In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) denounced Republican senators for saying that the U.S. should follow the lead of other countries on subsidizing the computer chips manufacturing industry, instead of on measures like universal health care.
As Sanders highlighted in his speech, recent reporting from The Associated Press found that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and other Republicans believe that the U.S. should join other countries in giving large subsidies to chip manufacturers like Intel by passing the Senate’s $76 billion chips bill. The Vermont senator pointed out that these same lawmakers don’t believe that the U.S. should follow the lead of other countries when it comes to expanding the social safety net.
“Now I find the position of Senator Romney and others to be really quite interesting because I personally have been on this floor many many times urging the Senate to look to other countries around the world and learn from those countries,” Sanders said. “And what I have said is that it is a bit absurd that, here in the United States, we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all of their people.”
He said that the U.S. should join countries like Germany, where higher education is largely free. The U.S. should also join every other wealthy country in the world in guaranteeing its workers paid family and medical leave, Sanders said — measures that he and Democratic lawmakers tried to pass in last year’s Build Back Better Act.
“Let’s join the club!” he exclaimed several times.
Republicans and conservative Democrats were uniformly opposed to provisions for paid family leave during last year’s Build Back Better Act negotiations, claiming that the federal deficit and excess government spending justified their opposition to the bill. But these same lawmakers seem to have no problem spending billions funding the corporate oligarchy in the U.S., Sanders said.
The real reason that lawmakers are so eager to pass the bill, the senator went on, is because computer chip manufacturers and lobbyists are compelling them to do so. “But I gather the problem is that to join those clubs — in terms of universal health care, in terms of paid family and medical leave, in terms of free tuition at public colleges and universities — we’re going to have to take on powerful special interests and they make campaign contributions, so that’s not what the Senate does,” he said.
He concluded by saying that, in addition to his concerns about corporate welfare, he is worried that the bill will set a precedent for companies to operate however they want without consequence. “What the precedent is is that any company who is prepared to go abroad, who has ignored the needs of the American people, will then say to Congress, ‘hey, if you want us to stay here, you better give us a handout,’” he said.
Sanders has continually spoken out against the Senate’s bill to provide $52 billion to chips manufacturers, which he says is tantamount to corporate welfare for major manufacturers. These manufacturers have made huge profits during the pandemic and paid their CEOs millions of dollars in compensation, profiting from a global chips shortage that has allowed companies to majorly hike their prices.
The bill cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday, setting it up for passage soon.
Last week, Sanders introduced an amendment to the legislation that would restrict the funds, ensuring that a company that accepts the subsidies cannot use the funds on stock buybacks, outsourcing jobs to other countries or union busting.
Digital transparency, the examination of algorithms and their impact, and increased collaboration between agencies have been identified as 2022-23 priorities for the Digital Platform Regulators Forum, a collective of Australia’s online, privacy, media, and competition and consumer regulators . The Forum members, which are the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Australian Media and Communications…
After Apple employees in Maryland voted Saturday to form the tech giant’s first retail store union in the United States, workers’ rights advocates across the country celebrated the “pathbreaking win for labor.”
Workers at the store in Towson recently organized into the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE) and have decided to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).
“We did it!” IAM declared on Twitter, welcoming the Towson workers.
IAM international president Robert Martinez Jr. in a statement that “I applaud the courage displayed by CORE members at the Apple store in Towson for achieving this historic victory. They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election.”
“I ask Apple CEO Tim Cook to respect the election results and fast-track a first contract for the dedicated IAM CORE Apple employees in Towson,” Martinez added. “This victory shows the growing demand for unions at Apple stores and different industries across our nation.”
That feeling when you form the first union at Apple in America. Congrats, @acoreunion!
The win in Maryland comes as Amazon and Starbucks workers across the nation are also pushing for unions — and the companies are fighting back.
Apple is no different, according to More Perfect Union and The Washington Post, which reported that “Saturday evening’s initial tally was 65-33, and the official count was pending.”
While an Apple representative declined to comment, Towson worker Billy Jarboe told the newspaper that the company’s campaign to undermine the union drive “definitely shook people,” but most supporters of the effort weren’t swayed.
“It just feels good to go into a new era of this kind of work, hopefully it creates a spark [and] the other stores can use this momentum,” Jarboe said.
Eric Brown, another employee in Towson, told the Post that organizers of an unsuccessful unionization campaign at an Atlanta store “let us know what some of the talking points and tactics were going to be, and we were able to let people know some of the things they may try.”
Tyra Reeder similarly toldThe New York Times that “we kind of got some insight from the Atlanta store on things that were coming,” pointing to the company’s claims that a contract negitation process could lead to workers losing some benefits.
“For that to happen, a majority of us have to agree,” Reeder said. “I don’t think any of us would agree to lose something we love dearly, that benefits us.”
As for being an Apple employee, Reeder said: “We love our jobs. We just want to see them do better.”
The most valuable companies in the stock market today can be found in the technology sector. The first publicly traded company in history to reach a $1 trillion valuation was Apple in 2018. While it took the company more than 40 years to reach that milestone, less than four years later its valuation has increased by a further two trillion, reaching another record breaking $3 trillion. The “trillion dollar club” has also since expanded to include three more companies – all of them in the technology sector.
However, the markets appear to be falling out of love with the big tech . Earlier in 2022 Facebook lost $230bn in value in the biggest one-day stock plunge in history. It has since been overshadowed by several similar collapses that have (as of today) erased more than $2.6 trillion from the value of the five largest tech companies since the start of the year.
As the federal election looms, the final bursts of campaign fervor, news coverage and election chatter spreads nationally. For many people, this information is disseminated on online platforms and social media, yet technology policy is noticeably absent from the election campaigns of many candidates. As we continue to live our lives in a digitally mediated…
Sweeping reforms proposed by the Australian competition watchdog would “fundamentally change” the iPhone and App Store and lead to “significant consumer detriment”, Apple has said in a submission to government. A number of the biggest tech companies in the world have made submissions to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) fifth interim report, raising…
Initially, not only had PayPal banned Consortium News from receiving new donations, but it had informed Lauria that PayPal may keep the nearly $10,000 in the news site’s account as “damages.” After this interview was recorded, PayPal relented on keeping those funds, while, as of this writing, it is still banning new donations. To Lauria and Scheer, these chilling decisions on behalf of inordinately powerful tech companies are ushering a dangerous era of censorship that is even more alarming than the McCarthy period. Listen to the full discussion between Lauria and Scheer to understand why the two journalists have come to this harrowing conclusion about Big Tech, dissent, and the future of journalism as we know it.
As the bloody conflict in Ukraine continues to escalate, so does the online propaganda war between Russia and the West. A prime example of this is the White House directly briefing influencers on popular social media app TikTok about the war and how to cover it. As the crisis spirals out of control, Americans have turned to TikTok to view real time videos and analysis of the invasion. With the app estimated to have around 70 million U.S. users, the White House is keenly aware of its impact. “We recognize this is a critically important avenue in the way the American public is finding out about the latest … so we wanted to make sure you had the latest information from an authoritative source,” President Joe Biden’s director of digital strategy, Rob Flaherty, told 30 top TikTok influencers. Since 2020, there has been a wave of former spooks, spies and mandarins appointed to influential positions within TikTok, particularly around content and policy – some of whom, on paper at least, appear unqualified for such roles.
From Activision to Amazon, historic union elections are changing the way that Americans think about work. Now, Apple is the next tech giant to reckon with an employee-driven labor movement. Calling themselves the Fruit Stand Workers United (FSWU), employees at Apple’s Grand Central Terminal retail location launched a website designed to educate their fellow workers about why they want to unionize their store. “Year over year, the cost of living in New York City has not kept pace with our wages,” the FSWU’s mission statement reads. “Meanwhile, Apple has grown to be the most valuable company in the world. Why should its retail workers live precariously?”
In the space of a few years, the debate on how to rein in Big Tech has become mainstream, discussed across the political spectrum. Yet, so far the proposals to regulate largely fail to address the capitalist, imperialist and environmental dimensions of digital power, which together are deepening global inequality and pushing the planet closer to collapse. We urgently need to build a ecosocialist digital ecosystem, but what would that look like and how can we get there?
Interesting Teach-in, well, discussion, with the speakers below. You will hear Scott Ritter divert from some of these speakers saying that the actions by Russia in Ukraine are legal, ethical and necessary.
Here is Ritter, just interviewed, Strategic Culture. Note that Ritter is called a traitor (for looking at the Russian military and political angles) and a Putin Stooge (this is it for Western Woke Culture) and he’s been banned on Twitter for a day, and then back up, and the seesaw of social media continues (more McCarthy: The New Democratic Opperative). You do not have to agree with militarism, but here we are, so the Western Woke Fascist Media and the Mendacious Political Class want nothing to do with, well, military minds looking at Russia (Ritter studied Russia big-time, and studied their military big time, both Soviet Union and Russia). He also is married to a Georgian. But again, this is it for the Western Intellect (sic).
Like we can’t watch Graham Phillips work, without being called, well, Russian Stooges. The Mainlining Mendacious Media calls him a Russian Sympathizer. Imagine that. For years,, he’s been a sympathizer (he is British, speaks Russian and goes to the actual places with camera in hand. Look at the one on Ossetia, the breakaway republic of Georgia. It is delightful (note the dinner he is served by the typical family):
Here, from, “The Ukrainian Conflict Is a U.S./NATO Proxy War, but One Which Russia Is Poised to Win Decisively – Scott Ritter” by Finian Cunningham, April 9, 2022
Question: Do you think that Russia has a just cause in launching its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24?
Scott Ritter: I believe Russia has articulated a cognizable claim of preemptive collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The threat posed by NATO expansion, and Ukraine’s eight-year bombardment of the civilians of the Donbass fall under this umbrella.
Question: Do you think Russia has legitimate concerns about the Pentagon sponsoring biological weapons programs in laboratories in Ukraine?
Scott Ritter: The Pentagon denies any biological weapons program, but admits biological research programs on Ukrainian soil. Documents captured by Russia have allegedly uncovered the existence of programs the components of which could be construed as having offensive biological warfare applications. The U.S. should be required to explain the purpose of these programs.
Question: What do you make of allegations in Western media that Russian troops committed war crimes in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities? It is claimed that Russian forces summarily executed civilians.
