Social media manipulation putting UK democracy at risk: Report
The British public is being increasingly manipulated by a campaign of disinformation and fake news in social media, a growing crisis that threatens UK democracy, leaks from a parliamentary inquiry suggests.
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee of the British Parliament is set to announce on Sunday the result of its investigation into social media manipulation, which is believed to have influenced the public on major issues, including on the 2016 Brexit referendum.
However, leaks from the report published Friday by former Vote Leave campaign strategist Dominic Cummings on his blog showed that the committee is very concerned about the dangers posed by fake news in social media.
Members of Parliament (MPs) have warned in the report that it was time for the government to act on the issue which created a serious “democratic crisis” for Britain.
They said in the report that there was a “relentless targeting of hyper-partisan views, which play to the fears and prejudices of people, in order to influence their voting plans.”
“Our democracy is at risk and now is the time to act,” the MPs warned.
The inquiry concludes that British voters were being targeted with “pernicious views” in social media, saying it had received "disturbing evidence" - some of which it had not published - of hacking, disinformation and voter suppression in elections since 2010.
“We urge the government to ensure that the National Crime Agency thoroughly investigates these allegations,” said the report, which comes after months of investigating the negative impact of social media giants like Facebook.
The investigation was launched in September of last year when it was revealed that a lack of sufficient privacy safeguards in Facebook helped Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy group, to manipulate users’ data.
Leaks from the DCMS report said Facebook was still unwilling to cooperate with investigations that seek to prevent similar data breaches in the future.
“Facebook has hampered our efforts to get information about their company throughout this inquiry. It is as if it thinks that the problem will go away if it does not share information about the problem, and reacts only when it is pressed,” said the leaked copy, adding, “It provided witnesses who have been unwilling or unable to give full answers to the committee's questions.”
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