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In November 2017, the Prime Minister accused Russia of meddling in elections and planting ‘fake news’ in an attempt to ‘weaponise information’ and sow discord in the West. It is clear from comments made by the then Secretary of State in evidence to us that he shares her concerns.
- Committee Information
Disinformation and 'fake news': Interim Report: Government...
- Disinformation and ‘Fake News
Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report Contents....
- Committee Information
- Introduction
- Recommendation 1
- Recommendation 3
- Recommendation 4
- Recommendation 5
- Recommendation 6
- Recommendation 7
- Recommendation 8
- Recommendation 9
- Recommendation 14
The Government is grateful for the Committee’s comprehensive inquiry into ‘fake news’ and disinformation. We agree with the Committee that disinformation threatens the intrinsic values and principles of the UK, and it is right that Government addresses this issue as a matter of priority. This detailed and considered inquiry has made a valuable cont...
We repeat the recommendation from our Interim Report that a new category of tech company is formulated, which tightens tech companies’ liabilities, and which is not necessarily either a ‘platform’ or a ‘publisher’. This approach would see the tech companies assume legal liability for content identified as harmful after it has been posted by users. ...
Our Interim Report recommended that clear legal liabilities should be established for tech companies to act against harmful or illegal content on their sites. There is now an urgent need to establish independent regulation. We believe that a compulsory Code of Ethics should be established, overseen by an independent regulator, setting out what cons...
As we said in our Interim Report, such a Code of Ethics should be similar to the Broadcasting Code issued by Ofcom - which is based on the guidelines established in section 319 of the 2003 Communications Act. The Code of Ethics should be developed by technical experts and overseen by the independent regulator, in order to set down in writing what i...
The process should establish clear, legal liability for tech companies to act against agreed harmful and illegal content on their platform and such companies should have relevant systems in place to highlight and remove ‘types of harm’ and to ensure that cyber security structures are in place. If tech companies (including technical engineers involv...
This same public body should have statutory powers to obtain any information from social media companies that are relevant to its inquiries. This could include the capability to check what data is being held on an individual user, if a user requests such information. This body should also have access to tech companies’ security mechanisms and algor...
We support the Recommendation from the ICO that inferred data should be as protected under the law as personal information. Protections of privacy law should be extended beyond personal information to include models used to make inferences about an individual. We recommend that the Government studies the way in which the protection of privacy law c...
In our Interim Report, we recommended a levy should be placed on tech companies operating in the UK to support the enhanced work of the ICO. We reiterate this Recommendation. The Chancellor’s decision, in his 2018 Budget, to impose a new 2% digital services tax on UK revenues of big technology companies from April 2020, shows that the Government is...
The new independent system and regulation that we recommend should be established must be adequately funded. We recommend that a levy is placed on tech companies operating in the UK to fund its work. (Paragraph 52)
In our Interim Report, we stated that the dominance of a handful of powerful tech companies has resulted in their behaving as if they were monopolies in their specific area, and that there are considerations around the data on which those services are based. Facebook, in particular, is unwilling to be accountable to regulators around the world. The...
We have even changed the title of our inquiry from “fake news” to “disinformation and ‘fake news’”, as the term ‘fake news’ has developed its own, loaded meaning. As we said in our Interim Report, ‘fake news’ has been used to describe content that a reader might dislike or disagree with.
Feb 18, 2019 · Summary. 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.
Sep 14, 2020 · We find that citizens can be persuaded by the authorities’ labeling of a piece of news as fake and decrease their belief in the news, which suggests why governments like to use the label of fake news.
- Chengli Wang, Haifeng Huang
- 2021
Jul 27, 2022 · Online ‘fake news’ is an existential threat to democracy - not because most people believe bogus content, but because of the corrosive effect it has on trust among citizens and their faith in democratic institutions representing them, according to a new study.
Jun 2, 2022 · Watchdog websites used the fake news label before the 2016 presidential election to identify misinformation, meaning false information, in news stories and other places across the internet. 2 Their research uncovered the fake news subset of disinformation, meaning falsehoods deliberately disseminated to serve the purposes of the distributors ...