Scott Ritter: All claims of war crimes must be thoroughly investigated, including Ukrainian allegations that Russia killed Ukrainian civilians in Bucha. However, the data available about the Bucha incident does not sustain the Ukrainian claims, and as such, the media should refrain from echoing these claims as fact until a proper investigation of the evidence is conducted, either by the media, or unbiased authorities.
While one may be able to mount a legal challenge to Russia’s contention that its joint operation with Russia’s newly recognized independent nations of Lugansk and Donetsk constitutes a “regional security or self-defense organization” as regards “anticipatory collective self-defense actions” under Article 51, there can be no doubt as to the legitimacy of Russia’s contention that the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass had been subjected to a brutal eight-year-long bombardment that had killed thousands of people.
Moreover, Russia claims to have documentary proof that the Ukrainian Army was preparing for a massive military incursion into the Donbass which was pre-empted by the Russian-led “special military operation.” [OSCE figures show an increase of government shelling of the area in the days before Russia moved in.]
Finally, Russia has articulated claims about Ukraine’s intent regarding nuclear weapons, and in particular efforts to manufacture a so-called “dirty bomb”, which have yet to be proven or disproven. [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a reference to seeking a nuclear weapon in February at the Munich Security Conference.]
The bottom line is that Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self defense, devised originally by the U.S. and NATO, as it applies to Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction. (Ritter, Russia, Ukraine & the Law of War: Crime of Aggression)
[Nuremberg Trials. 1st row: Hermann Göring, Rudolf Heß, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel. 2nd row: Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel. (Office of the U.S. Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality/Still Picture Records LICON, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S)]
All the speakers, except maybe excluding John Kiriakou, have great points to make: Andrei Martyanov, expert on Russian military affairs, author The Real Revolution in Military Affairs; Chris Kaspar de Ploeg, author Ukraine in the Crossfire; James Carden, Adviser U.S.-Russia bilateral commission during the Obama administration & Ex. Editor of The American Committee for East-West accord; Scott Ritter, former U.S. Marine Intelligence officer, UN Arms Inspector, exposed WMD lie in U.S. push to invade Iraq; John Kiriakou, CIA whistleblower and Radio Sputnik host; Ron Ridenour, peace activist, author The Russian Peace Threat; Gerald Horne, historian, author, Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston; Jeremy Kuzmarov, CAM Managing Editor and author of The Russians Are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce.
Imagine, the provocations.
The US government invoked self-defense as a legal justification for its invasion of Panama. Several scholars and observers have opined that the invasion was illegal under international law.
Oh, those Freedom Fighters, the back-shooting, civilian-killing, village-burning Contras:
Appendix A: Background on United States Funding of the Contras
In examining the allegations in the Mercury News and elsewhere, it is important to understand the timing of funding of the Contras by the United States. The following dates explain the periods during which the United States government provided funding to the Contras or cut off such funding.
Anastasio Somoza Debayle was the leader of Nicaragua from 1967 until July 1979, when he was overthrown by the Sandinistas. When President Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, he promptly canceled the final $15 million payment of a $75 million aid package to Nicaragua, reversing the Carter administration’s policy towards Nicaragua. On November 17, 1981, President Reagan signed National Security Directive 17, authorizing provision of covert support to anti-Sandinista forces. On December 1, 1981, Reagan signed a document intending to conceal the November 17 authorization of anti-Sandinista operations. The document characterized the United States’ goal in Nicaragua as that of interdicting the flow of arms from Nicaragua to El Salvador, where leftist guerrillas were receiving aid from Sandinista forces.
In late 1982, Edward P. Boland, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, introduced an amendment to the Fiscal Year 1983 Defense Appropriations bill that prohibited the CIA, the principal conduit of covert American support for the Contras, from spending funds “for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua.” However, the CIA could continue to support the Contras if it claimed that the purpose was something other than to overthrow the government. In December 1983, a compromise was reached and Congress passed a funding cap for fiscal year 1984 of $24 million for aid to the Contras, an amount significantly lower than what the Reagan administration wanted, with the possibility that the Administration could seek supplemental funds later.
This funding was insufficient to support the Administration’s “Contra program” and the decision was made to approach other countries for monetary support. In April 1984, Robert McFarlane convinced Saudi Arabia to contribute $1 million per month to the Contras through a secret bank account set up by Lt. Col. Oliver North.
In October 1984, the second Boland amendment took effect. It prohibited any military or paramilitary support for the Contras from October 3, 1984, through December 19, 1985. As a result, the CIA and Department of Defense (DOD) began withdrawing personnel from Central America. During this time, however, the National Security Council continued to provide support to the Contras.
In August 1985, Congress approved $25 million in humanitarian aid to the Contras, with the proviso that the State Department, and not the CIA or the DOD, administer the aid. President Reagan created the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO) to supply the humanitarian aid. In September 1985, Oliver North began using the Salvadoran air base at Ilopango for Contra resupply efforts.
On October 5, 1986, a plane loaded with supplies for the Contras, financed by private benefactors, was shot down by Nicaraguan soldiers. On board were weapons and other lethal supplies and three Americans. One American, Eugene Hasenfus, claimed while in custody that he worked for the CIA. The Reagan Administration denied any knowledge of the private resupply efforts.
On October 17, 1986, Congress approved $100 million in funds for the Contras. In 1987, after the discovery of private resupply efforts orchestrated by the National Security Council and Oliver North, Congress ceased all but “non-lethal” aid in 1987. The war between the Sandinistas and the Contras ended with a cease-fire in 1990.
Although the Contras were often referred to as one group, several distinct factions made up the Contras.
In August 1980, Colonel Enrique Bermudez, a former Colonel in Somoza’s National Guard, united other former National Guard officers and anti-Sandinista civilians to form the Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense (FDN). This group was known as the Northern Front because it was based in Honduras. In February 1983, Adolfo Calero became the head of the FDN.
In April 1982, Eden Pastora split from the Sandinista regime and organized the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) and the Sandinista Revolutionary Front (FRS), which declared war on the Sandinista regime. Pastora’s group was based in Costa Rica and along the southern border of Nicaragua, and therefore became known as the Southern Front. Pastora refused to work with Bermudez, claiming that Bermudez, as a member of the former Somoza regime, was politically tainted. The CIA decided to support the FDN and generally declined to support the ARDE.
Again, let’s think about what is actually happening in Ukraine, and where the country is, and what the Russians in that country are facing, and, gulp, where is Ukraine? Thousands of miles away, like Panama and Nicaragua are from USA?
As the war in Ukraine rages on, I visited the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as an embedded reporter with the Russian army.
Both of the republics are the trigger of the current conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared their independence on February 24, 2022, something a lot of people were waiting for since the CIA backed coup in Ukraine of February 2014. That coup had resulted in the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and new laws forcing the Ukrainian language on Russian-speaking residents. Luhansk and Donetsk consequently voted on their independence and Ukraine attacked them, precipitating the war.
European support for the so-called Maidan coup was considerable: the Dutch MP Hans van Baalen from the ruling Dutch VVD party (Mark Rutte), for example, was at the protests that helped trigger the coup, as was the former Prime Minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt. Both were seen cheering on the crowds, surrounded by right-extremists on the stage, shouting “democracy.”
So what is preemptive defense? Right to Protect? What is big ugly history of Nazi’s in Poland and Ukraine? What is that all about, uh, Americanum?
So, plans by ZioLensky for Dirty Bombs from the wasteland of Chernobyl, not a provocation?
How many were immolated in Waco? Why? Mount Carmel Center became engulfed in flames. The fire resulted in the deaths of 76 Branch Davidians, including 25 children, two pregnant women, and David Koresh himself.
Oh, the impatience of the USA, FBI, ATF, Attorney General, Bill Clinton, the lot of them.
Or, dropping bombs on Philly, to kill, well, black people:
How many died, and what happened to the city block? Bombs dropped on our own people, again! Police dropped a bomb on a West Philly house in 1985. The fire caused by the explosion killed 11 people, an atrocity that Philadelphia still grapples with today.
Oh, the irony.
Black Lives Do Not Matter, here, or in Ukraine. Below, representation of those lives killed by cops, of all races, in one year. Many of these in a year, 60 percent, did not involve a person with a gun, and a huge number, 40 percent, involved people going throug mental health crises.
[Foreign students trying to reach the Ukrainian border said they were thrown off trains, not allowed on buses, and made to wait hours in the cold before crossing over.]
Yes, the first casualty of war is truth, and with the USA as the Empire of Lies and Hate, the casualty is now a larger framework of a Zombie Nation of virtue signalers and those who want the fake news to be real, please!
So far as I know, this is the first war in modern history with no objective, principled coverage in mainstream media of day-to-day events and their context. None. It is morn-to-night propaganda, disinformation and lies of omission — most of it fashioned by the Nazi-infested Zelensky regime in Kiev and repeated uncritically as fact.
There is one thing worse than this degenerate state of affairs. It is the extent to which the media’s malpractice is perfectly fine to most Americans. Tell us what to think and believe no matter if it is true, they say, and we will think and believe it. Show us some pictures, for images are all.
There are larger implications to consider here. Critical as it is that we understand this conflict, Ukraine is a mirror in which we see ourselves as we have become. For more Americans than I wish were so, reality forms only in images. These Americans are no longer occupants of their own lives. Risking a paradox, what they take to be reality is detached from reality.
This majority — and it is almost certainly a majority — has no thoughts or views except those first verified through the machinery of manufactured images and “facts.” Television screens, the pages of purportedly authoritative newspapers, the air waves of government-funded radio stations — NPR, the BBC — serve to certify realities that do not have to be real, truths that do not have to be true.
Before proceeding to Bucha, the outrage of the moment, I must reproduce a quotation from that propaganda-is-O.K. piece The Times published in its March 3 editions. It is from a Twitter user who was distressed that it became public that the Ghost of Kiev turned out to be a ghost and the Snake Island heroes didn’t do much by way of holding the fort.
‘Why can’t we just let people believe some things?’ this thoughtful man or woman wanted to know. What is wrong, in other words, if thinking and believing nice things that aren’t true makes people feel better? (Patrick Lawrence, Special to Consortium News)
Daniel Boorstin’s The Image: A Guide to Pseudo- Events in America, has been cited by yours truly several times. It is a completely amazing work, sixty years ahead of its time, and it is almost completely ignored!.
