Financial Times

British Members of Parliament have called for a regulator to police content on social media sites, financed by a new levy on tech companies, and an inquiry into the effect of disinformation on past electoral contests. Concluding an 18-month long investigation into “fake news”, disinformation and political campaigns, the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee also accused Facebook of “intentionally and knowingly” violating data privacy laws and said it should be the subject of a probe by the competition and data watchdogs.

Organisations run by Charles Koch have begun to lobby US politicians on data privacy, as the American billionaire and conservative donor deepens his unlikely alliance with Silicon Valley, and Google in particular.

Facebook has agreed to share more information about political advertising on its platform.

The big four US broadband companies invested less in capital projects in 2018 than they did in 2017, undermining one of the rationales for a controversial decision by the Trump administration to remove net neutrality protections. Earnings reported recently show Verizon, AT&T, Charter Communications and Comcast collectively undertook slightly less capital spending in 2018 than in 2017, the first time there has been a drop in three years. They spent $56.9 billion in 2018, compared with $57.1 billion the previous year and $56.1 billion in 2016.