Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants regulation of Big Tech, he wrote in an op-ed on February 16, saying that he doesn't want private companies alone to make decisions on fundamental democratic values. He said that companies like Facebook make trade-offs on "important social values" such as between free expression and safety, privacy and law enforcement, and between creating open systems and locking down data. Zuckerberg has previously called for regulation that focuses on harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability. He also said that that Facebook is looking at allowing external audit of its content moderation systems. Following Zuckerberg's op-ed, Facebook, released a White Paper on online content regulation. What's significant about the op-ed and the White Paper is that both of them suggest measures that Facebook has already taken, and the white paper justifies steps taken by Facebook in the past, most notably its Oversight Board. Five considerations for content regulation The White Paper suggests that any regulation should consider the following aspects: Incentives for companies, Global nature of the internet and online communication, Freedom of expression, Constraints and affordances of the different technologies at play, and Proportionality and necessity. Why rules for offline speech will not work for online speech One interesting aspect of the paper is that it tries to distinguish online speech from offline speech, and argues that the rules (and hence laws) for offline speech will not work for online speech because: Legal environments and speech norms vary which make implementation of country-specific policies…
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