I describe the world of our making, how we have used our wealth, our literacy, our technology, and our progress to create the thicket of unreality which stands between us and the facts of life. …. The reporter’s task is to find a way to weave these threads of unreality into a fabric the reader will not recognize as entirely unreal. (Boorstin)
Here’s how corporate-controlled Wikipedia describes In-Q-Tel: “An American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in high-tech companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability.”
While you gossiped about Will Smith or waved a Ukrainian flag, did you have any clue that the CIA has had its own venture capital firm since 1998?
On the In-Q-Tel (IQT) website, they openly explain their mission: “To invest in cutting-edge technologies to enhance the national security of the United States.” (See some of the companies they’ve invested in here.)
Jeffrey Smith, the former general counsel of the CIA, was one of a small group of intelligence community insiders who helped set up In-Q-Tel. He explains the firm’s name as such: “We really needed something that also had appeal to a wider audience and, frankly, had some sex to it.”
Thus, In-Q-Tel is named after Q, the fictional character who makes gadgets for James Bond. Those murderous spies are so damn clever, aren’t they?
“Much of the touch-screen technology used now in iPads and other things came out of various companies that In-Q-Tel identified,” Smith told NPR in 2012. IQT also bonded very early with an obscure little company you may have heard of: Google. The collaboration started when IQT funded a company that connected satellite images and maps. That company was later bought up by Google and became Google Earth.
“The U.S. Department of Defense’s bloated budget, along with CIA venture capital, helped to create tech giants, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and PayPal,” explains T. J. Coles, director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research. “The government then contracts those companies to help its military and intelligence operations. In doing so, it makes the tech giants even bigger.”
Coles adds: “The companies that many of us take for granted — including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and PayPal — are connected indirectly and sometimes very directly to the U.S. military-intelligence complex.”
According to a detailed report by Open the Government, Jeff Bezos and Amazon were favorites of the U.S. intelligence “community” from Day One and they still enjoy a rather cozy and lucrative relationship. Currently, more than half of the former government employees hired by Amazon have been from the Defense Department.
Amazon also provides cloud services to the CIA — at a cost of billions. Also, in 2013, Amazon signed a Pentagon IT contract for $10 billion to create the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program (JEDI). According to the Pentagon, Amazon technology supports their “lethality and enhanced operational efficiency.”
After a more recent CIA-Amazon deal in November 2020, a company spokesperson explained that Amazon is “honored to continue to support the intelligence community as they expand their transformational use of cloud computing.”
Another company/product directly funded by the CIA and In-Q-Tel is the data visualization tool, Palantir. IQT invested in the early 2000s and Palantir is now worth roughly $38 billion. Palantir was the brainchild of Peter Thiel — a co-founder of PayPal, the first outside investor in Facebook, and a graduate of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders indoctrination camp, I mean… program.
“Palantir and its ability to make sense of a disordered mass of data are highly valued by spies,” explains journalist, Thibault Henneton. Palantir consultants include former CIA director George Tenet and former U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
Do you get it yet?
Our lives are currently being manipulated and controlled by a shadow government that transcends national borders or loyalty. This corporate-state nexus coerces you into focusing on trivialities like Hollywood, party politics, etc. Meanwhile, the clowns you vote for, the media you watch, and the social media you obsess over are all owned and operated by (mostly) faceless psychopaths that move effortlessly between the “public” and “private” sectors.
Unless and until we say no to the monopoly capitalists, ruthless spies, and sociopathic transhumanists, we remain willing slaves to a lethal and immoral system. They manufacture our opinions, our desires, our dreams. But their power is so, so tenuous.
If it’s true freedom and autonomy you seek, all you have to do is stop conforming and stop fearing the wrath of the hive mind. Sure, it’s never easy to buck the system but if you don’t, you are living a life of delusion, submission, and fear.
The media regulator will be handed new powers to enforce social media misinformation codes, nearly three years after this recommendation was first made and almost a year since a report on it was provided to the federal government. The announcement represents a significant change in approach from the federal government, after its previous reliance on…
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House Judiciary Committee asked the Justice Department to probe whether or not Amazon illegally impeded the committee’s antitrust investigation into the company.
During the committee’s 16-month long probe that ended in 2020, the company engaged in “potentially criminal conduct,” the representatives said in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. That top Amazon executives lied to the committee suggests that the company was attempting to “influence, obstruct, or impede” the investigation, the committee continued.
Throughout the investigation, “Amazon repeatedly endeavored to thwart the Committee’s efforts to uncover the truth about Amazon’s business practices,” the lawmakers wrote. “For this, it must be held accountable.”
Impeding on a congressional inquiry or investigation amounts to an obstruction of Congress, which is a federal crime. Amazon has denied that it lied during the investigation.
Lawmakers, including committee chair Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) and antitrust subcommittee vice chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington), say that executives have painted a rosy picture of its internal practices regarding data collection. The company’s testimony describing its internal policies was “ever shifting,” the lawmakers said.
While Amazon executives denied that the company was using data from third-party sellers to compete with them, testimony from Amazon employees and reporting has revealed that the company has in fact done exactly that, in order to create products that would compete with other sellers.
Amazon employees regularly violated the company’s supposed “Seller Data Protection Policy,” making a distinction between individual data on sellers versus aggregated data for the company to use. Lawmakers said that company officials were aware that employees were violating the policy.
Reporters have found that Amazon prioritized its own products in customer search queries, the committee said, despite the company claiming that it didn’t do so.
Lawmakers gave the company the opportunity to correct its previous misleading statements, but the company doubled down. “After Amazon was caught in a lie and repeated misrepresentations, it stonewalled the Committee’s efforts to uncover the truth,” the letter says.
“The Committee gave Amazon a final opportunity to provide evidence either correcting the record or corroborating the representations it had made to the Committee under oath and in written statements,” the lawmakers said. “Instead of taking advantage of this opportunity to provide clarity, however, Amazon offered conclusory denials of adverse facts.”
As a result of the committee’s investigation, the lawmakers called for stricter regulation of Amazon and other large companies like Facebook and Google. Their 449-page report said that tech behemoths have turned into “the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons” that abuse their power to create anti-competitive conditions. Wednesday’s referral is an escalation of actions against Amazon as it faces scrutiny from members of both major political parties.
As the organized opposition to the “Big Tech loophole law” ballot initiative grows in Massachusetts, a number of key consumer, community, and civil rights groups have joined with workers’ rights advocates to announce their commitment of activating and growing the coalition opposing that initiative under a new name: Massachusetts is not for Sale.
Outgoing competition watchdog Rod Sims has laid out a post-pandemic economic reform plan for Australia centred on new merger rules, further crackdowns on Big Tech and a complete rework of privacy laws. Mr Sims also flagged further regulatory crackdowns targeted at large digital platforms, with a new discussion paper on the topic to be released…
Artificial intelligence has often been adopted in ways that reinforce exploitation and domination. But that doesn’t mean we should greet all new AI tools with refusal.
For advocates of cryptocurrency, the promise of an economic future that is managed by a blockchain (a decentralized database that is shared among the nodes of a computer network, as opposed to being held in a single location, such as a central bank) is compelling. For anyone paying attention, the rapid expansion of cryptocurrency has been stunning. In 2019, the global cryptocurrency market was approximately $793 million. It’s now expected to reach nearly $5.2 billion by 2026, according to a report by the market research organization Facts and Factors. In just one year — between July 2020 and June 2021 — the global adoption of cryptocurrency surged by more than 880 percent.
But the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency has environmentalists on edge, as the digital “mining” of it creates a massive carbon footprint due to the staggering amount of energy it requires. Based on data from the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index from Digiconomist, an online tool created by data scientist Alex de Vries, the carbon footprint of Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, is equivalent to that of New Zealand, with both emitting nearly 37 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, according to a February 2021 CNBC article.
To understand why this is a problem, it’s important to explain what goes into creating a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Unlike fiat money, which is regulated through central banks, transactions in Bitcoin are tracked through a public ledger consisting of a network of computers around the world: the blockchain. “Mining” — a process in which computational puzzles are solved in order to verify transactions between users, which are then added to the blockchain — allows this validation process to take place, which is an energy-intensive process.
It’s been a bit of a wild ride for Bitcoin. The market price of a single Bitcoin plunged below $30,000 in June 2021 for the first time since January 2021 — falling by more than half from its April peak of around $65,000. Nevertheless, some analysts and billionaire investors are still feeling bullish about the crypto coin, as several leading businesses continue to adopt the currency.
Goldman Sachs started trading Bitcoin futures (agreeing to transact the coin at a predetermined future date and price). Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. PayPal announced in March 2021 that it would allow its U.S. customers to use cryptocurrency to pay its millions of online merchants. In September, El Salvador became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender. This, coupled with the fact that big name brands like AT&T, Home Depot, Microsoft, Starbucks and Whole Foods now accept Bitcoin payments, could pave the way for mainstream use. But if the bulls are right and the price of a single Bitcoin eventually hits $500,000, it would pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than what is released by countries like Brazil or Mexico.
Another sector shaken up by digital assets is the art world, as digital artworks have been making headlines for the huge amounts they’ve been selling for on the market through the use of non-fungible tokens, more commonly known as NFTs, a type of guarantee backed by the Ethereum blockchain. In simpler terms, the works are created, or “minted,” through a process called proof-of-work (PoW), which establishes its unique identity, as explained in an article on Hyperallergic.
The carbon footprint of a single Ethereum transaction as of December 2021 was 102.38 kilograms of CO2, which is “Equivalent to the carbon footprint of 226,910 Visa transactions or 17,063 hours of watching YouTube,” according to Digiconomist. Meanwhile, the electrical energy footprint of a single Ethereum transaction is about the same amount as the power that an average U.S. household uses in 7.28 days, the website further states.
In March 2021, Austrian architect Chris Precht announced that he was “[abandoning] plans to sell digital artworks backed by NFTs due to the environmental impact of mining the digital tokens,” according to Dezeen magazine. He said that he had created three digital artworks and wanted to sell them using blockchain technology. “I wanted to create 300 tokens because I had three art pieces and I wanted to make each one in an edition of 100.… I would have used the amount of electricity I usually use in two decades,” Precht explained.
