Category: Big Tech

  • A billion-pound legal action against Google over claims it secretly tracked millions of iPhone users’ internet activity would “open the floodgates” to mass data protection claims if it’s allowed to go ahead, the Supreme Court has heard.

    Open the floodgates

    Former Which? director Richard Lloyd, supported by campaign group Google You Owe Us, wants to bring a “representative action” against the US-based tech giant on behalf of around 4.4 million people in England and Wales.

    He claims Google “illegally misused the data of millions of iPhone users” through the “clandestine tracking and collation” of information about internet usage on iPhones’ Safari browser, known as the “Safari workaround”.

    Lloyd and Google You Owe Us hope to win between £1bn and £3bn in compensation for alleged breaches of the Data Protection Act.

    Phone app stock
    (PA)

    The High Court initially ruled that Lloyd could not serve the claim on Google outside the jurisdiction of England and Wales in October 2018, but that decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal in October 2019.

    On 28 April, Google’s lawyers said that landmark ruling could “open the floodgates” to vast claims brought on behalf of millions of people against companies responsible for handling people’s data.

    Antony White QC told the Supreme Court that “a number of substantial representative actions have been commenced seeking compensation for breach of data protection rights” since the Court of Appeal’s judgment.

    Claims “brought on behalf of hundreds of thousands, and, at least in one case, millions, of individuals” have recently been launched against Facebook, TikTok and Google-owned YouTube, the court heard.

    “Profound and far-reaching”

    White said, in written submissions, that allowing such claims to be brought could have “profound and far-reaching implications across all civil litigation”.

    He argued that, under data protection laws, “compensation is only available for ‘damage’ suffered as a consequence of the (data) breach, and not for the breach itself”.

    White added that “the technical matters which gave rise to the ‘Safari workaround’ were rectified many years ago”.

    He told the court:

    In circumstances where the alleged breaches have long ago ceased and a remedy already exists for any financial loss or distress caused by those alleged breaches, there is no need to fashion any further remedy for individuals who have neither suffered any financial loss or distress nor experienced any ongoing infringement of their rights.

    White also said that “the true purpose” of Lloyd’s proposed claim was “to pursue a high-profile public campaign for ‘accountability’ against Google, rather than to obtain redress” for any data breaches. He added:

    The absence of any attempt on the part of any of the millions of class members to seek redress from Google is a telling reflection that the subject matter of the claim is not important to the individuals on whose behalf the claim is brought.

    Harvesting users

    Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Lloyd, said in written submissions:

    The fundamental question in this case is whether the courts can provide access to justice and, potentially, a remedy in cases where a very large number of people are affected by breaches of their data protection rights.

    Tomlinson added that the millions of proposed claimants “will not have access to justice” if Lloyd’s claim was not allowed to go ahead. He said “data is now central to the operation of the post-industrial economy”, and that “the foundation of (Google’s) business is trading in the personal data of its users”.

    Tomlinson also said personal data is “a valuable asset” to Google, “as demonstrated by the fact that the appellant in fact exploited the data for its own economic advantage”.

    He argued that “the existing state of society with the mass trade in personal data requires the court to adapt its practice and course of proceedings to allow the victims of large-scale data breaches access to remedies”.

    Tomlinson said doing so would provide the proposed claimants represented by Lloyd “with access to justice and a remedy which would otherwise be entirely absent”.

    Divide and categorise

    Google You Owe Us and Lloyd claim Google bypassed privacy settings on Apple iPhone handsets between August 2011 and February 2012 and used the data gathered to divide people into categories for advertisers.

    They say “browser-generated information” collected by Google included racial or ethnic origin, physical and mental heath, political affiliations or opinions, sexual interests, and social class.

    Google’s lawyers say there is no suggestion the so-called Safari workaround resulted in any information being disclosed to third parties.

    The hearing, which is being livestreamed on the Supreme Court’s website, is due to finish on 29 April and it’s expected the court will give its ruling at a later date.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • On March 12, the heads of government of four countries, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, and US President Joe Biden, met for a virtual meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, better known as the Quad.

    Modi’s opening remarks illustrate the emptiness of the public agenda; he called the Quad “a force for global good” with no details beyond a list of areas of collaboration (“vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies”). There was no direct mention of China during the meeting.

    In the details relating to the launching of “an ambitious new joint partnership that is going to boost vaccine manufacturing,” a more disturbing agenda reveals itself

    The post Biden Continues Conflict With China Through The Quad appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • A Liberal Senator has failed in his second attempt to launch an inquiry into the influence of Big Tech in Australia, after the motion was blocked by Labor and the crossbench.

    South Australian senator Alex Antic moved a motion on Tuesday for the establishment of a Select Committee on Big Tech Influence in Australia, which would look into disinformation, “de-platforming”, fake accounts and the extent that the likes of Facebook and Google comply with local laws.

    But the attempt was dismissed by Labor, who said there are already too many select committees, and the Greens, who took issue with the language of the motion, which they said was used “overwhelmingly by the far right”.

    Business fibre
    Big Tech: The senate has declined to establish a new select committee to investigate

    Senator Antic had originally planned to move the motion last month, but put this on hold. This was the same day that the government announced it had reached an agreement with Facebook over its media bargaining code, with news allowed back on the social media platform.

    He tried again on Tuesday, attempting to launch a select committee that would investigate and report on the activity of major international and domestic tech firms, specifically looking at disinformation, misinformation, shadow banning, de-platform and monetisation, fake accounts and bots, the companies’ terms of service and their compliance with Australian law.

    The motion was voted down with Senators drawn at 32 votes for and against.

    Labor voted down the motion due to the amount of Select Committees already operating.

    “We were advised by the government that they are concerned at the number of Select Committees that are currently operating in the Senate and at the level of work references committees have – that Select Committees are perhaps filling part of the role that references committees had in the past – only to be given this motion on the Notice Paper,” Labor Senator Katy Gallagher said.

