Sean Spicer speaks at the International Government Communications Forum in Sharjah.-Photo by M. Sajjad/Khaleej Times
Spicer was speaking at the International Government Communications Forum in Sharjah, yesterday.
Published: Wed 28 Mar 2018, 3:00 PM
Last updated: Wed 28 Mar 2018, 5:48 PM
Facebook is "clearly not doing a good job" and needs to be more transparent on what kind of user information they are storing, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has said, blasting the social network for their recent user trust breach.
Spicer, who worked under the Donald Trump administration before resigning, was speaking yesterday at the International Government Communications Forum in Sharjah on the dangers of the digital era and how the private sector and governments can work to improve people's online safety.
His comments on Facebook come after it was reported on March 18 that a British political consulting firm had pulled data of 50 million Facebook users, which was allowed by the social media network. Since then, Facebook has issued an apology for the trust breach. Their shares dropped by $60 billion since the news broke.
"When you look at what's on the news about Facebook now and the amount of information they have on all of their various users, they need to be transparent on what information they have and how that's being shared," Spicer said. "More importantly, how people can protect themselves and how they can eliminate sharing. I'm hoping the private sector engages more on this.
"I think Facebook can clearly be doing a much better job. They have so many users in the US and around the world that use Facebook on a daily basis, share photos, like things and I think they can do a lot more to talk to not just the users but also the governments throughout the world. This is not a US problem, it's not a Middle East problem, it's not an Australian problem or a European problem - it's a global problem. We've seen their share price take a hit and from a commercial standpoint, it's in their best interest to get ahead of this. "
Spicer said that there needs to be a balance between the growing use of technology and ensuring the online safety of users.
He added that users need to be careful when using websites that ask for their Facebook login, which allows the webpage to access the person's entire Facebook data.
"We have a private sector that's creating technologies, which is a very good thing for mankind and for the economies. But it's going so fast that there is an aspect of government that needs to figure out its relationship with it," he said. "Kids and adults around the world are using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, and it can't be stopped. It's going to happen and there's going to be another app and another website. It's going to keep coming. So, the question is - where is that balance between protecting citizens in technology?
"Many of these technologies have moved into the media space. They are sharing information and people are looking at them as authorities. But we have to be careful that we don't stiffen the innovation and the ability for people to share. You're sharing so much of your private information and the question is where does this private information go? We've got to find the balance and a lot of that comes from transparencies.
"Companies need the government at some mid-point because what we don't want to do ends up with these companies trying to create these censorships. We see this on Twitter, where we'll see 'this Tweet is unavailable' and the question to come is who is doing that because it's some anonymous person deciding what should get posted and what should not."
sarwat@khaleejtimes.com
iPhone | iPad
Android
Huawei