“[W]e’re largely powering 21st-century technology with 19th-century energy sources,” Andrew Hatton, head of information technology at Greenpeace United Kingdom, toldCNBC. He attributes this energy usage to the “huge amount of data-crunching needed to create and maintain this cyber-currency,” a process that demands a lot of electricity. The problem, according to Hatton, is that “only about a fifth of the electricity used in the world’s data centers comes from renewable sources.”
Another crucial aspect to cryptocurrency is that there is only a limited supply available. So, over time, as more Bitcoin is mined, the complex math problems needed for transactions get harder to solve, demanding more energy in turn. The system is designed this way so that each digital token that gets issued contains its own unique cryptographic reference to the blockchain, ensuring its security. The issue of energy usage over time is further exacerbated by incentives attached to mining. In terms of Bitcoin, each time a miner solves the complex hashing algorithm required to produce Bitcoin (the “PoW”), they receive a small amount of the cryptocurrency itself.
The inherent problem with this, as Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum, toldCNBC, is that “the more successful bitcoin gets, the higher the price goes; the higher the price goes, the more competition for bitcoin; and thus the more energy is expended to mine [it].” As the price continues to rise, so will the incentive to mine the cryptocurrency, creating a feedback loop that spells trouble for the climate.
“Such numbers should be taken with a good deal of salt. Bitcoin’s energy use depends crucially on its price, which swings wildly. The authors [of a paper published in April in the journal Nature Communications] assume that the long-term trend will be upward, because the rate at which new bitcoins are created is designed to halve every four years. Reality will doubtless prove more complicated,” notes the Economist. “But the general picture — that bitcoin is a dirty business — fits with other research. One oft-cited model, which uses publicly available blockchain data, reckons its global energy consumption is already equal to that of Kazakhstan, and that its carbon footprint matches Hong Kong’s.”
Another problem besides the gargantuan energy usage is where that energy comes from. There is no definitive statistic related to the proportion of renewable versus fossil fuel-powered electricity used for Bitcoin mining. Earth.org cites two conflicting measures of Bitcoin’s energy usage: CoinShares, a cryptocurrency asset management and analysis firm, reported in 2019 that 74.1 percent of Bitcoin’s electricity comes from renewables, while the University of Cambridge puts that number at 39 percent, according to a report it issued in 2020.
A better indicator of Bitcoin’s electricity source is not how it is powered but where its power comes from. A March 2021 article by Quartzestimates that since April 2020, “around 65 percent of bitcoin mining capacity, or hashrate, was based in China due to its cheap electricity.” This figure should give a better understanding of the primary source of fuel currently powering Bitcoin.
In May 2021, at least half of China’s significant share of Bitcoin mining was located in the coal-rich province of Xinjiang, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, cited by Quartz. In 2020, 63 percent of China’s Bitcoin mining came from coal-fired plants, Fortune reported in July 2021, citing figures from Rystad Energy. “The energy research firm estimates that if China were to eliminate bitcoin mining, it would cut CO2 emissions by 57 million [metric tons] — the equivalent to what the entire country of Portugal emits in a year,” the Fortune report noted.
Despite these figures, a more renewable, energy-conscious future may lie ahead for cryptocurrency. In September 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the UN General Assembly that his country would “strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.” That could lead to provinces such as Xinjiang being forced to move more toward renewables. The call from Beijing has also prompted nearby territories such as Inner Mongolia (which made up 8.7 percent of China’s Bitcoin mining in 2020) to ban all crypto mining in mid-2021. If the change doesn’t come from within China after these crackdowns, Bitcoin mining may grow somewhere else as miners look “to explore clean energy like surplus natural gas, shifting their focus from China to countries like Iceland, Norway, and Canada,” according to Quartz.
It’s important that any valid criticism of Bitcoin considers the broader perspective around energy usage. As Michel Rauchs, research affiliate at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, explained to CNBC, “Although we agree the amounts [of energy needed by Bitcoin] are ludicrous right now, that is still half as much as inactive home appliances in the U.S. consumed.” A similar line of logic could be applied to a variety of everyday tasks such as sending emails or using the internet in general, both of which use up a fair share of energy too.
“What we have here is people trying to decide what is or is not a good use of energy,” Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer of CoinShares, toldCNBC. For Demirors, Bitcoin’s energy transparency places it in a better position than other, more opaque energy-consuming industries such as the banking industry.
To this effect, a May 2021 report produced by Galaxy Digital, a financial services and investment management firm based in New York, puts the energy consumption of Bitcoin at less than half that produced by the banking and gold industries. Putting this finding into perspective, the report’s authors note that, “Bitcoin is a fundamentally novel technology that is not a precise substitute for any one legacy system.” What this means is that, unlike traditional currency or gold, Bitcoin is “not solely a settlement layer, not solely a store of value, and not solely a medium of exchange.” This makes Bitcoin’s relative energy consumption productive in comparison to comparative sectors, given its robust potential uses.
Galaxy Digital’s report further addresses the source of energy used by miners to generate Bitcoin. “Critics often assume that the energy expended by miners is either stolen from more productive use cases, or results in increased energy consumption,” according to the report. “But because of inefficiencies in the energy market, bitcoin miners are incentivized to utilize non-rival energy that may otherwise be wasted or underutilized, as this electricity tends to be the cheapest.” A recent case in point can be found in El Salvador, where the president has announced the use of geothermal energy to power its Bitcoin mining.
The promise of such an endeavor offers hope for a more sustainable cryptocurrency future. Whether this will make much difference to the climate crisis in light of government and industrial inaction remains to be seen. Even if cryptocurrency finds a way to coexist with a fossil-free future, critics point out that the majority of the wealth created by Bitcoin goes to a disproportionately small number of investors. According to a recent study conducted by researchers at MIT Sloan School of Management and the London School of Economics, reports the Wall Street Journal, “the top 10,000 bitcoin accounts hold 5 million bitcoins, an equivalent of approximately $232 billion.” Speaking about Bitcoin, Antoinette Schoar, a finance professor at MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of the study, said, “Despite having been around for 14 years and the hype it has ratcheted up, it’s still the case that it’s a very concentrated ecosystem.”
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Silicon Valley has become infamous for its role in the surveillance ecosystem, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bosses are increasingly using an array of tech industry tools to keep constant tabs on their employees working from home, despite statistics showing that those who work remotely are more productive than their counterparts toiling away in office buildings.
But one woman who worked for the tech industry’s biggest company is fighting back. Ashley Gjovik, a former Apple project manager who was fired in September after speaking out about workplace safety concerns, has asked labor regulators to rule that the company employs illegal surveillance tactics. In October, Gjovik filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accusing Apple of a number of unfair labor practices, including keeping tabs on employees in a manner that prevents them from exercising their right to discuss working conditions.
Gjovik also alleged that the company violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by retaliating against her for voicing concerns about workplace safety stemming from the fact that Apple’s office building in Sunnyvale, California, is situated on top of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-designated Superfund site, an area contaminated by hazardous industrial waste that is supposed to have been cleaned up and contained if humans are in the vicinity. If Gjovik prevails, the NLRB could issue a ruling curtailing employers’ abilities to surveil workers and chill their speech.
Gjovik has filed numerous other complaints with several environmental and workplace safety regulators, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and has been meticulous in documenting her experience, as demonstrated by her personal website.
This week, the Department of Labor ruled that Gjovik’s complaints had merit, and that the agency’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would be investigating her whistleblower retaliation complaints. Whistleblowing law expert Stephen Kohn told the Financial Times that it was unusual for OSHA to investigate such allegations because companies often “silence and intimidate” employees and because those filing charges must establish that their case is likely to succeed.
“Most of us know that there’s some level of pollution in our day-to-day lives, but there’s still a lot of trust in the government and companies to do the right thing when it comes to poisoning people,” she told Truthout.
In her NLRB complaint alleging illegal surveillance by Apple, Gjovik cited the company’s handbook, which reserves the right to search employees’ work equipment and their personal devices “to protect Apple confidential and sensitive information.” The company defines its proprietary information to include “compensation, training, recruiting, and other human resource information.”
Under federal labor law, all employees have the right to discuss their working conditions “for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” The NLRB has ruled that management cannot spy on employees exercising their rights.
The Apple handbook includes a footnote stating that the company is not attempting to restrict its employees’ “rights to speak freely about wages, hours, or working conditions as legally permitted.” But Apple policy also generally forbids employees from making any public disclosures without prior approval, including statements to the press, and it orders employees to refrain from discussing “compensation, training, recruiting, and other human resource information” after leaving the company, which it attempts to enforce through non-disclosure agreements. The handbook also bars employees from sharing information about their coworkers’ “compensation, health information, or performance and disciplinary matters” without any footnotes about “rights to speak freely about wages, hours, or working conditions,” according to Gjovik’s complaint.
Charges that Gjovik filed with the NLRB also cite a memo circulated by Apple CEO Tim Cook after details of a meeting featuring discussion of pay equity was leaked to the press. Cook responded to the disclosure by vowing “to identify those who leaked” and by saying “people who leak confidential information do not belong here,” contradicting any stated policy granting employees the right to discuss their working conditions.
Gjovik also told Truthout that when she informed someone on Apple’s employee resources team that she had the legal right to speak publicly about working conditions, he replied, “Most people don’t figure that out.”
In response to questions about Gjovik and Apple workplace activists, Apple has typically declined to make specific comments. For example, the company told Slate: “We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.”
Apple has not responded to Truthout’s request for comment on Gjovik’s claim that a member of its employee resources team told her that the majority of Apple employees aren’t aware of their rights in the workplace.
Gjovik’s conflict with Apple management started in March, when an administrative assistant emailed her team about the company’s Environmental Health and Safety division wanting to conduct a “vapor intrusion survey” in the Sunnyvale office. The phrase set off “alarm bells” for Gjovik, who had spent the last six months battling her apartment’s property managers after becoming ill and learning that the residence was built on top of another EPA Superfund site.
“My body was just going crazy. It was such a nightmare. I was buying books on terminal illness,” Gjovik said.
