Education and Regulations for the Internet
Mark Zuckerberg ‘02, co-founder, chairman and chief financial officer of Facebook, answered nearly six hundred questions on Capitol Hill this past week on April 10 and 11. He addressed controversial topics such as privacy, data collection and data rights.
Zuckerberg remained clear and direct throughout the interrogation and many spectators left with the disturbing sentiment that the Senators themselves were not prepared.
Alexandra Petri, a columnist for The Washington Post, wrote an article mocking the incredulous senators, entitled “The Zuckerberg Hearings: Condensed.” Petri pointed out the Senators’ inability to understand how advertisements work, as well as their tendency to ask unreasonably obscure questions.
Within Facebook itself, employees were also shocked by the senators’ ignorance. “I was personally surprised by how ill-prepared the members were. Once it was clear how bad it was and how mismatched they were, everybody had this awakening: We have made some mistakes, but these guys know even less,” a Facebook executive told Nicholas Thompson for his article “Within Facebook, a Sense of Relief Over the Zuckerberg Hearings.”
Politics has butted heads with internet policy since the mid-1990s. From then up until now, a series of unsuccessful laws to curb the internet’s influence have been passed. These include the Communications Decency Act in 1997, which was repealed because it would infringe on the right to free speech. In 1998, Congress passed the Child Online Protection Act, which was never enforced because the act was “too broad” and also encroached on the First Amendment.
Often, our lawmakers are more inclined to eliminate rather than monitor possible threats to people’s privacy. This tendency threatens free speech and repels many engaged voters.
While the government struggles to pass meaningful regulations, the public is also conflicted. Often, they want to be protected by the government while also having and maintaining privacy. This can prove to be very difficult for politicians to create effective regulations around.
The largest problem, however, is the lack of education on how data is used. When one creates a profile on Facebook, and clicks the "I accept all terms and agreements" button, they seldom know what they are signing up for. A startling amount of users misunderstand how privacy policies work, assuming that the existence of a policy means that a company keeps the data it collects on consumers confidential. In fact, privacy policies often explain that the company reserves the right to sell their information to advertisers or their parties. Unfortunately, no one reads the fine print.
I don’t believe that it is entirely Zuckerberg’s fault that the public is so dreadfully uninformed about the mechanics of the internet. While Facebook made mistakes with Cambridge Analytica and was obscure about data privacy, there is an increasing dependency on technology despite users’ lack of understanding of the risks of conducting digital transactions.
This ignorance comes from the very nature of the internet itself—the fact that it is convenient and simple. Users are not supposed to understand the mechanics, but rather fill the role of the mass of consumer that drive the success of tech moguls like Zuckerberg.
Luckily, the European Union will be enforcing a body of laws named the General Data Protection Regulation this May. Over the past few years, European nations have been gradually limiting tech companies with their own agencies. This new regulation will provide a single standard for the EU and gives citizens more autonomy over their own data, including the ability to erase data.
It is now time for the United States to create its own standard to protect the American people, and monitor previously unchecked companies like Facebook. In the coming years I hope our government will adapt public education and regulation to the rapidly advancing internet.