[Editorial] Regulating social media

Global big tech companies engaged in vast surveillance; Korea needs to beef up rules

South Korea has nurtured tightly interconnected broadband and mobile networks, a technological environment ideal for new digital and social media platforms. But the country’s record on online privacy protection has a long way to go, with companies big and small often hit by massive user data leaks and hacking incidents.

Korea is also slow to regulate platforms like YouTube, Facebook and X in connection with privacy protection. One reason is that their headquarters and key operations are based outside of the country, which makes it difficult to impose and enforce local regulations or hold those who break Korean regulations accountable.

The Korean government and lawmakers are under pressure to deal with the tricky privacy protection and other issues linked to digital platforms operated by big tech firms, but there is no sign of meaningful progress.

In consideration of new developments and revelations in the US, however, it is time for the Korean government, lawmakers and regulators to jointly formulate specific regulatory measures to deal with a slew of serious problems generated by platform operators by big tech companies both at home and abroad.

On Friday, California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that will allow the state to make it illegal for social media platforms to push addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027.

Under the new law, online platforms cannot send notifications to minors when they are typically in school. They will also have to set children’s accounts to private by default, a measure designed to protect children’s data from relentless online marketing and monetization.

Newsom said the law would help “protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.”

California’s move came a day after the US Federal Trade Commission published a shocking report about the data collection practices of social media platforms and streaming services.

The FTC report said big tech platforms carry out massive and systematic surveillance on both users and nonusers and hold their data indefinitely in a bid to secure huge profits.

“Self-regulation has been a failure,” the report said in summing up the situation where the platform industry collectively runs the distorted incentive structures for harvesting and monetizing user data. Platform companies collect consumer data from various sources, including user tracking tools, algorithms and artificial intelligence. Particularly worrisome is that some platform firms do not delete user data even after deletion requests.

The report is based on the FTC’s study on the data collection practices of global platforms including Amazon, which runs livestreaming platform Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, X, TikTok, Discord, Reddit and WhatsApp -- most of which are accessible here and have a vast pool of Korean users.

Such big platforms not only collect massive amounts of user data, but also analyze user behavior and preference patterns, resulting in a flood of online advertising targeted at specific users.

The report duly recommends authorities curb the surveillance practices and urges platform companies to halt using privacy-intensive tracking technologies.

While the US and EU are stepping up regulations on big tech firms regarding data collection and privacy protection, Korea has yet to address the growing issue of digital data collection and abuse.

On Saturday, more than 6,000 people held a rally in Seoul to call for stronger legal penalties against deepfake crimes victimizing ordinary women -- an issue that illustrates the fast-paced advance in digital technology and related crimes in contrast with the outdated regulations.

Given that Korea confronts a growing number of problems stemming from the massive data harvesting by big tech companies, the government must set up proper regulations on social media and beef up protection rules.

By Korea Herald(khnews@heraldcorp.com)