Facebook, Google, Twitter face grilling by U.K. lawmakers over online safety
Global News
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic want tougher rules aimed at protecting social media users, especially younger ones, but U.K.'s efforts are much further along.
British lawmakers grilled Facebook on Thursday over how it handles online safety as European countries move to rein in the power of social media companies, with the tech giant’s head of safety saying the company supports regulation and has no business interest in providing people with an “unsafe experience.”
Representatives from Google, Twitter and TikTok also will be questioned by members of a parliamentary committee scrutinizing the British government’s draft online safety legislation.
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic want tougher rules aimed at protecting social media users, especially younger ones, but the United Kingdom’s efforts are much further along. U.K. lawmakers are questioning researchers, journalists, tech executives and other experts for a report to the government on how to improve the final version of the online safety bill.
Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety, defended the company’s handling of internal research on how its Instagram photo-sharing platform can harm teens amid questioning from U.K. lawmakers.
“Where does the buck stop?” asked Damian Collins, the lawmaker who chairs the committee.
“It’s a company filled with experts, and we all are working together to make these decisions,” Davis said. She added that “we have no business interest, no business interest at all, in providing people with a negative or unsafe experience.”
Davis said Facebook is largely supportive of the U.K.’s safety legislation and is interested in regulation that gives publicly elected officials the ability to hold the company accountable.
Collins and other lawmakers pressed Facebook to provide its data to independent researchers who can look at how its products could be harmful. Facebook has said it has privacy concerns about how such data would be shared.
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