MPs accuse social media firms of Iran misinformation | Social media
Lawmakers accused “complacent” social media giants of spreading misinformation about the Iran war, allowing political fraud that could threaten elections and allowing artificial intelligence to be used to strip young girls naked.
In a tough parliamentary hearing that revealed deepening frustration among MPs at big tech firms, X, TikTok and Meta outlined measures they had taken to combat online harms, only to be told: “You seem to be doing too much and it’s not making a jot of difference.”
In an interview, Alistair Law, TikTok’s director of public policy for northern Europe, told the Commons science, innovation and technology committee that the video-sharing platform does not allow pornography, nudity or harassment, but Freddie van Mierlo MP said he had found “numerous examples this morning” of TikTok videos teaching how to use Elon Musk’s Grok artificial intelligence to strip young girls naked.
In another conversation, X’s director of global government affairs, Wifredo Fernández, claimed the platform was “politically agnostic” despite research that MP Emily Darlington was pushing right-wing content and Musk’s recent endorsement of the UK far-right political party Restore as “the only way to save Britain”.
Fernández said: “Mr. Musk posts individually and participates in the public conversation… As a platform, we do not have a political perspective.” Committee chair Dame Chi Onwurah replied: “I think many people might object to that.”
And in a third interview, MP George Freeman accused X of taking no action last September when a fake video was posted on Facebook and YouTube showing him switching from the Conservatives to Reform.
“I’m thick-skinned, but this was seriously devastating,” the former minister, who did not defect, told Fernández. “Have you taken any action?”
Fernández replied: “I would have to meet with the teams” and Freeman said: “The answer is no.”
“Frankly, I am concerned about the complacency of the platforms, which means they could be severely disrupted in the upcoming elections in May,” Freeman said.
The contentious two-hour hearing took place as tens of thousands of members of the public responded to a consultation to change the law on children’s access to social media; This law also takes into account a possible ban under a certain age, curfew and time limits.
Another idea floated by Freeman is to make it illegal to misuse a person’s identity so that every citizen can go to bed at night “without fear that you will make a deeply damaging, destructive and dangerous misrepresentation of yourself in the morning.”
Deputy Dr. Lauren Sullivan confronted Meta with the results of a recent experiment in which the National Education Association created accounts for 13-year-olds that were quickly filled with “violent and misogynistic self-harming, extremist content.”
“I saw it, it was terrifying,” he said. “We can’t show this today, but these are given to 13-year-olds.”
Rebecca Stimson, Meta’s UK public policy director, said: “We will be looking at this matter very closely and taking it very seriously.”
MP Martin Wrigley told tech executives: “You came this morning feeling really pleased… you started by saying everything was fine. We’ve had and demonstrated many different situations where things are not okay and things are not okay on your platforms.”
“Over the last few months we’ve seen misinformation about the Bondi Beach victim, we’ve seen political elections influenced by misinformation, we’ve seen fake photos of US aircraft carriers being burned as part of Iranian misinformation,” committee chairman Onwurah told tech executives. [and] Fake evidence of a missile attack on a school in Iran.”
Onwurah concluded: “The real truth is that all the work you say you’re doing to address online harms and secure your platforms in this country is not working. …I think that’s the consensus of most of the British public.”
He told them to make progress within months on making their products safe for the British public, otherwise “we need more legislation to make it safe, because the first duty of any government is to protect its citizens”.
