DUBAI: They were once the darlings of the digital age — but now Facebook, Google and Twitter are on the defensive.
Executives from all three US technology giants took to the stage on Tuesday, among some 2,500 guests gathered for the annual Arab Media Forum.
At the beginning of the decade, at the height of the hype over social media, they would have been met with a frenzy of smartphone-armed delegates.
On Tuesday, they were left defending their operations after a slew of scandals over data privacy, “fake news” and social media’s impact on society and the mainstream press.
Facebook, notably, is currently under fire following reports about how Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm associated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, gained access to the personal data of about 50 million users.
The scandal follows previous accusations over the use of Facebook in key election campaigns, and in spreading “fake news.”
Patrick Walker, the regional director of media partnerships at Facebook, acknowledged that the platform had not always been used in a positive way.
“We’ve learned, in many cases the hard way, that just connecting people with great connectivity and great products isn’t necessarily doing good,” he told the forum.
“We learned the hard way that we can do better on news integrity, we can do better to fight disinformation. We can do better with people that were manipulating ads around elections. And even more recently we have learned that we could have done better with people’s data.”
Walker said Facebook had taken several steps to improve its platform, including changing algorithms to highlight personal interactions.
“Nobody has done this before: Two billion people connected instantaneously; it’s new for everyone. But it’s no excuse for us, we need to improve our policies, and what we do as the technology becomes more powerful,” he said.
In January, George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, told the World Economic Forum in Davos that Facebook and Google have become “powerful monopolies,” are a “menace” to society and their “days are numbered.”
“Social media companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it,” Soros said, according to a transcript of his speech. “This has far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy, particularly on the integrity of elections.”
Many have claimed that Google has thrived at the expense of the traditional media. Worldwide newspaper industry revenue fell by 30 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to Magna Global, during which time Google’s advertising revenue more than doubled.
Carlo Biondo, the regional president of strategic partnerships at Google, was asked at the forum whether social media had killed journalism.
He said the “Google News Initiative” — which includes a program to train journalists — had been created partly in response to such claims.
“Social media and citizen journalism are important. But professional journalism always will have its place in the world,” he said.
“I don’t want one to replace the other. I think it would be terrible… We need to find a way that quality journalism can succeed in the world.”
The use of Twitter has also come under scrutiny owing to the spread of “fake news” and the use of political propaganda bots to inflame public sentiment.
Peter Greenberger, the global director for news partnerships at Twitter, said that the social media platform was addressing such concerns.
“In terms of the credibility of the information, that’s of utmost concern to us. We’re working very hard on removing spam, on removing bad actors,” he told the forum.
“In fact, we are removing 10 times as many accounts today as we were a year ago. And we are increasingly working to improve that system.”