    “So we won’t be supporting this today, based on the government’s own advice that there are too many Select Committees at this point in time.”

    Crossbench Senator Rex Patrick also voted against the motion for this reason, saying it would mean there are 10 Select Committees, even though it is recommended there should only be three at any one time.

    Senator Patrick said he would have supported an inquiry by a references committee into Big Tech.

    The Greens voted against the motion due to the language used in it.

    “There is no doubt that we do need an inquiry into the influence of Big Tech in this country, particularly its impact on our democracy and our media and the way that Big Tech has allowed for the proliferation of far-right extremism on digital platforms in Australia,” Greens Senator Nick McKim said.

    “However, this motion contains language which concerns the Greens. It is language which is used overwhelmingly by the far right, including terms like shadow-banning and deplatforming.

    “While we won’t be supporting this motion today, we do remain open minded and of the view that we need to have a look at some of the impacts of the Big Tech sector on those areas I mentioned earlier.”

    Shadow industry minister Ed Husic last month labelled the attempted motion a “joke”.

    “On so many levels this was a joke and a poor one at that. There are countless reports gathering dust now on what needs to be done to combat some of the excesses in technology that this government has ignored,” Mr Husic told InnovationAus in February.

    “On top of that did anyone seriously think that this government that had pulled the handbrake on implementing Royal Commission recommendations against big banks was serious about a Big Tech inquiry that would produce a report that would go nowhere?”

    The post Liberal Senators’ Big Tech inquiry gets knocked back appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Chicago – President Joe Biden is signaling that his administration will get tough on monopoly. With the appointments of Columbia University law professors Timothy Wu to the White House National Economic Council and Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), he has selected two well-known proponents of breaking up the Big Tech monopolies.

    Moreover, these appointments come on the heels of a major antitrust reform bill that Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota introduced in the US Senate last month. Klobuchar’s bill aims to bolster antitrust enforcement in a number of ways. It would increase funding for the FTC and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, establish new bureaucratic offices to investigate and monitor antitrust compliance and market conditions, slap new civil penalties on violators, and expose firms to liability for anticompetitive business practices that currently fall through the cracks.

    The post Antitrust Is Back In The United States appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Australian governments and tech platforms who are at loggerheads should take a step back and compromise, according to Salesforce Australia chief executive officer Pip Marlow, who says “stakeholder capitalism” has helped the software giant’s own partnerships.

    “Technology and government, [or] technology and business, we have to work together,” Ms Marlow said told the AFR business summit on Wednesday afternoon.

    “Because actually I don’t think we can make the progress that we need to [by] working in silos or working not in partnership,” she said.

    Pip Marlow
    Pip Marlow: Australia is at a sliding doors moment. Big Tech.

    The Salesforce chief said the pandemic had shown the value of public and private partnerships and what can be achieved in a crisis.

    According to Ms Marlow, Australia is at a “sliding doors moment.” It must capitalise on its relative success in managing the pandemic, which has seen increased levels of trust in government and business, notwithstanding a drop in trust in the technology sector.

    Ms Marlow said Salesforce was guided by a commitment to “stakeholder capitalism” where community, employees, government, customers and the environment factor into decisions much like shareholders do. She said some commitments made under the approach are not always met, but the company is transparent about it as it pursues “true stakeholder capitalism”.

    The software giant’s platforms have become a popular choice for governments, including to manage COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, helping the company to grow revenue 20 per cent last year and forecast similar growth in 2021.

    Salesforce’s platform was used as a replacement to Victoria’s largely manual contact tracing system, for example. It has similar contact tracing deals with South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, New Zealand and over 30 US states.

    Key to partnering with government is a willingness to consider each other’s stakeholders, Ms Marlow said.

    “The way [Salesforce] try and get to that [partnership] point is taking that stakeholder approach,” Ms Marlow said.

    “If your number one thing that is important to you above everything else is profit, you will make decisions aligned to that. If you have a more balanced scorecard and say ‘actually it’s our role to help government, help business [to] drive customer satisfaction, you will operate differently because you have a more balanced scorecard, and that’s why we take the stakeholder approach.”

    When negotiations get tense, such as with Google and Facebook’s stoush with the federal government, Ms Marlow says it is time to take a step back.

    “If you have two parties who both have a position and you’re both pushing against each other [then] nobody’s making any progress,” she said.

    “So actually, sometimes you have to be the person to take the first step back to seek to understand the other person’s position and go ‘Right, what can I do to help you. And how can we change the dynamic here?’”

    “But waiting for the other person to make the move, if both parties are waiting for the other person to make the move, nobody’s going to make a move.”

    The post Salesforce chief calls for truce on digital platforms appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Legal scholar Lina Khan has been nominated to the Federal Trade Commission by President Joe Biden.

    President Joe Biden plans to nominate Lina Khan, a Columbia law professor and progressive champion of the antitrust movement, to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Politico reports. Progressives against big tech and for anti-monopolism praised this decision on Tuesday.

    Khan is a “progressive superstar,” ProPublica senior reporter and editor Jesse Eisinger wrote. She first became well known in the law and big tech spheres for her 2017 article published in The Yale Law Journal, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” which challenged American antitrust law and its ability to handle companies like Amazon.

    In the article, Khan argued that American antitrust laws are not equipped to handle a company like Amazon, which has monopoly-like power despite not looking like a traditional monopoly.

    “In her telling, monopolies don’t just exploit consumers and workers in their part of the economy. Even when they offer low prices to consumers, their influence propagates through the entire system,” wrote The Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer in 2018.

    Khan’s Yale Law Journal article was praised by experts in business and law as “remarkable,” wrote one Washington Post journalist. A New York Times profile stated that Khan’s article “reframed decades of monopoly law.” When the article was published, Khan was only in her third year of law school.

    Since then, Khan has emerged as a leading figure in the antitrust movement. Sarah Miller, director of the American Economic Liberties Project, called her the “intellectual architect of the bipartisan suits against Facebook and Google” in a statement on Tuesday.

