parliament: The report Accuses Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's co-founder and chief executive, of contempt for parliament in refusing three separate demands for him to give evidence, instead sending junior employees unable to answer the committee's questions, according to The Guardian. Warns British electoral law is unfit for purpose and vulnerable to interference by hostile foreign actors, including agents of the Russian government attempting to discredit democracy. 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, warned the committee's chairman, Damian Collins. Calls on the British government to establish an independent investigation into foreign influence, disinformation, funding, voter manipulation and the sharing of data in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2016 EU referendum and the 2017 general election. We need new independent regulation with a tough powers and sanctions regime to curb the worst excesses of surveillance capitalism and the forces trying to use technology to subvert our democracy. Labour moved quickly to endorse the committee's findings, with the party's deputy leader, Tom Watson, announcing Labour agrees with the committee's ultimate conclusion the era of self-regulation for tech companies must end immediately.
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