When Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, and Elliot Schrage, the company’s head of public policy, flew to Washington DC on Monday for a grueling four-hour “showdown” meeting with a senior UK child protection official, the company wanted to send a strong signal that it was ready to listen and act on local concerns.
Facebook is desperate to draw a line under an escalating controversy in the UK over child safety. Always a target for scare stories over everything from spreading venereal disease to teenage depression, Facebook has recently come under scrutiny following the conviction of Peter Chapman, a serial rapist who used Facebook to meet a 17-year-old girl, who he went on to rape and murder.
The company has come under fire in particular from the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) for a failure to place a so-called “panic button” on every page, through which users could report inappropriate contacts. Facebook does have a system of reporting abuse, which was considerably strengthened on Tuesday, and includes links to the Ceop site. Facebook has always maintained that it is better to have a whole safety “network” allowing people to report abuse to a number of sources, rather than focus on one particular agency and one design of link. However, the “button” issue remains contentious.
Jim Gamble, the chief executive of Ceop, is a highly determined senior policeman used to fighting terrorists in Northern Ireland, and has shown himself unwilling to compromise on the issue. The highly emotive issue of paedophilia and the easy-to-visualise idea of a button play well in the tabloid press. Arguing over the button makes Facebook look shifty, no matter how well-reasoned its position. It’s simply the wrong battle to be in.
Industry observers see this as yet another example of a somewhat naive, young US company coming unstuck in the complex European political landscape. Google similarly misjudged the strength of feeling against StreetView in many European countries – such as Germany - where state-sponsored spying on citizens is still a relatively fresh memory. In fanatically private Switzerland, home of the secret bank account and ultra-discreet living for the rich, StreetView is facing a lawsuit by data privacy officials. In Italy, Google executives were given criminal sentences over a privacy violation in a YouTube video posted by a user. Ebay has faced a battle royal in France over counterfeit sales of luxury goods such as Louis Vuitton handbags, which have nearly the status of national treasures.
In many cases the US tech companies’ positions are entirely reasonable and worth fighting for. The reasons behind the Italian YouTube judgement have yet to be published, but it will be important to examine them closely and challenge them where necessary. If tech companies are to be held responsible for user content that they haven’t had a chance to review before publication, whole business models will have to change.
But US tech companies will have to invest a lot more in local politics and lobbying to get this right. Facebook might have headed off the Ceop debacle more effectively – Ceop’s Mr Gamble has his competitors and critics, but Facebook has not effectively co-opted them in this debate. It is little wonder. Facebook’s lone head of European public policy, Richard Allen, is rushed off his feet fire-fighting across the continent. Facebook is now hiring lobbyists in France and Germany to help him out. Whether a team of three will be enough remains to be seen – probably not. “Localising” internet services for Europe’s huge but complex market is about more than just translating a website correctly, it is about taking the pulse on local issues and learning how to push all the right buttons with civic leaders and opinion formers.
