FCC Chairman Ajit Pai call for more transparency rules for Big Tech

Federal Communications
Chairman Ajit Pai is calling for big tech companies such as
Google and Facebook to be more transparent about their
operations.
Alex Wong/Getty
Images

• Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications
  Commission, called Tuesday for the big tech companies to be
  more transparent about how they run their services.
• Pai said he opposes regulating tech companies like
  utilities, but implied he believes new regulations may be
  needed to require such transparency.
  
• He didn’t spell out precisely what kind of rules he
  would support or how they would be enforced.

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The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is calling
for new “obligations” to make tech companies like Google,
Facebook and Twitter reveal more details about how the operate
their online services.

In a
post on Medium on Tuesday, Ajit Pai said internet companies
have amassed unprecedented influence over the economy and society
yet lack proper public accountability to the public.

“We need to seriously think about whether the time has come
for these companies to abide by new transparency obligations,”
Pai wrote in the post, titled “What I Hope to Learn from the Tech
Giants.”

The comments by the FCC Chair, who has no direct authority
over internet companies like Google and Facebook, come a week
after President Trump
blasted Google for allegedly shutting out conservative
voices. And in recent days, many on the right have been echoing
Trump’s allegations and calling for new rules to govern tech
firms, including potentially utility-style regulations.

Pai said that the tech companies policies and practices
with regards to user privacy, online expression and operational
transparency deserve more scrutiny. Although he explicitly said
he was against regulating tech companies like public utilities,
Pai called on government officials to “thoughtfully explore” the
issues.

On Wednesday, e
xecutives at
Twitter,
Facebook, and Alphabet-owned Google are slated to testify at
hearings on Capitol Hill about topics such as transparency and
foreign actors’ attempts to infiltrate their services to spread
propaganda influence operations on their services.

“The public deserves to know more about how these companies
operate,” Pai said. He continued: “Just as is the case with
respect to broadband providers, consumers need accurate
information in order to make educated choices about whether and
how to use these tech giants’ platforms.”

The big tech companies have faced growing criticism in recent
months and years, especially since Russian-linked groups hijacked
some of the services to spread propaganda during the 2016
election. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal this spring,
growing concerns about the companies’ privacy practices, and the
companies’ bans on comments by right-wing figures such as Alex
Jones have only amplified the outcry against them from all parts
of the political spectrum.

Pai opposes regulating the tech companies like utilities

FCC

In his post, Pai said regulating big tech similarly to how gas
and electric utilities are regulated is “not the right answer.”

“The government — in particular, the Federal Communications
Commission, which I have the privilege of leading — shouldn’t
regulate these entities like a water company,” Pai said.

But he did suggest that new rules are needed to force tech
companies to disclose more information about how they manage
their services, particularly about how they decide which users
can and can’t speak and what they can post.

“Are these tech giants running impartial digital platforms over
which they don’t exercise editorial judgment when it comes to
content?” Pai wrote. “Or do they in fact decide what speech is
allowed and what is not and discriminate based on ideology and/or
political affiliation? … Going back to the first point: where
is the transparency?”

Pai also took aim at the tech companies’ privacy practices. He
noted the recent controversies such as Google’s collecting users’
location data even when they thought they’d asked it not to and
called for the companies to disclose more information about what
kinds of information they are collecting from their users and
what they are doing with it.

“Most consumers have no idea that their data is being shared in
these ways,” Pai wrote. “Most consumers have no idea how this
data is being used.”

Pai did not spell out exactly what kind of regulations he would
favor or which agency he thought would be best placed to enforce
them. The FCC has authority over broadband, telephone, and
television providers, but traditionally has had little authority
over website operators or app providers.

His call for new regulations on tech companies comes just months
after the FCC under his lead
repealed its net-neutrality rules that governed broadband
service providers. Pai also cheered Congress’ move last year

to overturn FCC regulations intended to restrict what
broadband providers could do with customers’ personal
information.

Pai’s statement comes as net-neutrality proponents have been
trying to collect enough signatures among members of the House of
Representatives to force a vote on overturning the FCC’s repeal
of its net-neutrality rules. The Senate
passed a similar measure earlier this year.