Facing the Lobby
As officials discussed regulating social media, two former Irish government employees led the charge in Facebook’s lobbying efforts of TDs and Senators
Social media giant Facebook, also known as Meta, appears to have undertaken intensive lobbying of the government in relation to the regulation of the Internet, with two former government insiders leading the campaign.
In correspondence I acquired via a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, the company’s head of public policy and its public policy manager contacted the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (DTCAGSM) in order to meet with Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin, under whose remit the department partly falls under. In emails to the department, Facebook’s representatives forwarded information about the company’s policies and what it was doing to deal with COVID-19 misinformation on the platform. The correspondence also pointed to the economic benefits of Facebook’s European HQ being based in Ireland. But this was only a preview to a meeting between Facebook’s emissaries and Martin to discuss the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill.
The inside track
In an email sent to Martin’s department on 1 February this year, Facebook’s head of public policy, Dualta Ó Broin, formally requests a meeting with the Green Party TD.
Ó Broin was previously employed by the Department of Communications, Climate Action & Environment for over three years from 2016 to 2019. There he held the title of assistant principle officer where he worked in the Broadcasting & Media Division and dealt with media mergers, online safety, and audiovisual regulations. He eventually joined Facebook in May 2019.
In a document he attached to the email, Ó Broin writes that his company,
would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and your officials in the coming weeks to brief you on our operations and our work in Ireland and to discuss a range of matters relating to your portfolio.
He highlights Facebook’s contribution to the Irish economy, explaining “We currently employ approximately 3,000 directly, but there are also thousands of others who are employed by other companies but support our work”. Ó Broin says Facebook has “multiple sites” in Ireland where “some of the most important work protecting users around the world” takes place. And it’s also where “some of our most exciting work at the cutting edge of innovation takes place”.
Going on, Ó Broin tells Martin that he’d like to “take the opportunity to explain our products and polices to you” and inform her as to what Facebook’s doing “to support a safer online environment for all”. He also notes that he can “update you on the work we have been doing to support small business in Ireland” as well as those in the creative sector who’ve been affected by the pandemic.
Officials in Martin’s department arranged a date for a meeting with the TD to take place on 24 February. In the agenda for the meeting O’Broin was scheduled to be present alongside Stephanie Anderson, Facebook’s public policy manager.
Anderson, like Ó Broin, is also a former government insider. From 2014 to 2016 she worked as a parliamentary assistant to former minister for health and current minister for further and higher education, Simon Harris. She then moved to the Irish branch of the American Chamber of Commerce — which describes itself as the “collective voice of US companies in Ireland” — before taking on a role with Facebook in 2019.
The topic of conversation was limited to two points: An “overview” of Facebook and a discussion of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill. Exactly what the three discussed during the meeting was not revealed. But the proposed bill is likely of concern to Facebook.
Hate speech and regulating social media
In the Report of the Joint Committee on the Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, social media companies come in for particular scrutiny. Amongst the recommendations the committee made are that the likes of Facebook “provide a quarterly report to the Media Commission on their complaints handling”. It also called for the creation of an online safety commissioner, for certain “online platforms to be required to provide data for public interest research”, and for greater regulation of “online spaces” frequented by children to protect them from “data profiling” and “harmful advertisements”.
During the public consultation phase of the bill, Facebook made its own submission to the committee. In it, Mark Zuckerberg’s company argued that “The safety of our users is a priority for us” and welcomed the creation of an online safety commissioner. Facebook wrote that it has “developed a comprehensive set of Community Standards”. And these regulations ban content such as hate speech, racism, and violence. Facebook made no reference to disinformation in its submission.
Both Anderson and Ó Broin also lobbied a number of members of the committee in relation to the bill. According to the lobbying register, between the period of 1 May and 31 August the Facebook representatives contacted Senator Malcolm Byrne of Fianna Fáil and Labour Senator Annie Hoey. The register further notes that they contacted minister of state Jack Chambers, who’s also based in the DTCAGSM, and special adviser to the Department of the Taoiseach, Shane Smyth. In the lobbying returns it’s detailed that between two and five meetings were held and that Anderson and Ó Broin sent one letter.
Earlier entries in the lobbying register record Anderson and Ó Broin having contacted numerous officials both inside and and outside Leinster House. During the period from 1 January to 30 April, the two contacted 25 different government advisers, TDs, Senators, and even an MEP in relation to hate speech and online safety on Facebook. Of the 25 Anderson and Ó Broin reached out to, five also served on the committee. Those contacted are from the centre to the right of the political spectrum, with Ó Broin and Anderson writing to members of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, and the Green Party.
As a result of the FoI request, I also received a copy of a letter sent by Anderson to minister Chambers.
