Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg urged governments to actively regulate the internet as he insisted that more countries need to adopt versions of the European rules that are aimed at safeguarding user privacy.
Since then, internet tech giants including Facebook resisted government interventions in their platforms. Facebook now reversed its decision after the call for regulation increased. The CEO said in an op-ed published in The Washington Post that he believes they need a more active role for governments and regulators. He also added that by updating the rules for the internet, we can preserve what's best about it which is the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things while also protecting society from broader harms.
The CEO pointed out the internet needs new regulations in four areas including harmful content, protection of elections, privacy, and data portability.
The company is currently being criticized on all four areas after the rampant hate speech on its platform, the live streaming of the New Zealand mosques attack, foreign efforts to meddle in elections, and concerns over the company's collection of personal user data.
Zuckerberg said that that the platform is willing to support more countries adopting the rules in the European Union's sweeping General Data Protection Regulation that gives regulators the right to sanction organizations which fail to follow the heightened standards of security when dealing with personal data.
Zuckerberg message calls for regulation to guarantee data portability between services as he said that he believes it would be good for the internet if more countries adopted regulation such as GDPR as a common framework.
To answer the issues regarding harmful contents on its platform, Zuckerberg said that he will agree with the lawmakers who have argued that "we have too much power over speech" and there is a need for "third-party bodies" to set standards on the distribution of harmful material and "measure companies against those standards".
Zuckerberg answered concerns on political intervention by noting that there are existing laws that are focused on candidates and elections instead of "divisive political issues where we've seen more attempted interference," urging legislation to be updated to "reflect the reality of the threats."
He also wrote that the rules governing the internet allowed a generation of entrepreneurs to build services that changed the world and created a lot of value in people's lives. He added that it's time to update these rules to define clear responsibilities for people, companies, and governments going forward.