    Last year, the FTC and Justice Department filed antitrust suits against Google and Facebook, and big tech CEOs were grilled by Congress over their company’s wide-reaching effects on the market. When the House Judiciary Committee put forth recommendations for legislation and reforms to encourage competition, Khan helped to craft that report.

    Her appointment, in combination with Biden’s pick of another outspoken antitrust lawyer, Tim Wu, as a White House economic adviser, could signal that Biden is planning to take a more aggressive stance toward big tech than his predecessors. The picks represent, as Politico wrote, “a massive shift in philosophy away from the era of Barack Obama, who proudly forged an alliance between the Democratic Party and Big Tech.”

    Biden’s plans to pick Khan for one of the five FTC spots is “the biggest news in antitrust in a year already filled with antitrust news,” wrote Brian Fung, a CNN tech reporter.

    Anti-monopolist Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout wrote that Khan and Wu are “extraordinary, powerful choices by Biden. It gives hope that the last 40 years of consumer welfarism in antitrust could be on its last legs, and that we can start enforcing existing laws with vigor.” Short-term market decisions underscore current antitrust laws, due to a Ronald Reagan-era change that paved the way for thousands of mergers in the ensuing decades.

    Khan, along with Wu and Vanita Gupta, a Biden pick for the Justice Department who’s also been critical of big tech, could help to usher in a new era for regulation of monopolies, progressives hope. As the Justice Democrats wrote, “This is a major progressive pick by the Biden administration to check the concentration of corporate power and uplift working families.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sri Narendra Modi

    The world has been riveted for months now by the mass farmers’ strike in India against Narendra Modi’s neoliberal agriculture reforms bills. The passage of these deeply unpopular laws has overlapped with the Modi regime’s intensified crackdown of any and all dissent at home.

    But one big part of this story has gone unnoticed: the complicity of Google and other tech platforms in propping up the repressive Modi-BJP government through their huge investments in the regime’s closest allies and biggest beneficiaries.

    In particular, Google’s multi-billion dollar investment in the telecommunications company owned by oil and gas billionaire Mukesh Ambani shows how US Big Tech will stop at nothing to make a bigger profit, even if this includes legitimizing a key supporter of the authoritarian-leaning government that is now a target of mass revolt. Ambani is India’s richest man and a strong corporate ally to BJP leadership, perceived by many as a major beneficiary of the hated agricultural reforms.

    Farmer Protests, Reliance Industries and Mukesh Ambani

    In September 2020, the Indian Parliament approved the Indian Agriculture Acts of 2020, also known as the “Farm Bills.” In response, Indian farmers who opposed these bills launched one of the largest protests and series of cross-sectoral strikes that the world has ever seen.

    It’s estimated that over 250 million people have participated in protests against the passage of these bills that Indian farmers see as another phase in the continued attack on their livelihoods and an attempt to deregulate the farming industry to allow for greater private-sector control of food distribution. These changes would favor large corporations like Ambani’s Reliance Industries, who would thrive under the free market conditions that these Farm Bills would create.

    Protesters in India and among the South Asian diaspora have also held solidarity actions against the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) and National Registry of Citizens (NRC), which were passed by the Modi-BJP government in the last 18 months. For example, students who organized en masse against the anti-Muslim and anti-poor CAA and NRC laws have joined with Indian farmers as both groups take on the right-wing, repressive Modi government.

    Farm bill protestors in India have repeatedly visited the headquarters of Reliance Industries, a global Fortune 500 company owned by India and Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, arguing that his corporation stands to profit greatly from the deregulation of the agricultural sector. Reliance owns Jio Platforms, which is a top telecommunications carrier in India. Ambani’s multi-tentacled telecommunications and digital empire also recently entered into the food and grocery delivery market through their app JioMart.

    While Ambani promises not to pursue large-scale corporate farming, protestors remain skeptical that the Farm Bills were not created to benefit the likes of Ambani and other major corporations in India.

    Google and Mukesh Ambani

    Last summer Google made headlines with its announcement that it was investing $4.5 billion in Ambani’s Jio Platforms, giving it a 7.7% stake in the company. Google says it plans to make a $10 billion investment in India over the next few years and partner with Jio Platforms to create an affordable Android phone that would give more Indians internet access.

    But Google’s desire to give more Indians internet access is no doubt motivated by its even greater desire to gain a strong foothold in India’s “emerging market” and be poised to sell its products and advertising in these markets. Google’s bread and butter is advertisement sales and growth isn’t possible without new markets to sell to advertisers.

    In truth, Google’s massive investment in India is really just an investment in a corporation owned by India’s richest man. It also signals Google’s own desire to grow its business infinitely into new markets. And Google’s big arrival in India at a time when the government has announced major new deregulation laws is no doubt music to the tech company’s ear, as it and other US tech companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying against regulation at home.

    Food and trade policy analyst Davinder Sharma told Al-Jazeera: “We are following the American model by bringing corporates into the agriculture.” U.S. tech companies are moving into India at the same time and are participating in this corporate take-over of India’s agriculture industry. In his announcement of Google’s $10m multi-year investment in the India Digitization Fund, India-born Google CEO Sundar Pichai writes that one of the key areas that investment will focus on is “leveraging technology and AI for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture.”

    Farmers in India are right to be suspicious and to reject the new laws that open up opportunities for corporations like Reliance and Google to further impoverish the lives of Indian farmers.

    Google and the Modi Government’s Repression

    In profiting from investment in India while standing on the sidelines and not condemning the Modi government’s human rights abuses, Google and US Big Tech can be seen to be validating the repression of protesters.

    Most recently the Modi government has come after youth climate activists like Disha Ravi, who are joining farmers on the front lines of the protests and leading the Indian chapter of the international Fridays for Future movement. After the Modi government made a request in early February to Google for information about IP addresses connected to a Google doc, Ravi and a number of other climate activists were arrested on charges of international conspiracy to “defame the country” and sedition against the Indian government for assembling a social media “toolkit” for climate activists to show solidarity with protesting farmers.

