Friday, April 12, 2019

Lawmaker Eyes Social Media Bills For Hate Speech, Data Portability


U.S. Senator Mark Warner, who co-sponsored legislation this week to ban deceptive practices by social media companies, said on Thursday he was eyeing additional bills aimed at limiting hate speech and allowing users to move their data across platforms.

According to Reuters, the Democratic lawmaker said he would offer more bills in the next month or two, ideally with Republican colleagues as a co-sponsor.

The additional legislation could focus on hate speech, data portability, which gives social media users the ability to easily take their data to another site, and transparency about who or what is on the other side of an internet conversation, Warner said in an interview with Reuters.

On Tuesday, Warner joined with Republican Senator Deb Fischer to introduce a bill to bar online platforms like Facebook Inc or Alphabet Inc’s Google from misleading people into giving personal data to companies, or otherwise tricking them.

It would also ban online platforms with more than 100 million monthly active users from designing addicting games or other websites for children under age 13.

Warner is eager to increase transparency on social media platforms.

“Shouldn’t we have the right to know whether we’re being contacted by a human being versus a bot when you’re on social media?” he said.

Issues of engagement and data collection are key for social media companies since they use information gathered about users to sell advertisements, a key source of profit.

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