U.K. Lawmakers Go to Washington Seeking More Tech Regulation

(Bloomberg) -- U.K. lawmakers traveled to Washington for an unusual hearing to press executives from Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Twitter Inc. to do more to keep junk news and misinformation from spreading online.

The House of Commons select committee usually receives evidence in the U.K. parliament, but the hearing, held on Thursday at George Washington University, is a sign of the global pressure social media companies are facing to get more control of their free-wheeling platforms.

The lawmakers suggested the problems stem from lack of regulation and advertising-dependent business models that reward click-bait and inflammatory material.

"Perhaps it’s time for regulation," said Rebecca Pow, a member of the parliamentary panel.

The companies sent lower-level executives to repeat pledges made over the past year in wake of the U.S. presidential election to do more to promote higher-quality content, including hiring more moderators, removing fake accounts, adjusting algorithms to diminish the rank of certain websites, and funding fact-checking organizations. The companies said they have adopted many self-policing policies to improve the quality of material spread across its platforms.

Google, Facebook

"We feel an extraordinary sense of responsibility," Richard Gingras, Google’s vice president of news, said at the hearing. "The loyalty of our users is based on their continued trust."

Yet the companies have also said there’s only so much they can do without censoring the open nature of their services that allow people to post and share material with little restriction.

That’s been an unsatisfactory answer for many policymakers looking for a more aggressive response. Damian Collins, the chairman of the panel, pressed Google and Facebook to apply the same technological and financial muscle to stamping out misinformation and extremism as has been committed to building up advertising tools that drive their billions of dollars in sales. "We all think that you could do much, much better," said Collins, whose committee is also probing whether Russian-backed groups used social media to influence the U.K. vote to leave the European Union in 2016.

In one particularly tense exchange, Facebook executives were pressed about not preventing illegal purchases of campaign ads in the U.K. by individuals or groups who live outside the country. Simon Milner, a policy director for the company, said it wasn’t Facebook’s responsibility to regulate those campaign purchases. "You are not complying with the law," Ian Lucas, a member of parliament, angrily responded. Collins then compared Milner’s defense to a bank claiming ignorance when facilitating a money laundering scheme.

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After the social media platforms testified, Collins told reporters that the committee will consider in its report "what sort of liability should they have for failing to act when bad content is brought clearly to their attention."

He also surmised the three companies would invest more in ending "a big problem out there" if they faced fines or lawsuits.

Twitter, Elections

Nick Pickles, head of public policy at Twitter U.K., said that the platform identified 49 accounts promoted by a pro-Kremlin Russia group that were active during the Brexit campaign. These accounts posted 942 tweets, and 461 were retweeted. Pickles couldn’t say what the full reach of these tweets was.

Asked by the panel about what Twitter is doing to ensure people’s identity is accurate, Carlos Monje, director of public policy at Twitter, said protecting anonymity and pseudonymity was important to many users. “There are freedom fighters in the Middle East promoting counter narratives to radicalisation and they need that protection,” he said.

Because spreading misinformation doesn’t automatically result in banning, the panel questioned whether the company allows anonymous users to propagate lies without consequence.

"I don’t think technology companies should be deciding during elections what is true and what is not true, which is what you’re asking us to do," Pickles said angrily.

Committee member Giles Watling suggested removing misinformation was wholly in Twitter’s interest. "Otherwise you will lose confidence and you will lose trust and ultimately you will lose business," he said.

Pickles replied that foreign despots want Twitter to silence the opposition. "There is a delicate line to tread," he said.

Conspiracy Theories

A representative from YouTube was quizzed about recent news stories in the Guardian and Wall Street Journal that showed the video site’s algorithms were recommending conspiracy theories and other false information. "We still have work to do and there is progress to be made," said Juniper Downs, global head of public policy at YouTube.

The U.K. panel came to Washington in search of more information about efforts by the companies to stamp out false content online. After demands for evidence and hearings in the U.K., the committee has already accused Twitter of leaving many of its questions unanswered. Meanwhile, a study released earlier this week by University of Oxford researchers also found that right-wing groups have widely shared false stories on Facebook.

The panel has also been investigating whether Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum. YouTube said it hadn’t found any links, and Facebook said it would present the results of an expanded internal Brexit investigation by the end of the month. Facebook said a challenge has been the British government hasn’t provided information about suspicious activity that would help the social-media company focus its own inquiry.

In addition to the hearing in Washington, the U.K. lawmakers also traveled to New York for additional meetings with technology and media companies.

To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Satariano in London at asatariano1@bloomberg.net, Ben Brody in Washington at btenerellabr@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Nate Lanxon

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