News Corp CEO: Social media platforms need 'algorithm review board'
NEW YORK, NY - JULY 08: Robert Thomson (R), CEO of News Corp, and Gerard Baker, Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal, speak at the opening bell of the NASDAQ stock exchange, on July 8, 2014 in New York City. The Wall Street Journal, owned by Ne
The head of multinational media company News Corp is calling for social media platforms to adopt an “algorithm review board” of “experts” to protect the integrity of professional journalism.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NWS | NEWS CORP. | 25.33 | -0.10 | -0.39% |
| FOXA | FOX CORP. | 31.71 | -0.01 | -0.02% |
Robert Thomson, speaking Tuesday at a Washington, D.C., meeting of the left-leaning Open Market Institute, said “sense and nonsense rub shoulders” on social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook, where “the artificial and the asinine thrive and where click-bait cultivators and search engine spivs reap bountiful harvests."
The CEO of News Corp, which is owned by the same interests that own FOX Business and Fox News, said serious damage is being done to future generations by the current media “ecosystem."
"What you have is a lot of young people who are growing up surrounded by much more information but whose provenance is not clear,” he said.
"In the longer term critical judgment will not be as it should be. The rumors will be believed, the fiction will be thought of as fact and the political agendas, among other agendas, will be influenced by interest groups who are coming from some quite strange trajectory to issues based on collective understanding that is founded on falsity."
Thomson said experts are needed to track the “intended and the unintended psychological, and social, and commercial, and political impact of pervasive platforms."
He also blasted social media giants, saying, “If your business model is to commodify content -- which is an egregious mistake because there is a hierarchy of content -- and then allow a search engine or social platform to be easily manipulated by bad actors, then you're failing a basic test of compliance.”