    In a recent Intercept article, Naomi Klein reports on the role that international tech companies like Google and Zoom have played in working with the Modi government to surveil climate activists in India. Klein writes of how the toolkit controversy exposes the broader attempts at chilling political dissent in India right now and says “the silent complicity of the tech companies” in cooperating with Modi’s government goes against their own self-image as harbingers of democracy and open societies.

    Indeed, if Google truly wants to “democratize” the internet in India it should also condemn the Indian government’s repeated attempts to stifle protest and dissent against Modi and his party by using internet blackouts in Kashmir, during protests over the CAA and NRC in Delhi, and now over the Farm Bills (with over 400 blackouts in the last four years, India is the world leader).

    Last month the Modi government demanded that Twitter block the accounts of users who criticized the government and their repression of the farmer strikes and the social media company complied temporarily. After Twitter blocked and then unblocked accounts — including those of activists, celebrities, and an entire news organization — the Indian government threatened employees of Twitter with jail time if they didn’t follow the government’s orders. To do all this, the Modi government invoked a 135 year old colonial-era law used by the British to quell anti-colonial uprisings. Instead of showing concern for these abuses, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has given nothing but public praise to Modi’s “Digital India” initiative at a time when digital censorship of the people and press by his government have intensified rapidly.

    Google and Facebook are making these huge investments in Indian corporations at a time when the people of India and Kashmir are engaged in non-stop protest against the Modi-BJP government. Rather than joining the people of India in calls for justice, an end to repression and censorship of the people and the press, and the right to protest, Google offers its support only to Ambani and the corporate class of India who will help Google grow its market while enriching themselves. This international alliance of the tech elite was also seen when Pichai and his wife rubbed elbows with the Indian corporate elite at the wedding of Ambani’s son in 2019.

    We’ve seen the attention that tech and social media companies have received during the past two months over their role in the January 6th white supremacist insurrection at the US Capital. Now we must extend the same attention to the role they’ve played in platforming right-wing hate speech in India and around the world, including to the recent concerns raised by Saudi activists about Google’s partnership with their own repressive government.

    As we continue to demand tech accountability in the US, we must join with other movements and voices challenging the power and complicity of Big Tech in empowering repressive regimes all over the world — and also question how much all this is simply baked into their business model.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • In 2020, billionaires made out like bandits. Jeff Bezos’s personal holdings surged from $113 to $184 billion. Elon Musk briefly eclipsed Bezos, with a net worth rise from $27 billion to over $185 billion.

    For the bourgeoisie presiding over “Big Tech” corporations, life is grand.

    Yet, while the expanded dominance of these corporations in their domestic markets is the subject of numerous critical analyses, their global reach is a fact seldom discussed, especially by dominant intellectuals in the American empire.

    In fact, once we investigate the mechanics and numbers, it becomes apparent that Big Tech is not only global in scope, it is fundamentally colonial in character and dominated by the United States. This phenomenon is called “digital colonialism.”

    We live in a world where digital colonialism now risks becoming as significant and far-reaching a threat to the Global South as classic colonialism was in previous centuries.

    The post Digital Colonialism: The Evolution Of American Empire appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas , the lead organizer for that is Dr. Nolan Higdon , whom I’ve worked with for years on various things. And Project Censored was a co-sponsor of this event. It was also co-sponsored by several academic institutions, including UCLA, USC, UC Santa Cruz, Stanford, and Cal State across the State of California. So, in other words, as I’ve mentioned in a couple of other interviews, Alan Macleod over at Mint Press News, did a pretty in-depth piece  on this. I know you talked about it; I think in a Black Agenda Report piece. This is an ongoing issue. This is an issue of Big Tech gatekeeping, algorithmic censorship. 

    We have not been able to get any real feedback from YouTube about what happened, except that they, in true Orwellian fashion, flipped the script, and basically tried to say that Nolan didn’t upload the videos or that the videos maybe didn’t exist in the first place.

    The post Against Big Tech’s Algorithmic Cancel Culture appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • A coalition of privacy and immigrant rights groups are pushing back on the Biden administration’s proposal to deploy a “smart” wall on the southern border.

    In a statement released Thursday, first obtained by The Hill, the 40 groups slam the legislation introduced in Congress last week as a “continuation of the Trump administration’s racist border policies, not a break from it.”

    The letter pans the proposed use of “smart technology” at the border as “Trump’s wall by another name.”

    The mammoth immigration bill, which is being spearheaded by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to develop technology and surveillance infrastructure to “manage and secure the southern border.”

    The post Privacy, Immigrant Rights Groups Slam Biden’s ‘Smart Wall’ appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • A Liberal Senator has withdrawn his attempt to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the influence of Big Tech in Australia on the same day the federal government passed its controversial media bargaining code into law and Facebook reversed its news ban.

    Liberal Senator Alex Antic had planned to move a motion in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon to establish a Select Committee on Big Tech Influence in Australia, but withdrew this motion at the last minute.

    This was the same day that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg reached an agreement with Facebook to amend the news media bargaining code legislation to ensure the tech giant allowed news content back onto its platform.

    Canberra Parliament
    Re-think: The Senate inquiry into Big Tech influence no longer so interesting

    Last week Facebook went nuclear and followed through with its threat to block all news content for Australian users in response to the bargaining code, which would force it to enter into final offer arbitration to determine revenue sharing deals with media companies.

    Senator Antic used the move as further evidence that the Big Tech inquiry was needed.

    “The news today that Facebook are banning access to news publishers, TV stations and government departments highlights why I have been calling for a Senate Select Committee to be established to investigate the activity and behaviour of Big Tech,” Senator Antic posted on Facebook last week.

    But Senator Antic eventually withdrew his plan to move the motion in the Senate, just hours after the government brokered a deal with Facebook.

