PALO ALTO, Calif. – Former President Barack Obama on Thursday called for greater regulatory oversight of the country’s social media giants, saying their power to manage the information people consume has “turbocharged” political polarization and threatened the pillars of democracy around the world.
Weighing in the debate on how to deal with the spread of misinformation, he said companies must subject their patented algorithms to the same kind of regulatory oversight that ensures the safety of cars, food and other consumer products.
“Technology companies need to be more transparent about how they work,” Obama said in a speech at Stanford University, which has long been an incubator for the Silicon Valley technology sector. “So much of the talk of disinformation is focused on what people are posting. The bigger problem is what content these platforms promote. “
The former president backed proposals to revise a key legal shield for Internet companies: section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects social media platforms from liability for content posted by their users. Proponents of the change believe it will force companies to do more to curb illegal or dangerous behavior, from drug sales to misinformation with equally damaging consequences.
Mr Obama, while praising the transformative benefits of the internet, called on companies to place social responsibility before the relentless pursuit of profit.
“These companies need to have another North Star, other than just making money and increasing their share of profits,” he said.
Mr Obama was speaking at a conference hosted by the Stanford Center for Cyberpolitics on the challenges that the digital world has created for democracy in the United States and beyond. He cites his own effective use of social media as a candidate, but also his disappointment with how Russian President Vladimir Putin is using social media to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
“What still annoys me was my failure to fully appreciate how susceptible we were to lies and conspiracy theories, even though I myself was the object of misinformation,” he said, referring, among other things, to the false debate over his birth. in the US certificate. “Putin did not do that. He didn’t have to. We did it ourselves. ”
Among those present were prominent scientists, former government officials and representatives of several technology companies, including Alphabet, which owns Google and YouTube, and TikTok. In separate discussions, participants largely agreed on the issue of misinformation and the toxicity and bias it fosters, but there was little consensus on which specific solutions would work best or be politically feasible.
“We will not cure or even control this problem overnight,” said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute in Stanford for International Studies. He is also the author, most recently, of Ominous Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.
On the sidelines, Mr. Obama also met with a small group of students and young scholars from the Obama Foundation. At one point, he asked Elise Joshi, founder of a band called Gen-Z for Change, to explain how TikTok is more than just a dance video.
“Your generation will understand that,” Obama told them.
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