What was revealed in the Channel 4 documentary about Facebook and its practices confirms this much: that Facebook are publishers and broadcasters – or to put it another way, Facebook is an organisation which enables information, news, ideas, images and opinions to be spread to the widest possible audience, and which participates in organising and curating, or editing, that material.

They are using video content, photographs and written contributions of various kinds to generate advertising revenue. The fact that they are getting all of this content free of charge doesn’t change the core business that they are in.

They may be doing a very bad job of it, but they are acting as editors. They are making decisions about what people should and should not see. And let’s be really clear about it: Facebook, and other social media platforms, are active participants in the process – and therefore must be held accountable.

On the one hand, it is actually inconceivable that they would not oversee content. On the other, it is an indictment of the smug and intellr=ectually feeble illusion under which they have been operating, and under which they have been allowed to operate,
that they have done such an appalling job in that regard – and so completely failed to take proper responsibility for what they do publish and broadcast – that they have actively participated in the dissemination of material of this kind.

It is time now for governments to address this issue properly, and to insist that so called social media platforms should be treated in the same way as everyone else who is making – or trying to make – money by selling advertising."