Christopher Pyne: Facebook needs to tilt the playing field away from profit and towards the consumer

Freedom of speech is not the freedom to harm others – it’s time social media giants tackled anonymous bullying, writes Christopher Pyne.

Months ago at the Adelaide versus Melbourne footy game at the (unfinished) Adelaide Oval, my mobile phone literally died.

To say it was debilitating is an understatement.

In the world as we know it today, to be without one’s mobile phone is to be in seclusion. Almost like a Trappist monk, I was unable to communicate with anyone. No banking. No text messages. No connection to the internet. No phone calls in or out. No emails in my hand. No news. No apps. I don’t think it could even count my steps. I was cut off.

I was less concerned about not being able to access social media.

I’m something of a technophobe actually.

For years my poor Ministerial and Electorate staff had to manage my Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and then Instagram accounts. They did such a good job that I was presented with an award for being one of the most prolific users of LinkedIn in Australia.

At that time, I barely knew what it was, but I still accepted the award graciously and we had a celebratory event for the staffer who was really the winner.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Picture: AFP

When I retired from politics, I rather grandiloquently declared to my long-suffering social media guru in the office that I would manage my own Instagram account. One morning I posted the same photograph six times and he rang me in a great state to ask what the hell I thought I was doing?

I told him that I was posting a photograph but as I couldn’t tell if I had succeeded so I tried a few times. He pointed out that as everyone knew I had no idea what I was doing, his peers would think it was him making an ass of himself and I had to stop. Problem solved – until I could get properly trained, he kept doing it for me, a bit in the same way I have never learnt to cook, in case people expected me to take over the cooking duties, in which I have virtually no interest. Anyway, I digress.

It took from Saturday evening until Tuesday for me to get back up and running. Mainly because I had carefully passworded everything and resetting all the various accounts and applications was something of an ordeal. However, I was comforted that it was so hard to do. If it’s that hard for Microsoft to do it, hopefully it’s doubly hard for the Russians, Iranians, North Koreans or whomever else is attempting to hack into our devices daily.

On October 4, Facebook went down and with it, many of its platforms like Instagram, Oculus, Messenger and What’s App. It was inaccessible for many hours.

At first, I assumed it was hacked by a state or non state actor and I was glad to learn later that it wasn’t. Instead, its own infrastructure and systems failed and with them, billions of users worldwide were affected.

Facebook has 3.5 billion users. It is incredible to think that half the globe is on one platform.

For many of those users Facebook is their lifeline to the world, especially in the developing world where they cannot always rely on their own communications infrastructure, sources of news and interface with each other.

For many businesses, they use Facebook to do business.

To take orders, respond to customers and stay afloat.

Sadly, Facebook has become ubiquitous with most aspects of the lives of at least those 3.5 billion people.

But Facebook is not perfect. In fact, far from it.

Facebook copped the biggest fine in history, US$5 billion because of its misuse of data in the Cambridge Analytica case back in 2019.

Former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies before a US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on in Washington, DC. Picture: AFP

Right now, a whistleblower is testifying in the US Congress about the failure of Facebook to protect its users from harmful information despite being in possession of Facebook commissioned research that shows its Instagram platform increases the suicidal thoughts and eating disorders of particularly younger female users.

For some time, Facebook has tried to establish an Instagram platform for under 13s and have only recently put it on hold because of the public opprobrium attached with the idea of targeting even younger children than Instagram can already reach.

Facebook has been hit with stories of tax avoidance in nations in which it operates and surreptitious information gathering on its users for years.

If lawmakers in the United States profess to know there is a problem with social media platforms, not just like Facebook, but like Twitter and many others, why have they sat on their hands for so long? Freedom of speech is not the freedom to harm others.

Anonymous social media bullying, even leading to the deaths of the harassed and vulnerable, should be enough for the US Congress to take action to reset the balance between protecting individuals well being and their freedoms.

Let’s hope the continued focus on Facebook because of the outage last week will assist in convincing the US law makers, who are the primary regulators of these social media platforms, that they need to tilt the playing field away from the profit motive and towards the consumer.