Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg authored an op-ed in The Washington Post over the weekend, and he's calling for government regulators to help level the internet playing field so companies and consumers know what to expect.
"Every day, we make decisions about what speech is harmful, what constitutes political advertising, and how to prevent sophisticated cyberattacks. These are important for keeping our community safe. But if we were starting from scratch, we wouldn’t ask companies to make these judgments alone. I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators."
And while Zuckerberg unpacked each of these points in the op-ed, we're most interested in his thoughts on privacy and security. Sounds like Zuckerberg sees GDPR as a model for future regulation.
"... effective privacy and data protection needs a globally harmonized framework. People around the world have called for comprehensive privacy regulation in line with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, and I agree. I believe it would be good for the Internet if more countries adopted regulation such as GDPR as a common framework. New privacy regulation in the United States and around the world should build on the protections GDPR provides."
[RELATED: CEO of the Privacy Professor to keynote SecureWorld Kansas City 2019]
Is Zuckerberg really asking for regulation of the internet?
In his op-ed, Zuckerberg says additional regulation of the internet will make it better for everyone.
Internet Society President Andrew Sullivan says that historically, some regulation has proven effective. However, he wants to clear something up here:
“It’s also important to clarify what 'internet regulation' actually means. The internet is the infrastructure that the World Wide Web runs on. What most governments are looking to do is regulate the activity or content (anti-competitive behavior, misinformation, privacy, etc.) that takes place on the applications layer of the internet—the World Wide Web.”
The Internet Society, in case you've never heard of it, "supports and promotes the development of the Internet as a global technical infrastructure, a resource to enrich people’s lives, and a force for good in society."
Facebook's mission, by the way, is listed like this on its FAQ page: "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together."
Unfortunately, we know nation-states have used Facebook to drive people apart. The former Director of Operations at U.S. Cyber Command tells us this is what Russia really likes to do:
