people to fix a problem caused by Facebook then you either pay for it with taxes or you tax facebook and make their users pay for it.    I know what I prefer,  levy the contenders who allow this to be a problem.

The only logical answer is to tax the people who believe in the game new until they learn. But on a serious note I think most people don't have as much of an issue with the taxing if the tech companies but rather the legal burden put on websites with user uploaded content. I mean what would happen if linustechtips got fined for every wccftech article posted on the forum? It would be a big issue. 

[Thaldor]

56 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I like it,  as someone who has experienced political life before the internet,  I can assure you the internet and fake news is taking a toll on society.  You know how many people won't go and see a doctor now because some facebook guru has convinced them they are all evil money hungry devices of "big pharma"? Or the number of kids who's parents shove bleach up their ass trying to cure autism? What about the fact people who think google "is" the internet are also being mislead regarding political matters? 

 

Absolutely something has to be done, if we don't get educated people into the government and educate people,  the next generation of voters will only be voting for politicians who believe in aromatherapy and who are happy to sell short medical science in favor of acupuncture courses.

As much as I wanted to agree with you and you point out a real problem with the internet as it is now and something must be done for that.

 

But making a vague law, that makes companies responsible for "misinformation" spread on their platform, or even flashing that card is a pandoras box. When you spread the spectrum of misinformation further than clear (for us) misinformation you end up with some really dark and deep problems which internet as it is fights against and actually makes things better. For example if this kind of "law" was in action globally, would we talk about Taiwan or Chinese Taipei? Would have we got information about the state of the Ukraine from the perspective of the EU and Ukraine or only from the perspective of the Russia? (I don't mean to talk about these, they are just examples)

 

Even in much smaller things there would be problems. Like if you think talking about 420 as legal medication is just a claptrap, we already have a problem because there's quite a much research that it really works and mainly the opposite argument is that "it's a illegal drug". With this kind of law that would be in the hands of the government how they want to see and under their decision how people will see it and how people will talk about it.

 

Yes, this would solve the problem of stupid people shoving bleach into their kids rears, but at the same time stupid people have done that way before the internet. Just look at something like scientology or any other religious sect, they have done fine without the internet and at the same time as they have started to use the internet to spread their word there is a lot of sites and people opposing it.

 

At the same time, would we have any global services left after this kind of law? Just because there's as many truths as there's participants in many things especially politic, there could not be Facebook, maybe Facebook England, Facebook Scotland, Facebook France, Facebook New York, Facebook [X-country/government area]. No one could do that and it would most likely kill the global internet worser than some link tax and all because if (imaginary) WoombaLoomba area with it's own  independent government wanted to get independence from Goombaland something like Facebook would get fined first by the Goombaland because there would be posts about WoombaLoomba wanting to get independent and then by WoombaLoomba because they would censor their messages about wanting to get independent or even worse there would be posts denying their independence.

 

So how about instead of turning global internet into a local area network, UK would put those moneys they would give to some educated people to make educated reports that those who pay them want them to give, to something like educating their people about "media literacy" (that is the single thing missing that causes so much trouble) and that not everything you read on the internet (or worse in the news) is true and to always be sceptic and make your own background check to build up your own opinion.

[Arika]

so who gets to define whether or not something is "fake news"? Because if the UK government has shown anything in these last few years is that there are massive double standards when it comes to controversial topics