Fixing the privacy and misinformation failures plaguing big tech companies is no easy task — but on both sides of the Atlantic, lawmakers are attempting to jump-start policy conversations in a bid to tackle the issues. The office of Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has written a paper outlining potential policies to regulate social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The suggestions made by Mr. Warner’s office aim to address how privacy, competition, and public discourse are being affected by the misuse of those companies’ services.

The existence of the paper was first reported by Axios and confirmed by The New York Times. In Britain, the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee also has published a report that provided the government with recommendations about how to achieve similar results. Both documents stemmed from investigations into misinformation on social media platforms and offer some common solutions. The reports propose certain guidelines for large tech companies. The suggestions are that the companies should undergo audits of their data and algorithms, be liable if they fail to take down illegal or damaging content.,have a duty to identify and remove fake accounts and be subject to legislation demanding their transparency.

Many of the 20 policy proposals put forward by Mr. Warner’s office are specific to the United States. For example, the paper proposed the United States adopt sweeping new privacy legislation similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and provide the Federal Trade Commission with greater rule-making authority to protect the digital lives of consumers.

Talk of regulating big tech companies began to gain momentum after it came to light that Russia had used platforms including Facebook and Twitter in its attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election race. The efforts gained greater urgency in March after Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica data scandal. These new proposals are among the first to be made by lawmakers since Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, testified before Congress in April about misinformation and data privacy issues on his company’s platform. Big technology companies are well aware that they must act to solve their problems or risk regulation. Facebook and Twitter spent heavily in the second quarter to shore up their networks against abuse.