When she applied what she learned from her struggle at home, things started going south. Gjovik responded to the administrative assistant’s email by asking her management team if Apple had conducted comprehensive air quality tests, citing an Atlantic article from 2013 which documented how their Sunnyvale building was next to three separate triple fund sites. Apple started leasing the property in 2015, hadn’t conducted any tests since moving in, and did not inform employees of the hazardous waste underneath them, Gjovik alleged, noting that she herself discovered the lack of testing in public records after learning how to do research through her apartment ordeal. She said that management claimed that they didn’t have to inform employees of the situation because there was no evidence of air quality issues. Gjovik replied that they lacked the evidence because they didn’t perform proper tests.
Meanwhile, evidence of retaliation against Gjovik by management started to mount. HR opened a sexual harassment investigation into one of Gjovik’s superiors that she did not want initiated out of fear that hostility from above would worsen. She started getting bombarded with an unrealistic number of work assignments. One boss cited Gjovik’s “mental health issues” in urging her to drop her concerns about the Superfund site. Additionally, she says, superiors told her not to raise questions about workplace safety — always over the phone or in person. Gjovik attempted to document those statements by replying in emails with notes about the conversations, asking if she missed anything.
By the middle of summer, things began to escalate. On July 23, Gjovik made The New York Times quote of the day for questioning why Apple management wanted its employees to return to office work as the Delta variant of COVID-19 started to spread throughout the country. Around the same time, she took to the company’s messaging platform, Slack, to ask her coworkers if they have had negative experiences dealing with HR, receiving numerous responses in the affirmative. In early August, after informing employee resources, Gjovik asked colleagues working in the office to document cracks in the floor — a sign that vapor intrusion may be occurring. They took photographs and sent them to Gjovik, and she planned to go into the office the next day to gather evidence herself. On the day of her planned trip to the office, however, she was informed that she was being put on paid administrative leave. On September 9, after Gjovik received a request from Apple management to cooperate with an investigation about “a sensitive Intellectual Property matter,” she agreed to cooperate but never found out what it is they were trying to discover. Gjovik asked that the inquiry be conducted in writing over email. Subsequently, she was fired.
The night before Gjovik was fired, she received a direct message on Twitter from a random helpful follower urging her to take steps to protect her privacy, in a general warning that invoked his own experience with private sector surveillance. Hours later, she asked her Twitter followers if it would be “over-paranoid” to worry about the security of her messages on Apple’s iCloud. Soon after, she began taking her personal information off of servers controlled by Apple and, as she told the tech publication Protocol, Gjovik began to unplug smart devices in her home. She told Truthout that she has no proof of the company using non-public information against her, but noted that internet trolls defending Apple have used information that she has not shared about her health and compensation to insult her, calling the matter a “nightmare sandwich.” Gjovik has also documented how supervisors at Apple were warning her to be wary of private-sector surveillance when she told them how she was locking horns with her property management company.
Still, there is an end to the nightmare in sight and a silver lining. Gjovik is hoping that complaints she has filed with workplace regulators will prevent Apple and other massive companies from bullying and mistreating employees, especially workers who aren’t as well-compensated as she was. Already, it appears that the complaints she filed after being put on administrative leave have the potential to bear fruit. In addition to the Department of Labor advancing her case, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission told Gjovik in September that she has the right to sue Apple in state court for creating a hostile work environment. Experts familiar with the NLRA, including former NLRB officials, have said that Gjovik has a strong case against Apple — especially her complaint about CEO Cook threatening the employees who leaked details about the meeting concerning pay equity.
“What he’s saying here goes too far,” NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman told Bloomberg about the Cook memo. “It’s restrictive of people’s ability to talk about employment policies.” Mark Gaston Pearce, another former NLRB chair who, like Liebman, led the Board during the Obama administration, tweeted that Gjovik’s case could be “a vehicle” to reverse pro-management rulings by the Board under the Trump administration. NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who has the power to direct Board agents to advance cases that could set precedent, has asked regional offices to pursue cases designed to expand the definition of “concerted activity,” which was narrowed under Trump, including those involving handbook policies like the ones flagged by Gjovik. Abruzzo also noted on November 4 the Board has ruled that concerted activity includes “protesting unsafe working conditions and asserting statutory rights, like filing a claim with [OSHA].”
As far as her complaint to the SEC is concerned, Gjovik said she wants to stop the company from misrepresenting how it treats its employees. The complaint centers around a shareholder, Nia Impact Capital, who alleged that Apple is exposing itself to employment litigation risk by enforcing a culture of secrecy beyond that which is necessary to protect its trade secrets. The company responded by claiming that “Apple does not limit employees’ and contractors’ ability to speak freely about harassment, discrimination, and other unlawful acts in the workplace.” Gjovik’s SEC complaint alleges that these are “false & misleading statements of material importance” by Apple, citing an agency commissioner who warned in September 2020 against companies engaged in “woke-washing where companies attempt to portray themselves in a light they believe will be advantageous for them on issues like diversity.”
Not that any of this has brought Gjovik much pleasure. She told Gizmodo that working for Apple was a “dream” job, and although she held a high-pressure position, she was paid well and proud of her work. But since she was put in a situation where she feared for her health and safety, and got significant push back from the company for raising concerns about it, she wants to take the opportunity to stand up for herself and others.
“I was a very senior employee who gave them my blood, sweat and tears. If they’re doing it to me, what the fuck are they doing to retail?” she asked rhetorically. “I’m going to file as much shit as I can.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story said that in early August, Gjovik went into the Sunnyvale office herself to take photos of cracks in the floor.
The federal government will embark on the “most significant reforms” to Australia’s payment system in 25 years with new regulations to target big tech firms and the cryptocurrency sector. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced the reform plan on Wednesday afternoon, most of which won’t be delivered until the end of next year, well after the next…
Financial industry watchdogs are asking federal officials to attempt to stop the cryptocurrency pilot program launched by Facebook, noting that the U.S. government has the power to criminally prosecute executives for operating the venture.
The Open Markets Institute sent a letter on November 23 to numerous regulatory agencies and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), saying the omnipresent tech conglomerate may be “in the illegal business of receiving deposits without a bank charter.”
“There are several legal and regulatory implications for Facebook’s pilot that warrant particular attention by the agencies,” the Open Markets Institute letter stated.
Other financial industry analysts share the Open Markets Institute’s opinion. Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress issued a joint statement in response to the pilot, urging “relevant regulators and lawmakers with jurisdiction over banking, consumer protection, and antitrust to intervene to put this project on hold.”
Facebook has not responded to a request from Truthout for comments on the claim that it might be illegally taking bank deposits.
Financial institutions in the United States that seek to operate as a bank by lending money and accepting deposits — the latter of which Facebook’s pilot appears to be doing — must first have a bank charter approved by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC is one of the country’s federal bank regulators and an agency within the Department of Treasury. Bank charters outline how firms will operate as a bank, and include plans to comply with safety and soundness regulations.
The Open Markets Institute letter also noted that regulators recently said so-called stablecoins, the type of cryptocurrency at the heart of the Facebook pilot, should be regulated like banks.
Cryptocurrencies consist of publicly available records that demonstrate an entity’s ownership of tokens by using public databases to cryptographically link the tokens to the digital wallet of their owner and past transactions. The exchange-value of many cryptocurrencies fluctuate wildly: In the past month alone, Bitcoin has lost some 20 percent of its value, but is still worth 35 percent more than it was six months ago. Stablecoins, on the other hand, are marketed as being pegged to the value of another asset, like the U.S. dollar.
The constant value of stablecoins has given them deposit-like qualities in the eyes of legal observers and some U.S. officials. Federal regulators made their determination that stablecoin ventures should be regulated like banks in a report on the tokens published on November 1 by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, a multi-agency executive branch panel that seeks to uphold market orderliness.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen convened the working group to investigate stablecoins because of concerns about the practices of Tether, a company behind one of the most widely used stablecoins, and because of Facebook’s interest in cryptocurrency, which long predates its recently launched pilot program, given that the website has billions of monthly users.
Facebook unveiled its cryptocurrency pilot program, Novi, on October 19, basing the initiative on remittances from the U.S. to Guatemala facilitated by a stablecoin called the Pax Dollar. The announcement came nine days before the company revealed that it was rebranding itself as “Meta” in a move designed to prepare consumers for the future release of virtual reality products for work and entertainment.
The Meta rebrand was rolled out after Facebook received intense scrutiny from federal policymakers. In September, a whistleblower had told The Wall Street Journal that the company was aware of the negative impact of one of its products, Instagram, on the mental health of teenage girls, while doing nothing to address the problem and simultaneously considering the launch of an Instagram for kids — the latest in a long history of scandals, which critics say demonstrate that Facebook has little regard for the well-being of its users. Instagram for kids has been put on hold in the wake of the revelations.
Problems with Tether were highlighted earlier this year by two regulatoryenforcement actions, which revealed that the U.S. Dollar Tether frequently lacked the cash reserves that it needed to maintain its one-to-one peg, raising the fears that the global $3 trillion cryptocurrency market could crash if too many people attempted to redeem their U.S. Dollar Tethers for U.S. dollars at the same time. Stablecoins like the U.S. Dollar Tether are mostly used to speculate on the value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The U.S. Dollar Tether redemption problem is reminiscent of a classic bank run, bolstering the argument that stablecoins resemble traditional banking deposits. Bank runs occur when a critical mass of depositors simultaneously attempt to withdraw their money, in a phenomenon that typically leads to the collapse of the bank itself, and losses by customers and other businesses that have partnerships with the bank.
Though the President’s Working Group report said Congress should pass legislation in order to regulate stablecoins like banks, much to the delight of the cryptocurrency industry, it also noted that existing authorities could be used by officials to regulate the market. The working group concluded, as the Open Markets Institute remarked, that “the Department of Justice, may consider whether or how section 21(a)(2) of the Glass-Steagall Act may apply to certain stablecoin arrangements.”
The Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933 during the Great Depression, and is best known for having erected a firewall between investment banking and retail banking. Though it was largely repealed by banking deregulation legislation passed during the final months of the Clinton administration, parts of Glass-Steagall remain on the books, including section 21(a)(2), which says that any entity “in the business of receiving deposits subject to check or to repayment…upon request of the depositor” must be licensed by the federal government or state governments. Stablecoins are subject to repayment upon request of those who purchase them.
