“Ethical Markets fully supports this legislative approach to curb fake Russian ads, fake news, trolls and bots to help assure the integrity of our 2018 elections. A first step! Further, we probably need full hearings on the need to regulate these dominant social media as public utilities, as news organizations, or break them up. ~Hazel Henderson, Editor“
Big Tech has some big problems. The backlash against the likes of Google, Facebook, and Amazon has been simmering for a while, with critics pointing to the spread of fake news on social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, among other issues, as evidence that tech giants need to be reined in.
And yet, investors don’t seem to care. Aside from today’s industry-wide selloff, U.S. tech stocks have had an unprecedented rally this year, with shares of Facebook, Alphabet and Microsoft hitting new record highs this week.—Katie Robertson
push for transparency
Senators Propose Social-Media Ad Rules After Months of Russia Probes
Senators introduced a bipartisan plan to impose new disclosure requirements for political ads on Facebook, Twitter, Google and other platforms. While televised political ads require disclosure of who paid for them, there are no such requirements for social media networks. Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter will both send their top lawyers to testify Nov. 1 in front of Congressional committees investigating how Russian state actors interfered in the 2016 election.