    Shadow industry and innovation minister Ed Husic labelled the attempted motion a “joke”.

    “On so many levels this was a joke and a poor one at that. There are countless reports gathering dust now on what needs to be done to combat some of the excesses in technology, that this government has ignored,” Mr Husic told InnovationAus.

    “On top of that did anyone seriously think that this government that had pulled the handbrake on implementing Royal Commission recommendations against big banks was serious about a Big Tech inquiry that would produce a report that would go nowhere.”

    The timing of the motion was telling, Mr Husic said.

    “It was cute timing to think a bunch of nobody senators proposing an inquiry into Big Tech would scare Facebook into a different position on the code,” he said.

    “Again, I think there are serious issues that need to be dealt with and we do need to work with tech on them, from privacy to competition law, but this was just a brain snap, a political parlor game that was never destined to go anywhere.”

    The inquiry would have looked into the management of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation, including shadow banning, de-platforming and demonetisation. Just this week the tech giants unveiled their voluntary code of conduct around misinformation and disinformation which was widely panned.

    There is also an existing Select Committee focusing on foreign interference through social media, which is expected to table its final report in May next year.

    The committee would have been tasked with investigating the prevalence of fake accounts and bots on platforms such as Facebook, along with these companies’ privacy settings and the use of data by third parties.

    The Senators would also be tasked at looking at whether these firms are complying with Australian laws. The committee is expected to table its final report in December next year.

    It came on the same day that the federal government passed its legislation launching the media bargaining code through Parliament. The code will force designated companies to eventually enter into forced arbitration to determine revenue sharing deals with media companies over the sharing of news content.

    The code was a key recommendation from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) digital platforms inquiry, which also included a number of other policy recommendations for government.

    The ACCC has also launched a series of legal actions against Big Tech firms for a range of alleged offences.

    The Attorney’s-General Department is also conducting a review of the Privacy Act which will likely call on the tech giants to improve security and data handling practices, and give room for individuals to launch legal action against the firms for breaches of privacy.

    The Coalition has also been highly critical of tech firms offering encrypted communications, including Facebook,and moved a number of pieces of legislation aimed at undermining this.

    Laws introduced to Parliament late last year would hand sweeping new powers to the AFP to access and “disrupt” the networks of those suspected of crimes, and to even take over their accounts on Big Tech platforms covertly.

    The post Govt backs off proposed Big Tech inquiry appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • A Liberal Senator has withdrawn his attempt to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the influence of Big Tech in Australia on the same day the federal government passed its controversial media bargaining code into law and Facebook reversed its news ban.

    Liberal Senator Alex Antic had planned to move a motion in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon to establish a Select Committee on Big Tech Influence in Australia, but withdrew this motion at the last minute.

    This was the same day that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg reached an agreement with Facebook to amend the news media bargaining code legislation to ensure the tech giant allowed news content back onto its platform.

    Canberra Parliament
    Re-think: The Senate inquiry into Big Tech influence no longer so interesting

    Last week Facebook went nuclear and followed through with its threat to block all news content for Australian users in response to the bargaining code, which would force it to enter into final offer arbitration to determine revenue sharing deals with media companies.

    Senator Antic used the move as further evidence that the Big Tech inquiry was needed.

    “The news today that Facebook are banning access to news publishers, TV stations and government departments highlights why I have been calling for a Senate Select Committee to be established to investigate the activity and behaviour of Big Tech,” Senator Antic posted on Facebook last week.

    But Senator Antic eventually withdrew his plan to move the motion in the Senate, just hours after the government brokered a deal with Facebook.

    Shadow industry and innovation minister Ed Husic labelled the attempted motion a “joke”.

    “On so many levels this was a joke and a poor one at that. There are countless reports gathering dust now on what needs to be done to combat some of the excesses in technology, that this government has ignored,” Mr Husic told InnovationAus.

    “On top of that did anyone seriously think that this government that had pulled the handbrake on implementing Royal Commission recommendations against big banks was serious about a Big Tech inquiry that would produce a report that would go nowhere.”

    The timing of the motion was telling, Mr Husic said.

    “It was cute timing to think a bunch of nobody senators proposing an inquiry into Big Tech would scare Facebook into a different position on the code,” he said.

    “Again, I think there are serious issues that need to be dealt with and we do need to work with tech on them, from privacy to competition law, but this was just a brain snap, a political parlor game that was never destined to go anywhere.”

    The inquiry would have looked into the management of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation, including shadow banning, de-platforming and demonetisation. Just this week the tech giants unveiled their voluntary code of conduct around misinformation and disinformation which was widely panned.

    There is also an existing Select Committee focusing on foreign interference through social media, which is expected to table its final report in May next year.

    The committee would have been tasked with investigating the prevalence of fake accounts and bots on platforms such as Facebook, along with these companies’ privacy settings and the use of data by third parties.

    The Senators would also be tasked at looking at whether these firms are complying with Australian laws. The committee is expected to table its final report in December next year.

    It came on the same day that the federal government passed its legislation launching the media bargaining code through Parliament. The code will force designated companies to eventually enter into forced arbitration to determine revenue sharing deals with media companies over the sharing of news content.

    The code was a key recommendation from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) digital platforms inquiry, which also included a number of other policy recommendations for government.

    The ACCC has also launched a series of legal actions against Big Tech firms for a range of alleged offences.

    The Attorney’s-General Department is also conducting a review of the Privacy Act which will likely call on the tech giants to improve security and data handling practices, and give room for individuals to launch legal action against the firms for breaches of privacy.

    The Coalition has also been highly critical of tech firms offering encrypted communications, including Facebook,and moved a number of pieces of legislation aimed at undermining this.

    Laws introduced to Parliament late last year would hand sweeping new powers to the AFP to access and “disrupt” the networks of those suspected of crimes, and to even take over their accounts on Big Tech platforms covertly.

