United Kingdom Government plans for greater regulation of social media sites may have been leaked by Public Servants to former colleagues now working for Facebook, Ministers fear.
The alarm was raised after an online harms issue known only to a few people at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) was raised by a senior Facebook executive at a recent meeting.
Facebook is facing increasing pressure over misinformation and harmful material, including abuse, shared by its users and the Government is reportedly drawing up plans for tighter rules.
Jobs taken by former senior Public Servants in the private sector are meant to be scrutinised by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments but many appointments involving more junior officials aren’t vetted.
A source within DCMS said many officials worked there only for a few years before getting a job at Facebook.
Median wages in the Department are just below £50,000 ($A91,000) a year, much better than the cross-Whitehall median of below £30,000 ($A54,600) however, an average Facebook UK employee can earn around £117,000 ($A213,000).
Nicola Aitken, who formerly led Government efforts to counter disinformation, is now working at Facebook as a misinformation policy manager, having spent a year in between at Full Fact, an independent organisation that highlights misinformation online.
Farzana Dudhwala has been Facebook’s Privacy Policy Manager since January, having spent a year in 2018-19 at DCMS’s Government Office for Artificial Intelligence and two years at the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.
However, there is no suggestion that either solicited information from former Public Service colleagues.
Chair of Parliament’s DCMS Select Committee, Julian Knight said any perceived cosiness between the likes of Facebook and Public Servants had the potential to undermine the planned Online Safety Bill and regulatory regime.
The Bill is to put a new legal duty of care on social media giants to protect their UK users from harmful material.
London, 27 October 2021
