Weighing in at 108 pages, the final report of the parliamentary committee investigating disinformation makes devastating reading for Facebook, which is accused of greedily squeezing as much profit out of user data as possible, while deceiving or obstructing anyone daring to scrutinise the company’s activities.

The committee’s inquiry has covered an extraordinary amount of terrain in its 18-month lifespan, from Russian election interference to cash-for-passport schemes, and the report is similarly comprehensive.

The committee is extraordinarily critical of Facebook

Anyone coming to the subject fresh would think the committee set out to investigate Facebook, so extensive are the report’s denunciations of its business practices and executive. According to the report, Facebook deliberately broke privacy and competition law, refuses to tackle abusive or misleading accounts, and is staffed by executives who deliberately obstructed or misled the committee.

Facebook’s head of UK public policy said: “We share the committee’s concerns about false news and election integrity and are pleased to have made a significant contribution to their investigation over the past 18 months, answering more than 700 questions and with four of our most senior executives giving evidence.”

Facebook used its market dominance to trade user data with third parties

The report explores at length Facebook’s practice of granting third parties access to user data by including them on a “whitelist” of approved companies. As many as 5,200 apps were whitelisted, including Lyft, Airbnb and Netflix.

The report states Facebook even considered granting the dating app Tinder access to users’ data in exchange for the right to use one of its trademarks, Moments.

A Facebook developer wrote in a 2015 email: “We have been working with [Tinder] in true partnership spirit all this time, delivering value that we think is far greater than this trademark.”

Tech companies and social media should be regulated under law

The report concludes that there is now “an urgent need to establish independent regulation” of tech companies and social media firms. It proposes a compulsory “code of ethics”, similar to that enforced by Ofcom, to be policed by an independent regulator empowered by statute.

Tech firms should be liable for harmful content that they fail to remove, with the regulator able to bring legal proceedings and substantial fines against companies that fail to comply with the code.

Russia is seeking to undermine the legitimacy of the democratic system

The report cites a criminal complaint filed by the FBI last September against a Russian national accused of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election and the 2018 midterms. The complaint accuses the Russian of participating in Project Lakhta, a campaign to propagate distrust of political candidates in elections as well as Western democracy more generally.

Electoral law is unfit for purpose and needs urgent reform

The UK government should define digital political campaigning and online political advertising and reform electoral law, which is described as “unfit for purpose”, to make the sources of online political adverts clear.

It specifically cites the case of Mainstream Network, a pro-Brexit campaign run by unknown individuals that spent £257,000 over 2018 promoting dozens of adverts targeted at specific constituents, encouraging them to write to their MP criticising Theresa May’s Chequers proposal. It complains that Facebook promised answers as to who was behind the campaign, but has thus far failed to provide them.

It calls for the Electoral Commission’s powers to be dramatically enhanced, with powers to compel social media firms to hand over information relevant to its investigations and the lifting of the £20,000 cap on fines for breaches of electoral law.

Leave.EU is accused of misleading parliament

The report also criticises the insurance businessman and founder of Leave.EU Arron Banks, who has been referred to the National Crime Agency over questions about his wealth and the source of the funds behind his campaign.

Banks and his assistant Andy Wigmore “showed complete disregard and disdain for the parliamentary process” when they walked out of a select committee hearing last June, the report says. “It is now evident that they gave misleading evidence to us, too, about the working relationship between Eldon Insurance and Leave.EU.

“They are individuals, clearly, who have less than a passing regard for the truth.”

The source of £435,000 donated to the Democratic Unionist party remains unknown

A group calling itself the Constitutional Research Council donated £435,000 to the DUP, the single largest known donation in Northern Irish history, to be spent campaigning for Brexit. Northern Ireland donations prior to 2017 are secret.

When asked about the source of the money and how he thought it would be spent, the CRC’s chairman and only known member, Richard Cook, replied that he was “greatly amused” and accused the committee of spreading disinformation.

“We believe that, in order to avoid having to disclose the source of this £435,000 donation, the CRC, deliberately and knowingly, exploited a loophole in the electoral law to funnel money to the Democratic Unionist party in Northern Ireland,” the committee concluded.

Golden visas and golden passports

The committee also examined the relationship between Cambridge Analytica and Henley and Partners, a firm that designs and operates “golden visa” and “golden passport” schemes for wealthy investors.

In October the Guardian reported on how Henley and Partners had developed a $3bn (£2.3bn) industry, despite growing concerns among politicians that the schemes, though legal, can be used to facilitate crime and undermine national security.

The report draws no conclusions about the industry, but lists four known examples of individuals who acquired golden passports from the Caribbean state of St Kitts and Nevis and were later accused of serious offences.

MPs have, however, called for a review of the UK Bribery Act, under which British companies can be prosecuted for corrupting foreign officials. The report states Henley worked with Nix to help finance an election in St Kitts.

The report cites the Guardian’s investigation, which revealed Henley had recruited donors to pay for the services Nix’s business SCL Elections, which ran the 2010 re-election campaign for the St Kitts prime minister Denzil Douglas. The assistance was offered at a time when Henley was a major contractor to the St Kitts government, earning millions by marketing the country’s passports to foreign buyers. Henley denies wrongdoing.

Digital literacy

The committee recommends that “digital literacy should be a fourth pillar of education, alongside reading, writing and maths” and calls on existing regulators to harmonise their approach to promoting greater public understanding of people’s rights online.

Tech firms have spent years designing their platforms to be “frictionless” and allow users to consume and publish information with ever greater ease. The committee calls for this trend to be reversed, and for users to be allowed “more pause for thought” before they make a judgement about what to post online.