    The post Govt backs off proposed Big Tech inquiry appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is coming under fire again from Democratic lawmakers, as well as from the American Postal Workers Union, who are calling for President Joe Biden to pave the way for DeJoy’s removal after the Trump-appointee announced higher mailing fees and logistical changes that could further slow down mail. The US Postal Service (USPS) has already suffered a more than 50% drop in on-time arrivals for first-class mail deliveries, according to the service’s own data.

    Nevertheless, thanks to the ubiquitous presence of high-speed internet, the personal communications of most Americans don’t seem to be fundamentally affected by the problems at USPS. Excluding the mail-in-ballots controversy leading up to the 2020 presidential election, the majority of the country remains little more than a…

    The post Prisons Prime Testing Ground For Dehumanizing Hi-Tech ‘Advances’ appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • For the third time in less than five months, the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them, with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms. On March 25, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will interrogate Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebooks’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai at a hearing which the Committee announced will focus “on misinformation and disinformation plaguing online platforms.”

    The Committee’s Chair, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and the two Chairs of the Subcommittees holding the hearings, Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), said in a joint statement that the impetus was “falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine” and “debunked claims of election fraud.” They argued that “these online platforms have allowed misinformation to spread, intensifying national crises with real-life, grim consequences for…

    The post Congress Escalates Pressure On Tech Giants To Censor More appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Facebook has signed up to a voluntary Big Tech code aimed at combating online misinformation just days after blocking all legitimate news content across its platform.

    Along with Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Redbubble and TikTok, Facebook has become a signatory to the new Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation, after the Big Tech firms were ordered to develop their own set of principles by the federal government in late 2019.

    This was a recommendation from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s long-running inquiry into digital platforms.

    It comes just days after Facebook flicked the switch and blocked all local and international news for its Australian users in response to the federal government’s media bargaining code passing the lower house with bipartisan support.

    Facebook
    Misinformation: Facebook has signed up to a misinformation code days after banning news from its service

    It’s unclear how Facebook will meet the number of objectives and coding principles in the code while it maintains its news ban in Australia.

    The voluntary code has also already been slammed by the Centre for Responsible Technology, which labelled it “inadequate” self-regulation that risks becoming a “digital fig leaf”.

    The code, managed by industry group DIGI, aims to reduce the risk of online misinformation and disinformation causing harm to Australians.

    The companies signed up to the code will commit to introducing and maintaining safeguards to protect from this misinformation, including a range of “scalable measures” to reduce its spread and visibility.

    “This new code of practice has seen a diverse set of digital companies collaborate with each other, government, academia and civil society to propose solutions to the incredibly complex challenges of misinformation and disinformation online,” DIGI managing director Sunita Bose said.

    “People misleading others, or people being misinformed, are not new problems – but the digital era means that false information can spread faster and wider than before. In this code, we’ve worked to get the balance right with what we think people expect when communicating over the internet.

    “Companies are committing to robust safeguards against harmful misinformation and disinformation that also protect privacy, freedom of expression and political communication.”

    The code defines misinformation and disinformation as “digital content that is verifiably false or misleading or deceptive” and that is likely to cause harm, either to individual health, public goods or the political process.

    It defines disinformation as being propagated via “inauthentic behaviour” such as through spam, bots or “bulk and aggressive behaviours”, while misinformation as being propagated by individual users.

    The code does not apply to private messages or emails, and provides exclusions for satire, authorised government content and political advertising.

    Signatories will also be able to choose which objectives and measures to agree to and have another three months to decide this. There will also be a facility established to address non-compliance within six months, but it will not have any enforcement powers.

    Signatories will have to report annually on the measures it has undertaken as part of the code, with DIGI to release the first set of reports in May.

    The code comprises seven objectives and 10 outcomes, with a list of some examples of behaviour, but no set requirements.

    The only objective that the signatories must sign up to is the first, to “provide safeguards against harms that may arise from disinformation and misinformation”.

    The measures involved with this may include the human reviewing of content, labelling of false content, the removal of content and suspension of accounts linked with this behaviour, and may involve the use of technology such as algorithmic review.

    Another measure, one that Facebook may struggle to abide by currently, is “prioritising credible and trusted new sources that are subject to a published editorial code”. The code does however include a clause “noting that some signatories may remove or reduce the ranking of news content which violates their policies”.

    Another opt-in objective is to disrupt advertising and the monetisation incentives for disinformation, through means such as brand safety and verification tools, the use of third-party verification companies, and the blocking of ads with disinformation.

    The code includes an objective to improve public awareness around political advertising on the digital platforms, with greater transparency around the source of ads, and an option for companies to not target advertisements based on users’ inferred political affiliations, but no requirement not to do so.

    DIGI will establish a subcommittee with representatives from the signatories and independent members which will meet every six months to review the application of the code, with a review of the code itself to take place in 12 months.

    The Australian Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology quickly slammed the code, saying it leaves too much to the discretion of the Big Tech firms in the form of self-regulation.

    “[The code is an] inadequate response to the spread of misinformation that, yet again, asks the Australian public to put their faith in the Big Tech platforms to manage their own affairs,” Centre for Responsible Technology director Peter Lewis said.

    “Disinformation is a very serious issue and it needs to be taken seriously. Rather than an unenforceable industry code, misinformation should be treated as a serious online harm and included in the Online Safety Act.”

    Mr Lewis said he had “no confidence” in the oversight committee as it does not have enforcement powers and will only meet every six months.

    “In recent days Facebook has shown it is capable of removing huge swathes of content from its site to forward its own political agenda – yet continues to claim it cannot discharge a general responsibility to manage damaging and dangerous content on its platform,” he said.

    “Without a legally enforceable obligation to actively manage misinformation and disinformation, we fear this code will simply become a digital fig leaf.”

    In a paper on the submissions received throughout the process, DIGI acknowledged criticisms of the self-regulatory nature of the code, but said this was a government policy.

