Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has published an op-ed calling for worldwide regulation of social media services in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack.
The changes should apply to all websites, he wrote in the piece published by the Washington Post at 11am NZT, including his own.
He wrote that companies and websites shouldn't be asked to prevent harmful speech, election meddling and cyberattacks themselves, instead saying some of that must be done by government.
"I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators," Mr Zuckerberg wrote.
"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."
Mr Zuckerberg's op-ed comes after Facebook second-in-charge Sheryl Sandberg yesterday outlined the steps Facebook and subsidiary Instagram are already taking to crack down on harmful content such as hate speech.
Both companies have come under considerable public and political pressure to do something after the issue was highlighted by the Christchurch gunman live streaming his attack at the Al Noor Mosque live on Facebook.
"From what I’ve learned, I believe we need new regulation in four areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability," Mr Zuckerberg wrote.
"Lawmakers often tell me we have too much power over speech, and frankly I agree. I’ve come to believe that we shouldn’t make so many important decisions about speech on our own. So we’re creating an independent body so people can appeal our decisions. We’re also working with governments, including French officials, on ensuring the effectiveness of content review systems.
"Facebook gives everyone a way to use their voice, and that creates real benefits — from sharing experiences to growing movements. As part of this, we have a responsibility to keep people safe on our services. That means deciding what counts as terrorist propaganda, hate speech and more. We continually review our policies with experts, but at our scale we’ll always make mistakes and decisions that people disagree with.
"Internet companies should be accountable for enforcing standards on harmful content. It’s impossible to remove all harmful content from the Internet, but when people use dozens of different sharing services — all with their own policies and processes — we need a more standardized approach."
Mr Zuckerberg said third-party bodies could be established to set standards governing the distribution of harmful content, and measure companies against those standards.
He also called for "every major Internet service" to published frequent reports about how effective they are at removing harmful content.
Another area which needs clear, worldwide rules, he said, is in the area of political interference.
"Political advertising laws primarily focus on candidates and elections, rather than divisive political issues where we’ve seen more attempted interference. Some laws only apply during elections, although information campaigns are nonstop. And there are also important questions about how political campaigns use data and targeting. We believe legislation should be updated to reflect the reality of the threats and set standards for the whole industry," Mr Zuckerberg wrote.
He also addressed privacy, and in particular what companies are allowed to do with data, calling for a more open and transparent approach towards privacy regulations, in line with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, which was introduced last year.
"I also believe a common global framework — rather than regulation that varies significantly by country and state — will ensure that the Internet does not get fractured, entrepreneurs can build products that serve everyone, and everyone gets the same protections," he wrote.
"I believe Facebook has a responsibility to help address these issues, and I’m looking forward to discussing them with lawmakers around the world. We’ve built advanced systems for finding harmful content, stopping election interference and making ads more transparent. But people shouldn’t have to rely on individual companies addressing these issues by themselves. We should have a broader debate about what we want as a society and how regulation can help."
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