Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, should be forced to be more transparent about whether foreign powers are behind posts on their platforms, a watchdog has said.
Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of state threats legislation, suggested new laws could be required to compel the social media giants to reveal the “extent of foreign interference” online.
The senior lawyer also called for trials for alleged foreign interference offences under the 2023 National Security Act to be held in “open court beneath the public gaze”.
Mr Hall said the internet is the “perfect forum for foreign interference” because it was easy to use and “hard to attribute” to an overseas actor.
“I have no reason to doubt that the online world will play an outsized role in foreign interference investigations, even though the General Election seems to have passed without signs of disturbance,” he told the Royal United Services Institute in London.
The internet was a “cheap and obvious way to persuade, distract and influence”.
But regulator Ofcom had “many priorities” and may not be able to police foreign interference online, he warned.
And the sites were making access to their information “far too expensive for civil society organisations” to monitor, meaning that “tech platforms may ultimately be left to mark their own homework”.
He wished “civil society organisations could have a greater role in monitoring the extent of foreign interference that tech companies are prepared to tolerate on their platforms” and “I would welcome legislation requiring much greater transparency from platforms”.
Mr Hall also urged the authorities not to use the National Security Act to hold secret court hearings on allegations of foreign interference.
He said that would undermine two of the main aims of the offence: publicly “calling out the foreign hand” and warning citizens against “entanglement” with overseas powers.
He said: “Given the quality and expertise of our journalists and the strength of our judicial system, I hope that when the foreign interference offence comes to be tested, it is tested in open court beneath the public gaze.
“There is a power under the National Security Act to exclude the public from criminal proceedings in the interests of national security.
“I recognise that such a power is inevitable in a statute designed to combat the foreign hand, but my firm hope is that the public are excluded as little as possible.”