    “The self-regulatory approach to the code is supported by the need to devise a solution that can encompass the diversity of platforms and the speed with which these issues are evolving, as well as the emerging range of technologies to combat them,” the paper said.

    “We also believe these submissions have not properly considered the significant concerns that can be incurred by ‘hard regulatory’ approaches to misinformation.”

    The organisation said it did make changes from the draft code as a result of the feedback, including covering misinformation and disinformation, providing for protections for marginalised and vulnerable groups, requiring the agreement to the first objective, and establishing the non-compliance body.

     

    The post Facebook signs new misinformation code appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • The federal government is set to cave in to the demands of Google and Facebook, with preparations under way to water down its media bargaining code ahead of a parliamentary showdown this week.

    Legislation introducing a code, which would force Google and Facebook to enter into final offer arbitration to determine revenue sharing deals with media companies over the sharing of news content, is to be debated in parliament this week, after being given the green light by a government-led Senate committee on Friday.

    But negotiations are still taking place behind the scenes on the final shape of the legislation, and the government appears willing to make significant concessions to the Big Tech firms.

    parliament House cyber
    Time to reflect on the showdown with Big Tech

    The government confirmed that it will amend the legislation, which is scheduled for debate in Parliament on Wednesday.

    It comes as Seven West Media on Monday became the first major Australian media company to sign a deal with Google to have its news content featured on Google Showcase as part of a deal believed to be worth more than $30 million per year.

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg are pushing for Google and Facebook to sign more deals like this with other major media players outside of the bargaining code, and are understood to be willing to make major concessions if this takes place.

    The government is reportedly willing to alter the code to not designate Google’s search engine or Facebook’s news feed as subject to the revenue sharing deal. This amounts to a huge capitulation to the Big Tech demands.

    These are the firms’ most significant services, and the primary means through which users are presented with news content.

    The government is also set to delay making these designations in order to give Google and Facebook more time to finalise the deals with the media companies.

    The tech firms have been in discussions with media companies this year in an effort to secure these deals outside of the code, with negotiations including clauses that the deals can be scrapped if the bargaining code is passed into law.

    Seven West Media on Monday informed the market that it had agreed to a “long-term partnership” with Google to have its new content featured on Showcase, which was launched earlier this month in Australia.

    The company’s chair Kerry Stokes thanked Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg for being “instrumental” in securing the agreement.

    “Their outstanding leadership on the implementation of the proposed news media bargaining code has resulted in us being able to conclude negotiations that result in fair payment and ensure our digital future,” Mr Stokes said.

    Speaking on ABC radio on Monday morning, Mr Frydenberg said more deals are “very close”.

    “Both the media proprietors and the digital giants I think recognise that we have something that is workable here in Australia, something that we can take forward, something that can ensure a stable media landscape, and something that will see journalism continued and journalists rewarded for creating original content,” he said.

    Later in the day, Mr Frydenberg confirmed that amendments would be made to the legislation, which is to be debated in the party room on Tuesday before its presentation to Parliament on Wednesday.

    The inking of these deals will likely give the government the justification to significantly water down the bargaining code to satisfy the tech giants, ensuring that they do not withdraw their services in Australia.

    Despite recommending the legislation be passed, the Senate committee’s report late last week did allow room for amendments.

    “The committee accepts that there remains the possibility that not all risks have been taken into account, and that further refinements may be needed to the arbitration mechanisms and other parts of the code so that they work in an optimum manner,” the report said.

    The post Showdown looms for media bargaining code appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Passengers board into a car with an uber sticker

    In the November election, California voters delivered a blow to gig workers by passing Prop 22, a ballot initiative permitting companies like Uber and Lyft to continue treating app-based and delivery drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. The vote was widely seen as a rebuttal to AB5, a 2019 law which ensured that California businesses appropriately classify their workers as either independent contractors or employees.

    But there’s another California law that, while getting far less attention than AB5, arguably had an equally profound impact on Prop 22’s ultimate passage — AB25, or the “employee exemption” rule, which excluded workers from the state’s landmark data privacy protections. AB25 made it so that if, for example, you ride in an Uber or Lyft as a passenger, you would have the right to request that the company disclose and share your personal information with you, including information about your trip start and end times, prices or distance traveled. However, if you drive for that company, you don’t have those same rights. While workers can be informed of the categories of information that a business collects on them and the purpose, they do not have the right to submit requests to know or delete information that their employers or former employers have collected about them. And employers collect all kinds of data on their drivers, including personal demographic information, app log on/off times, GPS records, driving speeds, “waiting” and “engaged” times, earnings, management actions, and ratings/reviews. Some of this information can be crucial for workers to bargain for better wages and benefits, challenge harmful or unfair employer practices, bolster their arguments in legal disputes or raise the public’s awareness of these issues.

    As lawmakers nationwide debate the future of the gig economy, the question should be asked: Would Prop 22 have passed if California workers had access to their workplace data?

    Having access to data empowers workers in a number of ways, first and foremost by giving workers greater ability to keep their employers honest and accountable. Data is like sunlight on employers’ wider patterns of technology use: without it, workers have little recourse to effectively address workplace concerns or combat violations of labor law. This technological power imbalance translates into a political one, too. Employers use their proprietary data and technological tools to control the rules and shape narratives that often distort reality and manipulate the public and policymakers.

    In the case of Prop 22, access to better data could have helped counter the spread of misinformation. Post-election reporting has shown that voters were confused, or worse, deceived by the myriad claims bombarding them in the lead-up to the vote. On the one hand, the “Yes on 22” campaign claimed that more than 120,000 drivers signed up to support the initiative. They argued that Prop 22 provided “freedom and flexibility” to drivers, and cited strong support from organizations representing communities of color.

    On the other hand, Prop 22 challengers pointed to evidence rebutting claims that customer and driver flexibility would be negatively impacted. They argued that the drivers the companies touted as “supporters,” based on company-administered surveys, were fewer in number than the broader population of drivers, or had even been coerced. And they claimed companies were intentionally — and hypocritically — invoking racial justice because Prop 22 would, in fact, deepen the inequities that drivers of color already experience.

