Mark Zuckerberg faces 2 years in prison, the whole Silicon Valley must ‘shudder’

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s insistence on strengthening the Online Safety Bill through criminal sanctions puts the leaders of Big Tech at risk.

What the UK government is about to do here is said to be able to make Silicon Valley “shudder”, or at least, make social network executives think twice before setting foot in the UK.

According to Bloomberg, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seems steadfast in bolstering the Online Safety Bill through criminal sanctions against a range of social media bosses. The bill was introduced to protect users under the age of 18 from harmful content, and thus, pushed Mark Zuckerberg to face two years in prison. The reason is because the social networking platform Instagram has shown signs of directing British children to content promoting suicide.

Earlier, Ms. Nadine Dorries, UK Secretary of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport warned CEO Mark Zuckerberg, that this leader could face jail time if Meta does not comply with online safety laws. new.

The list of offenses added to the bill includes pornography, fraud, trafficking in illegal drugs or weapons, encouraging or facilitating suicide, etc. Under the Online Safety Bill, any Any material containing the aforementioned violations will be removed from social media platforms. Owners of these platforms must also promptly prevent users from viewing such content.

It sounds harsh, but politicians are eager to tighten the rules. Amendments are likely to be made when the bill is presented to the House of Representatives this spring. If nothing unusual, the Online Safety Bill will be passed before November 2023, when the National Assembly session ends. According to Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, this is considered one of the forms of tyranny, while others question British retaliation in Silicon Valley.

Previously, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen shared an internal document with the press to publicly accuse Facebook of having a negative impact on the mental health of some teenagers. “32% of teenage girls say that when they feel disgusted with their bodies, Instagram makes this feeling worse.”

According to CNBC, Ms. Haugen believes that Facebook always puts its profits above the health and safety of its users. This is largely due to the design of the algorithm that directs them to highly interactive but extremely malicious posts.

“I spoke out because I realized a terrifying truth. Hardly anyone outside of Facebook knows what’s going on inside the company. Management captures important information from the public, shareholders and governments around the world,” said Ms. Haugen.

In addition, this former Facebook project director also accused CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his company of deliberately promoting products that are harmful to children and young people in order to make non-stop profits.

“It’s time to strengthen privacy protections, stop ads that target children, and demand that tech companies stop illegally collecting data from them,” said US President Joe Biden. speak.

Angered that tech companies don’t seem to keep their word about harming young users’ mental health, British child protection groups, including the NSPCC, have pushed the government to tighten rules on gender social network management.

According to Stephen Bainbridge, a law professor at UCLA, it is extremely unfair to punish an entire company for the bad actions of one leader today. Shareholders can lose money, and employees lose their jobs. Therefore, individual sanctions against leaders will bring many effects.

“Mark Zuckerberg will not take user privacy seriously unless the consequences are serious. A fine from the FTC won’t work, so under the bill, he would go to jail,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, a privacy and data protection advocate.

According to experts, Meta will likely do anything to prevent that scenario from happening, but the threat itself will almost certainly spur companies to cooperate with its new online regulator. Older brother. This is considered a big positive change.

Previously, in 2019, a privacy bill was also proposed. Accordingly, technology executives will be criminally responsible for disclosing users’ personal information. CEO Mark Zuckerberg could face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, under the terms of that privacy law.

It is known that social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and others have previously faced harsh criticism from some lawmakers, who say they can be addictive, promote advertising. disseminating harmful information, and potentially tolerating harassment. TikTok has also been subject to a general investigation in the US because federal attorneys general suspected the platform’s potential risks to the health of children and young people.

“Children and young people already struggle with social pressures and depression, so we cannot let social media further damage their physical and mental health,” she said. Healey said. “State Attorney Generals have a duty to protect children and understand how companies like TikTok are impacting their day-to-day lives.”

For its part, TikTok said it has categorized content as appropriate, noting that some features like direct messaging are not available to children.

“We care deeply about building experiences that help protect and support community well-being. The company appreciates that the Attorney Generals uphold the safety of young users. We’re always looking forward to being able to provide more information about the platform’s youth privacy practices,” a TikTok representative said.

By: Bloomberg, CNBC