Zuckerberg Calls For Congress to Regulate Facebook

FEATURING RAMESH SRINIVASAN – In an op-ed on Saturday in the Washington Post, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called on Congress to regulate companies like his. He outlined four areas in which he thinks the Internet could benefit from regulation: “harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability.”

Zuckerberg’s call comes in the wake of several damaging stories centered on its practices. First, the horrific mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 50 people dead, was live-streamed by the perpetrator on Facebook and shared widely. Facebook is also among those social media companies that have allowed hateful content to proliferate online and has now said it will ban white supremacist and white nationalist content.

Second, the Department of Housing and Urban Development last week filed a surprise lawsuit against the company for engaging in housing discrimination by allowing advertisers to target specific demographics and thereby violate the Fair Housing Act.

Ramesh Srinivasan, Director of the Digital Cultures Lab and Professor of Information Studies and Design and Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles. Author of Whose Global Village? Rethinking How Technology Shapes Our World. His new book, co-authored with Adam Fish is called After the Internet.