British democracy is at risk as a result of data abuse by social media platforms like Facebook – with the UK “clearly vulnerable” to covert digital influence campaigns.
That’s according to a hard-hitting report from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee, which follows an 18-month investigation.
It calls for urgent regulatory action to temper the “dominance of a handful of powerful tech companies”, warning that the government should “consider the impact of such monopolies on the political world and on democracy.”
Among the examples it gives of digital electoral manipulation: the creation of a bot that