Facebook Sets Up Commission to Study Role in Upcoming Elections

By Little India Desk | April 10, 2018

A day before Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg is set to appear before the U.S Congress over the company’s role in data mining controversy, the company on April 9 announced the launch of an independent research commission that will study the effects of social media on elections and democracy in countries such as India. The commission’s objective is to improve the social media company’s policies and its role in the electoral process, Entrackr reported.

The commission will focus on upcoming elections in India, Brazil, Mexico and the United States. The proposed commission will be funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, according to a Facebook blogpost.

“The goal is both to get the ideas of leading academics on how to address these issues as well as to hold us accountable for making sure we protect the integrity of these elections on Facebook,” Zuckerberg was quoted by Entrackr as saying.

The academics will have access to the company’s resources for evaluation of its role in elections, which includes how the platform is handling the risks involved in the process. The commission will share its work publicly, and the company will have no right to review or approve their research findings before its publication, the blogpost added.

India is due to elect a new government in 2019, and both, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress have been accused of having connections with the Indian affiliate of Cambridge Analytica, the UK-based company that is said to have used data of Facebook users to influence U.S. elections and Brexit. Both the Indian political parties have denied the connections and have been trading barbs with each other on the issue.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica responded to the show-cause notice sent to them by Indian Information Technology Ministry on April 5. Indian IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad met top officials of the ministry on April 9 to discuss their responses to take further action, the Mint reported citing a source.

“The government has taken serious note of the points made by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and will soon decide on the next line of action,” the report quoted the source as saying.

The British firm earlier claimed in its response to the Indian government that it did not hold data of Indian users obtained illegally from Facebook. Meanwhile, Facebook has said that personal information of 562,455 Indian users of Facebook may have been shared with Cambridge Analytica.

In a written testimony, which was released by a House of Representatives panel on April 9, Zuckerberg said: “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry.” He added: “I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

Calling Facebook an “idealistic and optimistic company,” Zuckerberg said, “We focused on all the good that connecting people can bring.”

Zuckerberg admitted that “it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy.

“We’re in the process of investigating every app that had access to a large amount of information before we locked down our platform in 2014. If we detect suspicious activity, we’ll do a full forensic audit. And if we find that someone is improperly using data, we’ll ban them and tell everyone affected.”

He was spotted at Capitol Hill on April 9 where he had a private meeting with a lawmaker, AFP reported.

Zuckerberg will testify before a House panel on April 11.