Punishments for violating the law include a maximum of five years’ imprisonment. Facebook’s pilot, which is called Novi, is only licensed on the federal level as a “Money Services Business” with the arm of the Treasury Department tasked with detecting money laundering and other financial crimes. It is licensed as a money transmitter in 38 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Five Democratic senators blasted Facebook’s decision to move ahead with its Novi pilot under the money transmission framework, though they stopped short of accusing Facebook of violating criminal law. They noted that in 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised Congress that the company would wait for regulatory approval before moving forward with plans to launch its own cryptocurrency payment system.
“To be clear, your ability to secure state-issued money transmitter licenses is not equivalent to obtaining the blessing of ‘all U.S. regulators,’ as you said in your testimony two years ago,” the lawmakers said in an October 19 letter to the company, written in response to the launch of Novi. They urged the firm to “immediately discontinue your Novi pilot.”
Arthur Wilmarth, a law professor at George Washington University who has helped pioneer the theory that the Justice Department could prosecute stablecoin issuers, said that the agency “should probably send a letter of warning to Novi: either cease and desist or you can anticipate that we will bring a criminal indictment.”
“Anyone who knowingly partakes is liable,” he told Truthout, adding that the DOJ could send a message to the cryptocurrency industry by going after Facebook executives or those involved with “one of the other stablecoin issuers like Tether.”
Still, Wilmarth and other supporters of this theory aren’t confident that federal prosecutors will exercise their power.
“Is DOJ prepared to do anything? At least the President’s Working Group mentioned the possibility,” Wilmarth said. He noted that the legal theory isn’t as “ironclad” as it used to be because it allows companies to take deposits if they are licensed under state law. In recent years, two states, Wyoming and Nebraska, have allowed special bank charterswithout deposit insurance requirements as a means of attracting cryptocurrency ventures. (Novi doesn’t have any Wyoming license, and the company is only licensed in Nebraska as a money transmitter.)
Renita Marcellin, a senior policy analyst for Americans for Financial Reform, which has also pointed to the Justice Department’s powers when urging the Biden administration to take a tougher stance on cryptocurrencies, said that she doesn’t “expect DOJ to say much here.”
“For market participants and industry people, I am assuming that they feel so empowered to do this because DOJ has been really lacking in this space,” Marcellin said. “Unfortunately, that’s not Mark Zuckerberg’s problem, that’s DOJ’s problem. They need to be very clear about what this law means.”
Assuming Novi does comply with federal law, there are many other criticisms of the project, including worries about its environmental impact, fears that the company could prod Guatemala toward passing laws favoring the cryptocurrency industry, concerns about the viability of Novi itself and the probability of Facebook using the venture to engage in predatory behavior.
“Facebook’s pilot is likely another attempt by the firm to further grow its dominance in digital advertising, and monetize its users’ private data,” said Alexis Goldstein, financial policy director at the Open Markets Institute.
In its letter to regulators, the organization enumerated its concerns with the operation’s safety and soundness. Paxos, the company that issues the Pax Dollar, claims that its stablecoin is backed up by banked cash and “cash equivalents,” which are short-term, highly liquid investments. But the federal government typically only insures up to $250,000 in customer deposits per bank, and it’s unclear how Paxos cash deposits are distributed. And while the firm is overseen by New York state regulators as a limited purpose trust company, a special classification of financial firm established by New York in 2015 to impose some oversight on cryptocurrency ventures, Facebook has not publicly outlined its contingency plans in the event of a run on the Pax Dollar, or if the token loses its peg. Moreover, it’s not clear what would happen if Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange that has been hired by Facebook to provide custody services for Pax Dollars, is hacked.
“They mentioned that Coinbase has an insurance program, but they don’t really say what type of losses the insurance covers,” Marcellin said. “How are you taking deposits when you don’t have any backstops for people’s money?”
As for the environmental impact, the Pax Dollar is based on an energy-intensive security feature to validate transactions: algorithmic problem-solving called “proof of work” crypto mining. The Open Markets Institute said this “creates a number of extensive climate harms, which include annual energy consumption akin to that of entire nations, 30,700 tons of electronic waste (computer hardware is notoriously difficult to recycle) annually, [and] higher electricity bills for residents of states with crypto mining.”
There’s also the issue of Facebook claiming that Novi offers poor people access to financial services “with no fees” because the Pax Dollar operates on the Ethereum network which requires users to pay validation transaction fees, which tend to spike when there’s an uptick in transactional activity. For now, Facebook isn’t passing these costs onto Novi users. But the company could put the burden on its customers after capturing market share — a common “predatory pricing” practice employed by numerous tech firms such as Uber, Lyft and Amazon, as the Open Markets Institute remarked. The lack of Novi transaction fees also obscures the fact that users in Guatemala would still need to exchange their Pax Dollars with the Quetzal, Guatemala’s national currency.
“They’re free-riding off the banking system. If people want to transfer it to physical cash, they have to use a bank, so then they have to be subject to transfer fees,” Marcellin said. “This completely undermines the whole idea that this is [offering] services to underbanked. If you don’t have a bank account, you can’t use it.”
There is a potential workaround for this conversion problem, albeit one with troubling implications, if the experience of another Central American country is any indication. The government of El Salvador, Guatemala’s neighbor to the southeast, made Bitcoin legal tender in September much to the chagrin of Salvadorans who protested the move, lamenting the wild swings in the price of Bitcoin, among other aspects of the law. Results of a poll published in August showed that 65 percent of Salvadorans were in opposition to the law that made Bitcoin legal tender.
“The only alternative to leveraging the existing banking system is if Facebook is planning to work with the government of Guatemala to change the laws of that sovereign nation to mandate the acceptance of Pax Dollars as legal tender,” the Open Markets Institute warned.
Finally, there’s the nontrivial matter of how Facebook has treated its users. In addition to the recent Instagram scandal, the company has conducted psychological tests on unwitting users; allowed the data of 87 million users to be exploited in 2016 by Cambridge Analytica, the hardline right-wing political consulting firm that used the information to push fearmongering ads to benefit Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign; enabled incitement to genocide in Myanmar; and allowed disinformation and fake accounts to manipulate political processes in countries around the world.
Considering “Facebook’s track record of violating user privacy, and Facebook’s ongoing need to find new profit centers,” the Open Markets Institute warned, “there is absolutely no reason to believe its promises today that it will not find a way to monetize its digital assets pilot project.”
“If anything, an effort to monetize the data of users who take part in this project seems not merely plausible, but likely,” the organization said. That is, unless the federal government defies expectations and exercises its power to stop the godlike tech giant.
Streaming sites like Spotify paying artists a pittance for their music is a big story at present. But one artist is fighting back. She has launched a single on an ethical streaming site. And her approach potentially shows a new way of working for musicians around the world.
Meet MIRI
East London-based artist MIRI has been honing her craft for many years. She gained an illustrious live résumé performing at diverse events such as the Million Women Rise march in London and The 100 Club as part of the official Bob Marley birthday celebration. In 2019, she released her Soundbites EP. As The Canary said at the time:
Soundbites is a project that will surely prove to be timeless. MIRI has crafted something that cannot be boxed in, much like herself. Socially profound, lyrically resonant, and musically ingenious, the EP stands as a testament to the sum of this unapologetically heartfelt artist’s parts. But it’s MIRI’s vocals which truly shine, showing the glittering calibre of this unique performer. Soundbites stands as a glorious, emotive moment in her blossoming career.
Since then, she has continued performing live and steadily releasing a stream of new music. The October 2020 track Just Breathe was a timely ballad, resonating with the feelings people may have been having during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic:
MIRI is an ambassador for female music organisation the F-List and creatives group Women in CTRL. She also does a lot of work for LGBTQI+ groups. But as an independent artist she has, like many others, faced challenges when it comes to earning a living from her music. This is partly down to streaming sites.
The streaming scandal
As The Canary previously reported, streaming now makes up 80% of the music we listen to in the UK. But there’s controversy about how streaming sites pay artists for their music. A report by the government on the economics of streaming warned that “pitiful returns” from the current system are affecting the “entire creative ecosystem”, and also raised “deep concerns” about the position of the major music companies in the market. In response, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched its own inquiry into the industry.
More recently, a Labour MP launched a bill in parliament. As The Canary previously reported, MP Kevin Brennan’s Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians) Bill sought to introduce a right to “equitable remuneration” for streaming income, where performers have a right to receive a share without reference to their label contracts. It would also give musicians more of a say over how their music is used. The bill is still currently being debated in parliament.
Shocking figures from Spotify
The problem is acute. MIRI shared data from campaign group the Trichordist into how much streaming sites actually pay artists, and the figures were shocking. On a site like Spotify, people would have to stream an artist’s track over 3,000 times just for them to earn an hour’s work at minimum wage:
MIRI told The Canary she’s not dismissive of why some artists still use major streaming sites:
With Spotify I understand why artists will stay on there. It’s not an easy decision to make because bigger platforms like that help an artist with audience reach. In the past I’ve found that some event promoters and music industry professionals will ask for my Spotify link and stats. It’s not a fair predicament to put an artist in: ‘do I keep my music on there to help me keep building my fan base or do I throw that all away by taking my music down’. It’s a gamble especially when music is your livelihood.
But the shocking figures Spotify and other sites pay artists cannot be understated. Moreover, the sites are hardly ethical. MIRI told The Canary:
When I read that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek recently invested $113m in the military that was enough for me. He could have invested that money into artists. I find his investment very concerning. I’ve started taking some of my music down from Spotify. It’s important to point out that it’s not just Spotify who aren’t paying artists fairly, it’s the bulk of the bigger streaming sites.
So, for her latest single, she’s tried a different approach.
Trends
MIRI’s latest release is Trends. She toldLoud Women that:
I co wrote ‘Trends’ a while back. I was listening to a lot of Vampire Weekend at the time. I’ve performed it in lots of different spaces including the artist Natty’s Vibes & Pressure night in what use to be Passing Clouds.
The influences of World Music-inspired Vampire Weekend and Reggae artist Natty on MIRI are clear. Because Trends is a gorgeous, hybrid indie/pop track with pleasing nods to Reggae and Dancehall in it. On the face of it, the strumming guitar line and dominant drums, juxtaposed with a delicate electric organ, feel very indie. But the dominant rhythmic arrangement of the guitar, organ and kick drum actually incorporate a Reggae/Dancehall beat. It’s a clever fusion of genres – and makes for an uplifting, crowd-pleasing affair. Plus, as always with MIRI, the lyrics carry political and social messages. She also toldLoud Women:
Trends is about observing political corruption yet recognising our power and strength in imagination and creativity. The way that we can stand up, come together and use our voices to speak our truth.
