Facebook Accused Of Violating User's Private Data And Antitrust Laws

Facebook found guilty of violating private data and antitrust laws

Facebook was recently accused of purposely and deliberately breaching data protection and antitrust laws in a condemning report by the British administration last Sunday.

According to this report, an independent regulator should overwatch Facebook and similar companies with a strict code of ethics. This regulator also needs to have rights to act legally against these companies' violating actions.

In the midst of worries about fake news, electoral intervention, and hate speech, the UK, similar to many other countries in the world, is trying to establish a regulator to control Facebook. Prior this month, German antitrust regulatory agency requested Facebook to no longer combine information from the Facebook data of its German users with data it gathers about them from different websites unless they agree. Meanwhile, U.S. Congress is asked to consider enactment following the EU in an attempt to secure the protection of citizens' web information.

The said report releases because of an investigation directed a year ago by the DCMS Committee on misinformation and deceiving news. The committee starts investigating carefully on the role of Facebook during the Analytica scandal in March 2018.

During this inquiry, they analyzed the methods Facebook may have used to cause electoral interventions, including conceivable Russia's intervention, acts of violating user's private data to serve ad targeting.

According to the report, their election laws are no longer suitable in the age of digital and social media, posing risks to democracy and they need to be tackled by regulations. The report also calls for tightening technology companies' legal responsibility as per a previous recommendation. These companies also need to have liabilities for harmful content posted by users.

The report also brings out Facebook's violation acts against antitrust laws as it restricts smaller firms from accessing certain sources of data thus killing these firms.

Damian Collins, DCMS' chairman stated that tech giants like Facebook practice enormous market influence, which empowers them to earn by harassing the weaker tech companies and independent developers who work on their platform for finding customers. He blamed the core value of these companies "move fast and break things" for the negative behaviors of prioritizing apologize over permission.

Facebook denied all of these accuses about breaching antitrust laws and violating private data and stated it had discovered no proof of composed electoral intervention involving Facebook amid the referendum of Brexit.

Karim Palant, manager of public policy at Facebook UK, indicated changes that his company has made in the last one year, including new standards about how it approves of political promotions and the increase in the size of the group attempting to distinguish and shield clients from harmful content. He said that Facebook and its tools are the most transparent channel for political promotions and that they are no longer the company they were 1 year ago.

Zuckerberg has a contemptuous attitude toward the UK Parliament

On numerous events all through 2018, the DCMS committee, especially its chairman Damian Collins, has required Mark Zuckerberg to present himself and disclose evidence either via video link or in person. Be that as it may, Zuckerberg's representatives turned down these requests, including one from the International Grand Committee made up of delegates from 9 nations over the world to investigate fake news and misinformation.

Other Facebook officials, including CTO Mike Schroepfer and Richard Allan who is a member of Parliament's House of Peers and also is Facebook's Europe Public Policy vice president, showed up in Zuckerberg's place instead of him.

Karim Palant stated that Facebook, including many key people, had given evidence to support the investigation and answered no fewer than 700 questions as a "significant contribution" in the course of over 18 months.

Be that as it may, the UK politicians who were in charge of scrutinizing the Facebook administrators had an alternate perspective on the Facebook officials' attitudes as contributors for the investigation. Amid the inquiry, they showed great disappointment to Facebook's failure to give complete and transparent answers.

According to Collins, Facebook frequently tried to baffle its investigation by providing incomplete or fragmented answers to their questions. The report also notes that Facebook's officials appeared to give evidence tried to avoid giving full information about some serious issues.

UK protesters showing anger toward Zuckerberg and Facebook's acts

Zuckerberg's acts of ducking answering the request to show up at the parliament is considered contemptuous among the UK politicians. Collins was one of the most enthusiastic people to call for Zuckerberg's answers and he showed great disappointment to the biggest social network's CEO by pointing out that ducking answering at the Parliament and sending different representatives are irresponsible.

Though the investigation is ended, Collins still expresses the desire to meet and question Facebook's CEO in person and in case he appears in the UK, there are chances that he will be compelled to appear at the Parliament by formal summons.

Facebook didn't react explicitly to questions about Zuckerberg's non-participation at evidence sessions.