Platforms

Facebook now faces investigations into its business practices from a variety of federal agencies. Officials have opened inquiries into possible civil and criminal violations of laws related to privacy, corporate governance and discrimination. Facebook has largely denied wrongdoing in each of the investigations and said it was cooperating with regulators and law enforcement. Here are the agencies looking into Facebook, and some of the issues involved.

I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators. By updating the rules for the Internet, we can preserve what’s best about it — the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things — while also protecting society from broader harms. From what I’ve learned, I believe we need new regulation in four areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability.

As a general principle, internet service providers aren’t supposed to erect barriers between the users they serve and the websites those users want to visit. They tend to observe this rule even in places like Australia and New Zealand that don’t have net neutrality policies that prevent ISPs from blocking access to websites. An exception tends to be when those takedowns come at the behest of law enforcement, perhaps out of concern for public safety. But the telecoms companies in New Zealand and Australia didn’t decide to kick websites offline in collaboration with law enforcement.

A Q&A with Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer.

Before the Department of Housing and Urban Development on March 28 announced that it has charged Facebook with violating the Fair Housing Act by enabling advertisers to engage in housing discrimination, Facebook said that it would change its ad-targeting methods to forbid discriminatory advertisements about housing, employment and credit opportunities. This plan, announced the week of March 18, is part of its settlement agreement with the civil rights groups that filed suits against the company over the past few years. The substantive terms are not radical.

Advertisers will be required to provide verifiable public contact details before they can run political campaigns on Facebook, in the latest attempt by the social network to increase accountability for so-called dark adverts. The move is part of a raft of changes in the buildup to the European elections in May, when citizens from across the European Union will vote in new Members of the European Parliament. Facebook’s political advertising restrictions will launch in the EU27 on March 29, following partial rollouts in six countries including the UK, US and India.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development alerted Twitter and Google in 2018 that it is scrutinizing their practices for possible housing discrimination, a sign that more technology companies could be ensnared in a government probe of their lucrative demographic ad targeting tools. HUD on March 28 charged Facebook with housing discrimination, alleging its targeted advertising platform violates the Fair Housing Act by “encouraging, enabling, and causing” unlawful discrimination by restricting who can view housing ads.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it is charging Facebook with violating the Fair Housing Act by encouraging, enabling, and causing housing discrimination through the company’s advertising platform. The action follows HUD’s investigation of a Secretary-initiated complaint filed on Aug 13, 2018. HUD alleges that Facebook unlawfully discriminates based on race, color, national origin, religion, familial status, sex, and disability by restricting who can view housing-related ads on Facebook’s platforms and across the internet.

Lawmakers said that they continue to have questions after Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft briefed a House panel on their efforts to take down extremist content online. Members of the House Homeland Security Committee questioned representatives from some of Silicon Valley's largest companies in a closed-door briefing about how they deal with white supremacist and bigoted content online. "While I'm encouraged by their answers, we still have a long way to go," said Rep Val Demings (D-FL), who sits on the committee.

President Donald Trump revealed he had met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to discuss the company's work in China and allegations of anti-conservative bias. The president said on Twitter that the unscheduled meeting went "very well" following months of Republican attacks against Silicon Valley over how social media companies handle conservative speech. "Just met with @SundarPichai, President of @Google, who is obviously doing quite well. He stated strongly that he is totally committed to the U.S. Military, not the Chinese Military," President Trump wrote.