Damian Collins
A major populist but controversial piece of U.K. legislation to regulate internet content through a child safety-focused frame is on pause until the fall when the government expects to elect…
UK lawmakers push for Online Safety Bill to have a tighter focus on illegal content
A U.K. parliamentary committee that’s spent almost half a year scrutinizing the government’s populist yet controversial plan to regulate internet services by applying a child safety-focused framing to content moderation…
UK eyeing disclosure labels for online political campaigning
The U.K. government is considering changes to the law that would require online political campaign material to carry labels disclosing who is promoting and funding the messaging. The proposal, which…
The UK government has taken the next step in its grand policymaking challenge to tame the worst excesses of social media by regulating a broad range of online harms. As…
British parliament presses Facebook on letting politicians lie in ads
In yet another letter seeking to pry accountability from Facebook, the chair of a British parliamentary committee has pressed the company over its decision to adopt a policy on political…
Loot boxes in games are gambling and should be banned for kids, say UK MPs
UK MPs have called for the government to regulate the games industry’s use of loot boxes under current gambling legislation — urging a blanket ban on the sale of loot…
Facebook denies making contradictory claims on Cambridge Analytica and other ‘sketchy’ apps
Facebook has denied contradicting itself in evidence presented to the U.K. parliament and a U.S. public prosecutor. Last month the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee wrote…
Facebook accused of contradicting itself on claims about platform policy violations
Prepare your best * unsurprised face *: Facebook is being accused of contradicting itself in separate testimonies made on both sides of the Atlantic. The chair of a U.K. parliamentary…
Facebook makes another push to shape and define its own oversight
Facebook’s head of global spin and policy, former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, will give a speech later today providing more detail of the company’s plan to set up…
The UK government has laid out proposals to regulate online and social media platforms, setting out the substance of its long-awaited White Paper on online harms today — and kicking…
Facebook staff raised concerns about Cambridge Analytica in September 2015, per court filing
Further details have emerged about when and how much Facebook knew about data-scraping by the disgraced and now defunct Cambridge Analytica political data firm. Last year a major privacy scandal…
Facebook refuses to disclose ‘chuck Chequers’ Brexit advertiser to UK parliament
Facebook has refused to provide the British parliament with the names of individuals behind a shadowy network backing an extreme ‘no deal’ Brexit outcome over a government-negotiated compromise. Since the…
Seized cache of Facebook docs raise competition and consent questions
A UK parliamentary committee has published the cache of Facebook documents it dramatically seized last week. The documents were obtained by a legal discovery process by a startup that’s suing the…
‘The problem is Facebook,’ lawmakers from nine countries tell Zuckerberg’s accountability stand-in
A grand committee of international parliamentarians empty-chaired Mark Zuckerberg at a hearing earlier today, after the Facebook founder snubbed repeat invitations to face questions about malicious, abusive and improper uses of…
UK parliament seizes cache of internal Facebook documents to further privacy probe
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may yet regret underestimating a UK parliamentary committee that’s been investigating the democracy-denting impact of online disinformation for the best part of this year — and…
Zuckerberg rejects facetime call for answers from five parliaments
Facebook has declined once again to send its CEO to the UK parliament — this time turning down an invitation to face questions from a grand committee comprised of representatives…
Facebook has yet again declined an invitation for its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer international politicians’ questions about how disinformation spreads on his platform and undermines democratic processes.…
Two separate parliamentary committees, in the UK and Canada, have issued an unprecedented international joint summons for Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear before them. The committees are investigating the…
Fake news ‘threat to democracy’ report gets back-burner response from UK gov’t
The UK government has rejected a parliamentary committee’s call for a levy on social media firms to fund digital literacy lessons to combat the impact of disinformation online. The recommendation…
Call for social media adtech to be probed by UK competition watchdog
A British Conservative politician, who has called repeatedly for Mark Zuckerberg to come to parliament to answer questions about how Facebook fences fake news — only to be repeatedly rebuffed…
Zuckerberg must face public scrutiny over latest data breach, say UK MPs
UK members of parliament have once again called for Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to travel to the country to face questions about how his business operates. They’re renewing calls for…
Featured Article
Facebook is weaponizing security to erode privacy
At a Senate hearing this week in which US lawmakers quizzed tech giants on how they should go about drawing up comprehensive Federal consumer privacy protection legislation, Apple’s VP of software technology described privacy as a “core value” for the company. “We want your device to know everything about you but we don’t think we should,” Bud…
One more thing re: “privacy concerns” raised by the DCMS fake new report…
A meaty first report by the UK parliamentary committee that’s been running an inquiry into online disinformation since fall 2017, including scrutinizing how people’s personal information was harvested from social…
Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads
The UK parliament has provided another telling glimpse behind the curtain of Facebook’s unregulated ad platform by publishing data on scores of pro-Brexit adverts which it distributed to UK voters…
Cambridge Analytica’s Nix said it licensed ‘millions of data points’ from Acxiom, Experian, Infogroup to target US voters
The repeat grilling by the U.K. parliament’s DCMS committee today of Alexander Nix, the former CEO of the now ex company Cambridge Analytica — aka the controversial political and commercial ad…
Speaking in front of EU lawmakers today Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg namechecked the GDPR’s core principles of “control, transparency and accountability” — claiming his company will deliver on all that,…
Zuckerberg again snubs UK parliament over call to testify
Facebook has once again eschewed a direct request from the UK parliament for its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to testify to a committee investigating online disinformation — without rustling up so…
UK parliament’s call for Zuckerberg to testify goes next level
The UK parliament has issued an impressive ultimatum to Facebook in a last-ditch attempt to get Mark Zuckerberg to take its questions: Come and give evidence voluntarily or next time…
Facebook’s admission to the UK parliament this week that it had unearthed unquantified thousands of dark fake ads after investigating fakes bearing the face and name of well-known consumer advice…
Cambridge Analytica’s ex-CEO backs out of giving evidence to UK parliament
Alexander Nix, the former CEO of the political consultancy firm at the center of a storm about mishandled Facebook users data, has backed out of re-appearing in front of the…
