Gordon Brown has called for regulation to tackle the spread of racist and prejudiced content on social media as he warned of a "fraying of social bonds" and the decline of civic institutions. In a keynote speech on the closing day of the Edinburgh International Festival, the former prime minister said it was "outrageous" that social media giants profit from algorithms that "push the prejudice towards the even more prejudiced". It came as he took a swipe at the BBC over the money it puts into covering the Edinburgh Festival.
“Of course, there is still an issue about finance,” he told the audience at the Festival Theatre, after touching on the event’s history. “Because when I look at The Proms, and when I look at Glastonbury, and the money that the BBC puts into these two festivals, I say, ‘Look, the BBC is not the London and south-east BBC, it is the British Broadcasting Corporation.’” Mr Brown, whose talk focused on the theme of “the world as it is and the world as it can be”, said the world is in the midst of a “geopolitical earthquake”.
He said there are now multiple centres of power, while free trade is being replaced with protectionism. Meanwhile, countries around the world are seeing the rise of a “populist nationalism”. Mr Brown said society had also undergone a transformation, with more individualism and less emphasis on community.
“And this has been amplified by what has been happening in the last 10 or 20 years on social media,” he said. "Now, in theory, the internet allows you to speak to anyone, anywhere, at any time, about anything. In theory, it's about opening up the world and connecting people to each other in a way that is positive, in a way that will change the world for the better.
"In practice, what is happening is that people are retreating into their own silos, retreating into their own bubbles, and talking only to the people they agree with, rather than listening to alternative views, and that's been one of the features that we’ve identified with the riots in the last few weeks." He raised concerns about the weakness of civic institutions. "What we're seeing, in a sense, is a fraying of social bonds, a weakening of our civic institutions, the privatisation of the public square,” he said.
Mr Brown said political and economic action needed to be complemented with “social and cultural interaction”, adding: “We’ve got to find a better way of connecting with people.” He praised the use of citizens’ assemblies in Ireland. On social media, the former prime minister said: "It is absolutely outrageous that someone in a foreign country can broadcast racist propaganda with impunity and without being interfered with.
And it's even more outrageous that the social media companies are getting some money by their algorithms which push the prejudice towards the even more prejudiced and create these exclusion zones of very prejudiced people." He was applauded as he said there needed to be legislation to deal with this. The riots in parts of the UK earlier this month have led to growing calls for further regulation of social media, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer recently saying: “I do think that we’re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder.
” Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has been among those calling for reform, saying recent events had shown regulations due to come into force under the Online Safety Act are “not fit for purpose”..