But The Canary is not going to give readers the YouTube link for the track. Because MIRI has been intentionally pushing Trends on another streaming site.
Welcome to ethical streaming
Sonstream describes itself as a “pay per play” music streaming site. As God Is In The TVwrote:
The service offer singles and album streams. Albums cost 10p to stream in their entirety (so the unit price is dependent on the number of tracks on the Album) where as singles come in three different tariffs, the most being 3.3p per stream, the cheapest being 1.5p per stream. By proxy of the model; unsigned music artists receive 2.5p for every [pay] of their tracks.
So, MIRI released Trends on 19 November on Sonstream – before she released it elsewhere. You can sign up and then stream the track here. She told The Canary:
I wanted to release ‘Trends’ exclusively on Sonstream first to make some noise about streaming and to earn money. On the first week ‘Trends’ received over 500 streams on Sonstream. On the following week I released it on all the major platforms and it received 80 streams on Spotify. Within two weeks I’d earned just over £20 on Sonstream and that’s for 1 song being streamed and on a small independent site. On two of the bigger platforms I would have earned 0 and £1.08 on Spotify.
Spotify: enough is enough?
MIRI is pleased with how Sonstream operates. She told The Canary:
When I first uploaded my music onto Sonstream over the pandemic I didn’t have any expectations. When I saw within a short time that I was actually getting paid and paid fairly it made me realise what a terrible deal artists are getting on all the major streaming sites. Maybe we wouldn’t have needed to get emergency funding or have had to stress and panic about money so much if we weren’t getting such a bad deal here.
A Musicians Union poll found that 82% of respondents earned less than £200 from streaming sites in all of 2019. So, something needs to change. And MIRI is at the forefront of trying to bring this about.
Not a hobby. A job.
She concluded that:
I will keep… shouting about ethical streaming platforms like Sonstream and Resonate. I hope that we can fix streaming sooner rather than later. Artists deserve to get paid. Music is not a hobby for me, it’s my job.
It seems unclear whether change in the way streaming sites operate will come from parliament or not. So artists will have to continue to fight and raise awareness of the dire situation in which the rigged system leaves them. But ultimately, change can be effected by us, the audience. If we all stopped our streaming subscriptions and switched to ethical sites like Sonstream, it wouldn’t be long before Spotify and the rest had no choice but to stop exploiting musicians. We all need to play our part.
The government will change the law to make sure musicians get more money from streaming only if an “industry-led” solution cannot be found, a minister has said. At the same time, the movement to ensure musicians receive fairer pay is picking up cross-bench support.
The “problem”
Business minister George Freeman told MPs the Government’s first instinct was to “avoid legislation”, as he acknowledged there was a “problem” of musicians not receiving a substantial cut of streaming revenues. His comments came as MPs debated the Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians) Bill, sponsored by Labour MP for Cardiff West Kevin Brennan.
Kevin Brennan with Rebecca Ferguson in Parliament Square (Jonathan Stewart/PA)
The Private Member’s Bill, which did not receive backing from the government, sought to introduce a right to “equitable remuneration” for streaming income, where performers have a right to receive a share without reference to their label contracts. It would also give musicians more of a say over how their music is used, with MPs hearing that dame Vera Lynn could have reclaimed ownership rights to her music, receiving royalties after We’ll Meet Again and other favourites experienced a revival in recent years.
Freeman told MPs:
If we can avoid legislation but solve the problem in some other way, that’s our first instinct. But indeed, I want to make very clear if we conclude that legislative changes are the only way to achieve what the House is looking for, then that is very much open to us.
We want to work very closely with the industry, and let me just take this opportunity to make clear to the industry, who will be watching this closely, that we do think there is a problem, we want to make sure we get it right and we want to work with them to get the right measures in place.
George Freeman (Victoria Jones/PA)
Labour MP Brennan told MPs that “wonderful British artist” Vera Lynn would have been able to reclaim rights to her music if his proposals were made law.
He later said:
If, after a period of 20 years, they are dissatisfied with the efforts being made by record labels or publishers – and this would apply to Dame Vera Lynn, I am glad to say, were she still with us – if they are dissatisfied with the efforts being made by record labels or publishers, musicians could give notice of their intention to reclaim their rights to exploit their music or transfer that right to another label or publisher who might do a better job than the existing one.
He was responding to Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke (Dover), who described Dame Vera as “one of our most loved entertainers and icons across the country”, adding:
Yet she found herself with a revival of some of her most famous and beloved songs, and not receiving royalties from a contract that was conceived and signed before the internet had even been considered and built.
Dame Vera Lynn (Zak Hussein/PA)
Brennan insisted his Bill’s efforts to remunerate musicians for streaming was “not about anarchy in the UK”, adding:
This Bill is about equity in the UK music industry.
Conservative former cabinet minister Esther McVey gave her backing to the Bill, and said the taxpayer should have not picked up the bill for big labels who did not pay their artists “correctly” during the pandemic. McVey said:
Covid shone a spotlight into this area. In the past, artists could go out and earn extra money through performing at live events. Not now, they couldn’t, and they would rely far more heavily on what was coming through from streaming.
Why should the taxpayer pick up the bill for these international giants who aren’t paying their contributors, creators, writers, correctly?
As a seventh grader, Emma Lembke was one of the last in her friend group in Birmingham, Alabama, to get on social media. When she did, she says she soon found herself addicted, spending five hours a day on the apps, mostly Instagram.
“At an important developmental period in my life as a young female, as a young kid, in middle school, [I got] wound up in this world of likes, comments, very deeply quantifiable measures of my value, addictive algorithms, and the endless scroll,” she says.
When Lembke reached what she calls a “breaking point” in ninth grade, she began looking into the effects of social media. She found research articles, statistics, and a now widely shared TEDx Talk that all suggested to her that the anxiety, body image issues, and isolation she thought she was alone in feeling were in fact linked to social media use.
During the pandemic, Lembke, who is now 19 and a freshman at Washington University, started an organization called Log Off, which provides resources for reducing screen time, advice for better digital well-being, a curriculum for schools on navigating social media, and a place to submit personal stories so teens can break what Lembke says is a stigma around admitting that use of social media is making them miserable. The group has since grown to a team of 60 digital youth advocates from 16 different countries.
“I was unaware of the heavy editing and toxicity of the body standards present on the apps, but what I was aware of was how I was not meeting that preset standard,” starts one anonymous story published on the organization’s website. “I wish someone would have told me to never get on the apps as a young, highly insecure 7th grader. It has taken years of self discipline and reflection to get to a place where I can look in the mirror and smile.”
Log Off is part of a growing Generation Z movement pushing back against companies like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, and the way they control teens’ social lives. Those born between 1995 and 2010 are often portrayed as “digital natives” who are gleefully glued to their phones. But they, like all age groups, are struggling with the mental health effects of spending hours in worlds that encourage heavy social comparison and value the quantifiable, the optimizable, and the performative over the authentic. Forty-two percent of Gen Z-ers now say they’re “addicted” to social media and couldn’t quit if they tried, and more than half believe life was better before social media, according to polling by the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
“Teens face a choice: Either risk your social circle or risk your mental health,” Lembke says.
The Social Media Generation
Unlike older adults, Gen Z never really had a meaningful choice about whether to use social media. To not be on Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok is, at most American schools today, to be in a distinct and socially left-out minority. Even before the pandemic, 95% of teens in the U.S. had their own smartphone or access to one, according to Pew Research Center, and 75% had at least one active social media profile, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
At the same time, research is increasingly showing that smartphone and social media use is connected with heightened anxiety, depression, self-harming behaviors, and sleep deprivation in teens.
In 2017, when psychologist Jean Twenge published an article in The Atlantic linking increased smartphone use with a 56% rise in suicide rates in Americans ages 10–24 between 2007 and 2017, her findings were widely dismissed.
“The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health,” she wrote.
But our understanding of social media has changed dramatically since 2017, with recent revelations by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen that the company’s own research found that teen girls’ eating disorders and body image issues got worse on Instagram. This came as there was already a growing awareness of the negative effects of heavy social media use because of the forced isolation of the pandemic. The release of The Social Dilemma on Netflix in September 2020, which features former employees of Facebook, Google, and Twitter revealing the addictive, emotionally manipulative design of these apps, furthered this cause.
In the past year, a nonprofit headed by The Social Dilemma protagonist Tristan Harris called the Center for Humane Technology—perhaps the organization that has done the most to raise awareness of and put pressure on Big Tech—has begun heavily supporting the work of young activists.
This includes LookUp, a nonprofit that funds young people to raise awareness about digital wellness and develop more ethical and inclusive tech. The organization was founded in 2019 by Susan Reynolds, a former English teacher at a private boys school in Concord, Massachusetts, who began researching the impacts of tech after noticing the addictiveness of AOL Instant Messenger in the late 1990s for her and her students. By the 2010s, she was meeting with college students to share research on associations between smartphone use and weakened cognitive capacity and sleep disruption.
“What was clear to me was that [teens] needed data, but they didn’t need me telling them what to do,” Reynolds says.
In the past year, LookUp has expanded, with chapters in the United Kingdom, India, and Africa. In October, the organization hosted a youth summit that drew 1,200 registrants and featured more than 175 youth speakers, as well as a panel hosted by Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, and remarks by Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey, who is cosponsoring the KIDS Act. If passed, this legislation would ban social media’s addictive features, such as autoplay, push alerts, and follower counts, for users under 16.
Ritom Gupta, 22, director of community engagement for LookUp India, believes raising awareness is especially important for his peers. “People in this country are still getting addicted to tech. It’s still in its infancy, not like the U.S., where everyone’s aware.”
The group makes recommendations to its audience, such as not using one’s phone first thing in the morning, turning off notifications, and practicing meditation to use social media more mindfully.
“The irony on social media is that while you’re trying to capture the moment, you’re missing out on that moment to show people who are not there in that moment,” says LookUp India Chair Rijul Arora, 25.
