Facebook is in crisis mode, but the company can take major steps to fix itself – and the global community it says it wants to promote. Facebook founder, CEO and majority shareholder Mark Zuckerberg need not wait for governments to impose regulations. If he and other industry leaders wanted to, they could make meaningful changes fairly quickly. Read the rest of this entry »
As policy makers in the UK and elsewhere consider how to tackle the spread of misinformation and the problems it causes, the LSE Truth, Trust and Technology Commission published its report last week, ‘Tackling the Information Crisis: A Policy Framework for Media System Resilience.’ Professor Sonia Livingstone, Chair of the Commission, explains here some of the problems the report seeks to address. Read the rest of this entry »
What kind of information society do you want? How should we reduce the amount of misinformation? How can we protect democracy from digital damage? How can we help people make the most of the extraordinary opportunities of the Internet while avoiding the harm it can cause? Read the rest of this entry »
Every second, on average, 6,000 tweets are published on Twitter – that’s 500 million tweets per day. Of these millions of tweeters, how many are considering defamation law when they retweet? Probably not many. And yet, one click of a button could land you into legal trouble. Read the rest of this entry »
The prime minister is on a mission to defend her Brexit deal. After a three-hour grilling from MPs on November 15, Theresa May came out fighting in a press conference, dismissing the idea that she would be ousted as Conservative Party leader. The next morning, she took callers’ questions about the draft Withdrawal Agreement on LBC radio. Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook and quality journalism are uneasy companions. Recent headlines suggest the platform’s “lies” about video metrics “smashed” journalism and the platform “crashed and burned” news companies’ referral traffic after it changed its algorithm in January. Read the rest of this entry »
Should social media platforms be subject to a statutory duty of care, akin to occupiers’ liability or health and safety, with the aim of protecting against online harms? In a series of blogposts and evidence to the House of Lords Communications Committee William Perrin and Professor Lorna Woods suggest that the answer should be yes. Read the rest of this entry »
