UK Parliament final report on disinformation and fake news

The UK House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee has published its final report on Disinformation and ‘fake news’.

The report calls for:

• Compulsory Code of Ethics for tech companies overseen by independent regulator
• Regulator given powers to launch legal action against companies breaching code
• Government to reform current electoral communications laws and rules on overseas involvement in UK elections
• Social media companies obliged to take down known sources of harmful content, including proven sources of disinformation

The report further finds that:

• Electoral law is ‘not fit for purpose’
• Facebook intentionally and knowingly violated both data privacy and anti-competition laws

Among other things, the report looks also at:

• Foreign Influence in Political Campaigns
• Facebook and Russian Disinformation
• Leave.EU, Arron Banks, US and Russia (election campaigns funding)

The report calls for the launch of a Government “independent investigation into past elections, including the UK 2017 general election, the UK 2016 referendum and the Scottish referendum of 2014, with regard to foreign influence, disinformation, funding, voter manipulation and the sharing of data to enable appropriate changes to the law to be made.”

 UK Parliament final report on disinformation and fake news