One app LookUp has funded, called Mynd, allows users to rate their moods while on social media, selecting choices like “happy,” “angry,” or “anxious,” and then view trends as well as set goals for healthier social media use. Creator Madi McCullough, 23, a recent college graduate and freelance social media coordinator, was inspired by health apps that “use persuasive technology for good,” such as encouraging people to run more, rather than promoting addictive use.
Less and Better Tech
While the initial focus of LookUp was on funding tech projects like Mynd, Reynolds says that one of the widest-reaching initiatives centers around going tech-free. NoSo November, created by 20-year-old University of Colorado, Boulder, student Maddie Freeman, is an initiative for high schools and individuals to log off or delete all social media apps for the month of November and spend their free time doing activities like yoga, cooking, and calling friends. The idea is to make going off social media a group experience rather than a socially isolating one. (Freeman recently shot a promo for the challenge with The Social Dilemma director Jeff Orlowski).
Like other Gen Z-ers, Freeman appreciates that social media allows her to connect so easily with people in different time zones and doesn’t think it is the sole cause of mental health issues, but she believes it contributes heavily. In high school, 12 of her peers, including several friends, and all of whom were heavy social media users, committed suicide.
During the first NoSo November challenge last year, participants noticed a change right away, she says: “Within days of being in that challenge, everyone was like, ‘I do not miss these apps at all. I don’t want to re-download them.’ It was a weight lifted off of all of our shoulders.”
While in the near-term, young activists have focused on raising awareness of social media’s impact and strategies to cut down on their use of it, they don’t talk about it as a matter of personal responsibility and self-control the way older adults often do. Instead, they frame it as a systemic issue that requires regulation, such as the KIDS Act and an online safety bill out of the United Kingdom that could influence how the rest of the world handles tech.
At the same time, teens and young adults don’t believe social media is going away. The focus, they say, must be on designing more authentic and less toxic ways of connecting, and teaching media literacy — and they are ready to help lead the way.
“Being in Gen Z, social media was baked into the DNA of my childhood, and I think that’s going to be the same with every generation that comes after,” Lembke says. “As a society, we can force social media companies to prioritize their users and youth mental health, and to exist in healthier ways. I hope legislators will open up and listen to us, because there’s much to be said from our side.”
During an ongoing global semiconductor shortage that has stifled smartphone and car companies alike, thecommunications and electronicssector spent15.1%more on federal lobbying during the third quarter than the same period last year, bringing its 2021 total to$362.1 million. It was the largest lobbying spending increase experienced by any sector this quarter.
Semiconductors, or semiconductor microchips, are an essential component of electronic devices. Over the course of this year, industry demand for the chips has outstripped their supply, causing some chipmakers to deepen their U.S. investments.
In March, PresidentJoe Bidencalled on Congressto invest $50 billion in semiconductor manufacturing and research. He received$133 millionfrom the communications and electronics industry during the 2020 campaign cycle, making it thefourth highest spendingsector to contribute to his campaign.
Tech companySamsungannounced Tuesday it will build a semiconductor factory in Taylor, a city just outside of Austin, Texas. One of the world’s largest makers of electronic devices, the company also spent$2.9 millionthis year on federal lobbying. During the third quarter alone, the company spent$1.1 million— more than it has any other third quarter in its history.
Theelectronics manufacturing and equipmentindustryspent the mostin the communications and electronics sector. Its industry groups have lobbied$135.1 millionso far this year. The industry experienced its largest third quarter lobbying spend yet, spending $46.1 million — a nearly $10 million increase from the same period last year.
Other electronics giants moving to chip in includeIntel, who in March announced it would build a pair of new factories in Arizona. Intel has spent$4.9 millionon federal lobbying this year despite spending only$1 millionthis past quarter.
Earlier this month,Texas Instrumentsannounced plans for new semiconductor plants in Sherman, Tex. The tech company has spent just over$1 millionon lobbying efforts so far this year, tying with theSemiconductor Industry Association, a lobbying group that represents the United States semiconductor industry.
Amazon.comis the largest client lobbying in the communications and electronics industry, spending a total of$15.3 millionduring the first three quarters of 2021. The Seattle-based company, whichproduces its own lineof semiconductor chips, spent over$5 millionon federal lobbying during the third quarter alone.
The communications and electronics sector has contributed$20.6 millionto members of Congress this year. Of that, nearly 73% went to Democrats and 27% went to Republicans. So far, the sector has given the most to Senate Majority LeaderChuck Schumer(D-NY), a total of$1.8 million. Sen. Schumer sponsored theUnited States Innovation and Competition Act, a bill that passed the Senate in June, which would invest$52 billionfor domestic semiconductor manufacturing to help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign semiconductor producers.
Within the communications and electronics sector, clients from thetelecomandinternetindustries spent record-high amounts on federal lobbying.Telecom services and equipmentbested its previous third quarters numbers with $26.1 million, for a total of$81.5 millionthis year. The internet industry followed suit and added $23.2 million to its now$67.6 million2021 federal lobbying total.
Dangerous disinformation and “arbitrary incursions on liberties” are the technology red lines that Australia won’t allow to be crossed, according to Foreign Affairs minister Marise Payne. On Friday she warned against the unchecked influence of Big Tech, which she said should have been addressed “yesterday”. Speaking at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Sydney Dialogue on…
Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has backed Chinese government moves to curb market powers and social influence of large technology companies, saying recent regulatory interventions will make China a “more civil society than the United States”. During highly anticipated address to the National Press Club, Mr Keating slammed the Australian government’s animosity towards China, which…
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the progressives calling for government action to break up Facebook after the company and its family of apps — including Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp — experienced a massive outage on Monday, rendering inaccessible services that billions of people worldwide use to communicate.
“It’s almost as if Facebook’s monopolistic mission to either own, copy, or destroy any competing platform has incredibly destructive effects on free society and democracy,” the Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “Remember: WhatsApp wasn’t created by Facebook. It was an independent success. FB got scared and bought it.”
“If Facebook’s monopolistic behavior was checked back when it should’ve been (perhaps around the time it started acquiring competitors like Instagram),” the New York Democrat added, “the continents of people who depend on WhatsApp and IG for either communication or commerce would be fine right now. Break them up.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed that message, declaring, “We should break up Big Tech.”
Facebook — in a Twitter post — apologized for “any inconvenience” that may have been caused by the outage, which lasted roughly six hours and cost CEO Mark Zuckerberg $6 billion in net worth. In a blog post Monday evening as its services started to come back online, Facebook blamed the outage on “configuration changes.”
The blackout, believed to be the largest in the company’s history, came just hours after “60 Minutes” aired its interview with Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who accused the tech behemoth of putting “profit over safety” by refusing to combat rampant misinformation and incitement to violence on its platform.
“Facebook is killing people,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), chair of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, said following Haugen’s interview. “Whether it is teen suicides, January 6, or Covid misinformation, Facebook has shown that its unchecked power to dictate and profit from what people see online is a threat to our safety and our country.”
“As I have said before,” Cicilline continued, “Facebook must be broken up and brought to justice.”
At the same time as the company scrambled Monday to address an outage that critics seized upon as further evidence of its monopolistic reach, Facebook filed a motion to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit, which accuses the tech giant of engaging in an illegal “buy-or-bury scheme to maintain its dominance.”
“It unlawfully acquired innovative competitors with popular mobile features that succeeded where Facebook’s own offerings fell flat or fell apart,” alleges the FTC’s complaint, which specifically mentions Facebook’s purchase of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.
“To further moat its monopoly, Facebook lured app developers to the platform, surveilled them for signs of success, and then buried them when they became competitive threats,” the FTC says. “Lacking serious competition, Facebook has been able to hone a surveillance-based advertising model and impose ever-increasing burdens on its users.”
In its response to the lawsuit on Monday, Facebook contended that the agency’s complaint “pleads no facts plausibly establishing that Facebook has, and at all relevant times had, monopoly power.”
Facebook was down today, but their law-firms were not.
Apparently, Facebook’s lawyers spent the day working to dismiss the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit — again.
As the New York Timesreported Monday, the impact of the hours-long Facebook blackout “was far-reaching and severe.”
“Facebook has built itself into a linchpin platform with messaging, livestreaming, virtual reality, and many other digital services,” the Times noted. “In some countries, like Myanmar and India, Facebook is synonymous with the internet. More than 3.5 billion people around the world use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp to communicate with friends and family, distribute political messaging, and expand their businesses through advertising and outreach.”
“Facebook is also used to sign in to many other apps and services,” the Times added, “leading to unexpected domino effects such as people not being able to log into shopping websites or sign into their smart TVs, thermostats, and other internet-connected devices.”
Vincent Bevins, a journalist currently based in Brazil, emphasized during the outage that “WhatsApp and Messenger are essentially public infrastructure for huge parts of this planet (it varies by country), and that should come with some responsibilities to citizens.”
“I am fine because I have credit on my phone to send text messages/call people,” Bevins wrote on Twitter. “But I can tell you right now that a lot of people, here in Brazil and all over the place, do not — they were relying on those ‘free’ apps to communicate with friends and family today.”
In a column on Monday, Motherboard’s Edward Ongweso Jr. observed that “for the past decade, Facebook has not simply had a deleterious effect on the general public, but established itself as the major if not sole conduit for internet activity across the world with a series of ruthless acquisitions that are now under scrutiny for breaking antitrust law.”
“A lack of transparency and accountability aren’t why Facebook has been able to exploit content moderators or independent contractors, nor why it has been able to facilitate a genocide or spark a mental health crisis, or any of the long list of sins and abuses we can amend to the company’s constantly growing record,” Ongweso argued. “The reason it has been able to do all this (and get away with it) is power. Shining a light on power doesn’t necessarily undermine power, but bringing a hammer down on it will.”
Construction work on several major tech company expansion projects, including those by Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook, slowed to a crawl today as the region largest carpenters’ union halted work over a wage dispute.
At 6 a.m. Thursday, 2,000 Northwest Carpenter Union members walked off the job and began picketing at four major job sites, including Microsoft expansions in Redmond and Sammamish; Google and Amazon projects in Bellevue Plaza, and Facebook’s Building X in Redmond.
Evelyn Shapiro, the union’s executive secretary-treasurer, said the affected sites were not randomly chosen. In the push for better wages and benefits, the union looked at companies “that are making billions,” she said.
Specifically, the union is striking against the contractor consortium, the Associated General Contractors, and not the tech companies themselves.
