Tech Giants Need To Take Their Societal Responsibilities More Seriously

(Courtesy : nasafcu.com )

Over the decade social media platforms have grown phenomenally, in early years there were comparisons of user base of Facebook, for example, with the population of the US and then with India's and China's but now that the number has reached 2 billion and growing that particular metric has been discarded. It is no longer about the numbers alone now but the volume of information being disseminated on them which is pretty much eclipsing traditional media and becoming the dominant space for all kind of discourses globally and especially political discourses.With such monopoly over information dissemination and ability to impact societies and polities significantly it is but natural that governments and the political system would turn their attention towards them and some of them seem to be happening lately. 

When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg testified in the US Congressional hearing over interference in 2016 US election it was found that the US lawmakers were largely clueless about technology they were discussing and Zuckerberg emerged largely unscathed. However, things seems to have changed, last week's testimony of Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey was somewhat different with both (Jack Dorsey more so) opening up to the challenges they face and partly conceding that there have been lapses on their part to ensure bad actors did not take advantage of their platforms. However, this has not come in isolation, there have been some other interesting developments lately. 

Last month, in what is a first of its kind Facebook deleted dozens of governmental accounts, in this case the accounts belonged to Myanmar's military and political leaders including its commander-in-chief who have all been accused of genocide in a UN report which was followed by condemnation of the Myanmar government by various other world leaders. Earlier this year, Facebook deleted accounts to comply with Germany's new anti-online hate speech law, NetzDG, which imposes fines on the platforms that hate speech is being propagated on. Then there is the case of Alex Jones and his InfoWars being banned from nearly all platforms, including Twitter which seemed quite reluctant to follow the other tech giants until the pressure from users seemed to become insurmountable. But why should someone like me even be talking about Alex Jones ? He may be the biggest American conspiracy theorists and peddler of fake news but his actions have relatively little impact outside the USA. 

The answer is, all tech giants are American companies, and react mostly when content being shared on their services and networks seem to have adverse impact on American society or their close allies. After all, serious introspection on how information was being weaponized on their networks was taken seriously only after the allegations of Russian interference in 2016 elections began surfacing. In the meantime, hate speech and even calls for genocide on online platforms were being carried in other countries without any action being taken against them. As a matter of fact ,the same UN report on Myanmar, after which Facebook deleted the official accounts also says that given its dominance in information dissemination in the South-East Asian country, Facebook did little to prevent hate speech being propagated on its network. 

With US political establishment breathing down their neck (their President may be singing a different tune), these companies may be better able to check fake news and hate speech in the US user segment but can they and are they willing to be as proactive in rest of the world. Ironically, while Americans may still be watching cable news channels and visiting pay walled news sites, for a disproportionately largely number of population equipped with cheap smartphones, in poor and developing countries, social media remains the dominant source of information. And it is in these segments that bad actors can and are gaming the system to do substantial damage to social cohesion by propagating fake news and hate speech. Does that mean there should be laws to  govern these companies ?  Of course, being American private companies Facebook,Twitter, Google are subject to the US laws which I am given to believe may be able to look at the business aspect of it but not really the content part. Then comes the tricky part, can these companies be subjected to remove content by legislations in other countries as seen in the case of Germany's NetzDG ?

Compared to US and Europe Facebook adoption is growing at a rapid pace in Asia-Pacific region (Source: https://dazeinfo.com/2018/08/20/facebook-users-by-region-dgraph/ )

 It is undoubtedly a slippery slope. There are far too many autocracies (even if they claim to be otherwise) in the world than liberal democracies and even these are now becoming endangered. If such regimes are allowed to have a say in the regulation of content on social networks, it could very well mean stifling any voice of dissent against the ruling regimes. Further, it is not always dissenters or fringe groups that advocate hate online. The fact that Facebook deleted Myanmar government's official account for propagating hate speech and incitement to violence against a section of the population clearly indicates that ruling regimes can misuse the platform for nefarious ends. It is high time that these social networks to get more proactive in enforcing their own community standards and rules. They should remember that they might ban Alex Jones an American individual but every segment world wide has their own Alex Jones, who go unpunished because the platforms either lack the will or ability to detect them. It is imperative that the tech giants come up with more robust and intelligent means of countering bad actors using platforms to spread fake information, creating hatred and irreparably damaging social cohesion.