The Observer view on the robust action needed to curb 'online gangsters'

It would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall, or a bug in the software, at last week’s meeting in San Francisco between Jeremy Wright, the culture secretary, and Mark Zuckerberg, the elusive boss of Facebook. Mr Wright did not willingly share a lot of data afterwards, though who knows what might end up online. He described the talks as “useful”, while Facebook reported a “positive and productive conversation”.

The fact that a cabinet minister was obliged to travel to California, after Mr Zuckerberg declined repeated invitations to appear before parliament, gives an insight into the relative balance of power as pressure grows to impose a semblance of order, integrity and legality on a chaotic online digital world. By deigning to meet, Mr Zuckerberg gave the impression that he was doing Wright a big favour.

This sort of untouchable arrogance lies at the heart of the problem. Facebook and similar multinational, multibillion dollar digital companies now have the power to enter, and influence, almost every aspect of modern daily life. Their conduct, or misconduct, has a direct impact on our democracy, politics and wellbeing, as shown by the Observer’s revelations about Cambridge Analytica’s activities in the 2016 referendum.

While there are undoubted benefits, unregulated (or “self-regulated”) global digital platforms can negatively affect the quality and tone of social discourse. They facilitate the spread of disinformation and fake news. The online world has, for many, become an unsafe place where child exploitation, cyber-bullying and sexual and racial harassment flourish. Grievous harms, especially affecting younger people, can be the result, as was the case with Molly Russell, whose family claimed she took her life after viewing material glorifying suicide on Facebook’s Instagram photo-sharing site.

Mr Wright’s Californian tour, which also involved meetings with Google, Twitter and YouTube, comes as the government prepares a white paper with legislative and non-legislative proposals for tackling online risks. Mr Wright says he believes government regulation is necessary. “It is clear that things need to change. With power comes responsibility and the time has come for the tech companies to be properly accountable,” he said last week.

Two key questions demand answers. One is whether any government action will be undertaken with the necessary degree of urgency. To date, ministers, Mr Wright included, have been slow, to the point of irresponsibility, in recognising the immediacy and scale of the problem. It has been rightly pointed out that, if a general election were to be called today, the process would be open to online manipulation, by domestic and foreign influences, of the kind that marred other recent polls, including the 2016 Brexit referendum and US elections.

A second pressing concern is whether any new regulations will be sufficiently robust and wide-ranging to decisively change the behaviour of powerful businesses such as Facebook and, say, reduce opportunities for online disruption by ill-disposed foreign governments. Ministers are rightly focused on social harms. They appear to be less enthusiastic about tackling overtly political issues such as past and present pro-Brexit disinformation, data theft for commercial purposes, online privacy abuses and, for example, Russian and far-right cyber-meddling.

Mr Wright says the white paper is just a starting point. This relaxed approach is not nearly good enough. Germany and France have already taken firm action to curb online abuses. Why is Britain trailing behind? If they need motivation, ministers should study last week’s excoriating report by Damian Collins’s all-party select committee, which declared British electoral law to be unfit for purpose and demanded tougher, all-round online company regulation and oversight.

“Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use every day,” Mr Collins said. He does not exaggerate. What we need now is a full-scale independent judicial inquiry into foreign interference in British elections and referendums since 2014 – and into the haughty, above-the-law practices of “digital gangsters” such as Facebook.