Mark Zuckerberg is calling for a more government control over the internet. He wants laws in four major areas, “harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability”.

   He stated, “Lawmakers often tell me we have too much power over speech, and frankly I agree”. These new regulations should be the same for all websites, he says, so that it’s easier to stop “harmful content” from spreading quickly across platforms.

    Zuckerberg has outlined his ideas and what he wanted in a list.

• Common rules that all social media sites need to adhere to, enforced by third-party bodies, to control the spread of harmful content.
• All major tech companies to release a transparency report every three months, to put it on a par with financial reporting.
• Stronger laws around the world to protect the integrity of elections, with common standards for all websites to identify political actors.
• Laws that not only apply to candidates and elections, but also other “divisive political issues”, and for laws to apply outside of official campaign periods.
• New industry-wide standards to control how political campaigns use data to target voters online.
• More countries to adopt privacy laws like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force last year.
• A “common global framework” that means these laws are all standardised globally, rather than being substantially different from country to country.
• Clear rules about who’s responsible for protecting people’s data when they move it from one service to another.

    Overall, Zuckerberg is placing himself in a position to be the catalyst for new control and laws. The near future will decide whether these news ideas and initiatives will get put into effect.