SAN FRANCISCO  - Global watchdogs have a model for policing Big Tech: Wall Street. The G20 set up the Financial Stability Board after last decade’s financial crisis to determine which banks pose systemic risks and create new rules to rein them in. The bloc could take a similar approach to oversee Facebook, Alphabet’s YouTube and Twitter.

Big Tech is under fire across the globe. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg visited France and Germany this year amid pushes for increased regulation. YouTube was accused of taking too long to remove videos related to the March mosque attacks in New Zealand, while Facebook and Twitter have been accused of failing to police anti-Muslim content.

Calls to break up tech giants in the United States are growing. Former Vice President and 2020 presidential contender Joe Biden reckons dismantling Facebook should be considered. Fellow candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren had already called for dismembering Amazon and Alphabet as well as Facebook.

The global salvos could use an international approach akin to the FSB. Overseen by central-bank officials from member countries, it outlined stricter criteria for 30 or so of the world’s biggest banks, ranging from how much extra capital they should hold to how they should plan for a franchise-ending crisis.

This time round, the G20 could set up an Internet Accountability Board to keep tabs on what we can call systemically important internet platforms, or SIIPs. It could establish baseline global standards for them, including privacy, data practices, cyber breaches, election meddling and hate speech. User numbers would determine whether a company should be a SIIP.

Many of these measures would address issues that breakups wouldn’t solve. SIIPs would also face tougher standards than smaller firms, which can’t easily absorb compliance costs. U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle may even agree on such an approach.

One challenge would be getting China, a G20 member that bans Facebook and other U.S. tech giants, on board. Ideally, the rules would apply to Tencent’s WeChat messaging service, microblog Weibo and others. The FSB can serve as a model here, too: It coordinates but doesn’t impose rules, and allows governments to adopt tighter standards.

Silicon Valley might balk at the idea of global regulatory disruption. But it would be more tolerable than the messy patchwork of each country going its own way.

On Twitter https://twitter.com/GinaChon

 

CONTEXT NEWS

- An increasing number of Democratic presidential candidates are calling for tougher scrutiny of Facebook. Former Vice President Joe Biden told the Associated Press on May 13 that breaking up the social-media company is "something we should take a really hard look at," echoing comments made by U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California.

- U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders praised an opinion piece by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on May 9 arguing that Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has too much power and that his firm should be broken up.

- Senator Elizabeth Warren has already released a plan to dismantle Facebook and other tech giants like Amazon and Google parent Alphabet.

- For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on CHON/

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

(Editing by Antony Currie and Amanda Gomez) ((gina.chon@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: gina.chon.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))