Global regulators target Silicon Valley giants

Governments are in a global race to scrutinise Silicon Valley, creating a broad regulatory wave.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in Paris as the tech giant and France try to pioneer ways of fighting hate speech online. Picture: AP

Governments are in a global race to scrutinise Silicon Valley, creating a broad regulatory wave aimed at curbing the power of a small group of US tech giants.

French government officials said on Friday they planned to give regulators there sweeping power to audit and fine large social-media companies like Facebook if they did not remove hateful content. Competition authorities in India have launched a probe into whether Alphabet’s Google uses its mobile operating system to block rivals.

The dual efforts are the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive probes and new regulations around the world circumscribing tech firms on several different fronts. The European Union has enacted broad restrictions on how companies handle data as concerns over privacy grow. Governments are negotiating where tech giants should pay their taxes and investigating if some companies are abusing their size and market power to thwart competition.

Officials are also sharing information among themselves. An Indian official familiar with the new Google probe said government officials there consulted with European and US officials before launching their investigation into its Android operating system. The EU, which has inspired countries’ tech probes in the past, fined Google €4.3 billion ($6.9bn) alleging it abused its position over Android.

F A C E B O O K

A Google spokesman said it looked forward to working with Indian competition authorities to “demonstrate how Android has led to more competition and innovation, not less”.

US officials have shown a new willingness to embrace regulation too. The Federal Trade Commission is completing a settlement that could include a fine for Facebook of $US5bn ($7.1bn), alleging breaches of consumer privacy.

The French proposal attempts to draw a finer line on one of the thorniest topics raised by the wave of new laws aimed specifically at policing content: how to regulate social media’s excesses without trampling free speech.

Their proposals are modelled on how banks are required by regulators in many jurisdictions to take adequate measures to protect their customers against fraud.

The legislation would give new authority to an independent regulator in France, with investigative powers to verify firms are guarding against the publication of hate speech on their platforms.