Making social media companies responsible for their users is an extremely bad idea

If we make Facebook responsible for everyone’s posts it will quickly begin to censor us all For Britain to succeed outside the EU, MPs in Westminster will have to be better at resisting the urge to regulate than bureaucrats in Brussels have been. With great power comes great responsibility, and there are dangerous signs that the government may simply use its newfound freedoms to increase the burden on business in Britain. Lord Bew, who chairs the government’s ethics watchdog, has proposed one such restriction. In a report on the abuse faced by candidates for Parliament, Lord Bew proposes that social media giants ought to be liable for what their users post. As it stands, the EU’s E-Commerce directive forbids member states from doing this. Few people have heard of it, but it is probably the most significant law passed in Europe in the last twenty years. It means that websites that act as platforms can innovate and attract new users without great cost or the fear of prosecution. Lord Bew, who claims to be “allergic to legislation”, proposed the radical change because he was frustrated by the inaction of the web giants. It seems absurd that social media firms with… Read full this story

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