Dated 30 April, the Facebook spokesperson says she’s writing to the minister of state in relation to “recent examples of appalling racial abuse directed towards sportspeople”. Earlier the same month a number of high-profile soccer players were victims of racist abuse on social media. In the immediate aftermath several soccer teams across various leagues announced a weekend boycott of social media to protest the continued issue of hate speech and racism online.
Given that sport falls under Chambers’ remit, Anderson writes that she wants to “share” Facebook’s “approach to tackling racism on our platforms”. She argues that “hate speech or abusive behaviour” isn’t wanted on the platform and that Facebook has “always taken the issue of hate speech very seriously”. Anderson claims that:
We do not allow content that attacks people based on their race, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity or national origin. While we have clear rules against hate speech, unfortunately zero tolerance does not mean zero incidence. We can't stop people from being prejudiced, or from typing abuse into their phone, but we have strengthened our rules, and continue to improve our detection and enforcement.
Anderson also underscores Facebook’s use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in order to “help us find and remove harmful content quickly, and in most cases before anyone sees it”. She closes her letter by telling Chambers Facebook would “welcome an opportunity to discuss these important issues with you”. And she reiterates that the company is “committed to doing everything we can to protect our community and tackle hate speech and racism on our platforms”.
In another email Ó Broin sent in late July, he says he’s writing to the department in order to provide “an update on some of the latest work we have been doing to provide young people with a safer, more private experience across our platforms”. He relates that Facebook is “responsibly empowering young people” so they can enjoy the platform and at the same has implemented “Age-appropriate safeguards”. O Bróin insists Facebook is trying to “strike the right balance” between allowing young people “access to the benefits our services offer” and “protecting their privacy and safety”.
Reality
But despite Facebook’s claims, it continues to be a source of a huge amount of hate speech as as well as disinformation. The company’s policy was, until recently, almost libertarian in its hands-off approach.
In 2019 Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s Vice President for Global Public Policy, argued in defence of allowing Holocaust denial on the platform. Kaplan wrote that Facebook would continue to allow users post “lies or content that is inaccurate”. He declared that “whether it’s denying the Holocaust, the Armenian massacre, or the fact that the Syrian government has killed hundreds of thousands of its own people”, Facebook would not remove it. Kaplan’s logic was that “we do believe that people should be able to say things on Facebook that are wrong or inaccurate, even when they are offensive”. Facebook eventually changed its policy on Holocaust denial, announcing in August 2020 that content which “denies or distorts the Holocaust” would no longer be tolerated on the platform.
Problems still abound, however.
A recent report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) pointed out that Facebook regularly “fails to enforce its own policies”. The report draws attention to a new COVID-19 denial group whose popularity on Facebook has exploded. Between January 2020 and July 2021, the amount of followers of the World Doctor’s Alliance grew from 3,456 to 460,179, an increase of 13,215%. The ISD revealed that Facebook’s fact-checking system is failing, especially in languages other than English.
Then there’s what France Haughen revealed. A former product manager with Facebook, she left the company and turned whistleblower. In testimony she gave to British MPs in October, Haughen told them Facebook is “unquestionably making hate worse” and that it’s “been unwilling to accept even little slivers of profit being sacrificed for safety”. She made similar comments during a US Senate hearing called as a result of her leaking of internal Facebook documents to the press. Haughen declared that the company’s policies “harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy”. She also disclosed that the company has problems with hiring staff as a result of its poor reputation. This has then resulted in resource issues internally, which has itself created “an implicit discouragement from having better detection systems”.
Closer to home, Facebook’s influence over Irish politics and regulation has also come in for scrutiny. Last week privacy campaigner Max Schrems claimed that the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) has tried to push pro-Facebook policies in Europe. Given that Zuckerberg’s company is based in Ireland, legislation and regulations affecting the company here will also be felt across the EU. Schrems said documents he obtained showed the DPC “agreed on a GDPR bypass with Facebook” and then tried to pass this into wider European guidelines. He argued:
The DPC clearly does not act in the interest of data protection, but in the interest of US multinationals. Usually, it is Facebook lobbyists that try to influence guidelines in the interest of their industry sector, here the regulator has turned into a lobbyist.
The DPC has since rejected Schrems’ assertions, writing in a statement that the “allegation is utterly untrue”.
Facebook’s influence on our societies cannot be underestimated. From its use as a recruitment tool by the far right, to racists using it to target minorities, and conspiracy theorists spreading dangerous disinformation about COVID-19, how the social media company functions and is regulated concerns all of us. Although Facebook’s use of former government insiders is not surprising, it’s still indicative of a company worried about regulation and one that’s taking steps to ensure an outcome advantageous as well as profitable to itself. As long as Facebook remains unchallenged, profit will continue to win out over people’s well-being.