Mark Zuckerberg not interested

THE National and Post-Courier ran front page articles about Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg during the Apec leaders’ summit in Peru recently.
Others were New Zealand’s John Kerry and Canada’s Justine Trudeau.
I realised that the news covered the three Prime Ministers’ mad rush to address the peddling in of fake news and abuse of the social media platform.
The peddling in of fake news and abuse has been an ongoing issue which begs a favourable response from Zuckerberg.
Despite the efforts from the three leaders, I read no tread of an absolute answer from Zuckerberg, which means he is not open to political intervention on how he runs his global business.
The reason for his tight-lip shows the unofficial and unpremeditated nature of the topic at the Apec summit.
While Facebook is operating as an over-the-top internet business for the mobile phone industry, internet and communication authorities and departments in countries around the world are providing or trying to provide the regulatory savvy to minimise the abuse of internet applications and the peddling in of fake news.
It is worth noting that any regulatory requirements are largely embedded in the political and institutional dimensions which the unofficial meeting with Zuckerberg exemplifies.
By contrast, any form of political or institutional interventions can perhaps alter business operations of all types and sizes and this is non-exclusive in case of Facebook.
Furthermore, to effect any regulatory requirements independently by a national government would perhaps require the allocation of significant resources by the individual state governments which will severely bring the national budgets to its knees.
In PNG, the cyber-crime law and other related regulatory frameworks are political and institutional fantasies which will perhaps take time for more planning to accustom ourselves to technological advancements or else, we all should wait for another wave of technological revolution.
So in the interim, it is better the use of the over-the-top internet application is left to user conscientiousness and application of moral discipline, which in some case each government and private sector can promote through some other strategies.

Mike Haro, Via email