Friday, November 24, 2017

Should Washington Begin Regulating Facebook? Some Lawmakers Say Yes.



WASHINGTON — For weeks, Facebook has been under intense scrutiny in Washington after revelations about Russian attempts to use the platform to influence the 2016 elections. Now, some lawmakers are talking about turning that scrutiny into action.

There are new calls on Capitol Hill for stronger federal regulation of Facebook, possibly requiring greater transparency and disclosures for digital political ads. But lawmakers have yet to take up more sweeping reforms that some internet policy experts and advocates believe are necessary to protect users of the social-media platform, given Facebook’s outsize influence and vast stores of personal data.

In early September, Facebook said it had traced $100,000 in politically motivated ads that ran during the 2016 presidential campaign to a Russian troll farm, reaching about 10 million people. Testifying before Congress a few weeks later, Facebook officials revealed that the total audience for Russian-backed content was many times larger, reaching an estimated 126 million Americans — a third of the U.S. population — during the 2016 campaign. 

Click here for the full article.

Source: NBC News 

No comments: