Zuckerberg’s Influence on U.S. Potential Tech Regulations
Regulations of privacy data may be a booming area for European Antitrust regulators, but the US is still to tighten control of the way that tech giants use and sell customers’ personal information.
Over the course of last week, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, met with law makers in Washington to discuss upcoming regulations in the Tech Industry. These meeting focused on the way that the platforms under Zuckerberg’s control would collect the data of its users.
Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; Mike Lee, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Josh Hawley, an outspoken conservative critic of Big Tech were on the list of people that Zuckerberg led his private meetings with.
One of the main topics discussed was the proposition of a national US law reigning over the ability of companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, and Amazon to make money over the data of its users. This includes selling users’ personal data for advertising, e-commerce or political purposes.
Following a number of accusations of abuse of power with the intention of monopolising the market, Facebook CEO has admitted that legal regulations should be established in order to protect consumers’ data, avoid harmful content and ensure justice in data portability and election. The Big Hack, a documentary centered around the scandal of the US presidential election managed to not only paint a gruesome picture of Facebook as a company which abuses personal data, but also stirred a social movement of fear and unrest throughout society. As a result of this, Zuckerberg commented that the internet “needs new rules”.
Antitrust regulators in Washington have suggested implementation of bi-laws throughout big tech companies which inform users about what data is being used and how much it is worth. There have been rumours circulating around that the EU may force companies to financially compensate users if their data has been used for advertising purposes.
Furthermore, regulators will expect companies to provide proof stating that they are not using political bias to filter content. In the case of failure to secure a bias-free audit from the government, the tech company would be risking its long-term immunity against legal action.
Ellie Nikolova