    Still, the data imbalance in favor of the companies created a messaging vacuum that split traditionally allied groups — including some labor, racial justice and civil rights organizations — into different camps. A number of Black, Latino and Asian American organizations appeared in ads and sent letters to elected officials backing Prop 22, despite the negative effects it would have on drivers of color, in particular. According to a UC Santa Cruz study, an estimated 78 percent of app-based drivers are people of color, and 56 percent are immigrants.

    “Better data would have absolutely helped us to drive at the nexus of the companies’ arguments,” Willy Solis, an organizer with Gig Workers Collective, told Truthout. “Without our own strong message of ‘this is the data and this is what it shows,’ [the companies] were always going to have the edge over us.”

    This is not to discount the work of groups, including universities, advocacy and labor organizations who conducted studies and surveys to fact-check claims about how drivers’ earnings and eligibility for benefits would be impacted under Prop 22. But, in the grand scheme of things, the kind of data used in these studies, which often relies on datasets that are crowdsourced or “piece-mealed” from groups of workers themselves, pale in comparison to the companies’ in-house collective and global data. “Unless the data is collective, you’re really not showing much. It’s almost worthless,” said Janine Berg, senior economist at the International Labour Organization, when asked about how these studies stack up against company-held data.

    “I think [the Prop 22 outcome] could have been different if access to that data was embedded in overall social movement work and a sense of solidarity with one another instead of the company,” Michelle Miller, co-founder and co-executive director at Coworker.org, told Truthout. Her organization provides tools, education and training support to workers engaged in organizing efforts, but was not involved in organizing against Prop 22. “We need to do good data policy work, but it always has to be embedded in a broader social movement strategy that emphasizes cooperation and how power aggregates (like data aggregates).”

    While it’s impossible to know whether Prop 22 would have failed had AB25 not passed, it’s important that we more closely examine the relationship between data rights and workers’ rights. What happened in California — and frankly, what has been happening around the world — reflects a broader dynamic that extends beyond gig work.

    Ultimately, these battles are neither about technology nor are they neutral: they are political. Prop 22 advocates, including service providers and secret funders, created a formidable coalitional force. Outspending opponents 12:1 in the most expensive ballot campaign in California’s history, more than $200 million went toward funding extensive digital and TV advertising, texts, emails and app notifications, as well as the use of controversial tactics to persuade employees. Indeed, from the vantage point of rideshare companies, it was a worthwhile investment: One day after the vote, Uber and Lyft gained $13 billion in combined market value.

    Prop 22 advocates are already maneuvering to have California’s law codified at the federal level, pushing a national campaign to win over the public. In the coming months, as a growing coalition of groups, including unions, state labor federations, worker centers and progressive worker advocacy organizations seek to hold the Biden administration accountable on workers’ rights issues, workers’ data rights should also be front and center.

    For the most part, the few data rights laws on the books in the U.S. have been written to protect consumers from the exploitation and monetization of data. However, excluding workers from these laws allows these companies enough wiggle room to instead exploit workers through many of the same practices. But here’s the thing: most consumers are workers, and most workers are consumers. It’s time to advance data rights legislation that acknowledges this reality and protects people, regardless of whether they’re behind the wheel or in the backseat of an Uber.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • On October 20, 2020, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust action against Google, the first step in what might be one of the biggest anti-monopoly cases of this century. With Google controlling more than an 87% share of the U.S. search market and its parent company, Alphabet, now one of the largest and most valuable companies in history, the move is likely long overdue. Yet Google/Alphabet is not alone. Just weeks later, the European Commission formally accused Amazon of breaking EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in online retail markets.

    At this point, it is relatively uncontroversial to point out that “Big Tech” giants like Google and Amazon increasingly dominate our economies and wield tremendous influence over our culture, social interactions, and political systems.

    The post A Common Platform: Reimagining Data And Platforms appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Carson City, NV – Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments.

    Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan to launch so-called Innovation Zones in Nevada to jumpstart the state’s economy by attracting technology firms, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday.

    The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services.

    The measure to further economic development with the “alternative form of local government” has not yet been introduced in the Legislature.

    The post Nevada Bill Would Allow Tech Companies To Create Governments appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Google’s incendiary threat to shut its internet search services in Australia is simply the latest expression – albeit the nuclear option – of a campaign against a proposed law that the company simply does not like.

    The appearance of Google Australia managing director Mel Silva before a public hearing of the Senate economics committee on Friday was extraordinary for its velvet glove demonstration of awesome market power.

    In threatening to pull search services from Australia, a move that would lead to unknowable but likely dramatic short-term damage to businesses, to the economy and to the government, Google has put a spotlight on the concentrated power its own market dominance.

    Even more extraordinary has been the way the threat galvanised senators. On how many issues would South Australian independent Rex Patrick and Liberal firebrand Andrew Bragg be so tightly aligned? Not many I would think.

    Parliament House
    Digging in: The federal government showing no sign of moving

    It has been clear for some time that the political class in Australia is increasingly frustrated with the market power of the Big Tech platforms, and with growing anger at the way that power is exercised.

    Mel Silva’s threats to withdraw Google search services has brought that frustration out into the open.

    Scott Morrison’s “we don’t respond to threats” entry into the discussion late on Friday was as ironic as it was dramatic. Certainly, it is an escalation. It is not every day that a company can provoke so instant and an angry a response from a Prime Minister as Google managed on Friday.

    The Prime Minister is quite right. Australians get to decide how Australia is run.

    “That’s done by our parliament, that’s done by our government, and that’s how things work in Australia,” Mr Morrison said. “And people who want to work with that in Australia are very welcome. But we don’t respond to threats.”

    No arguments there.

    As a private company, Google is equally within its rights to withdraw services from a jurisdiction where it can’t make a business case to successfully operate within the laws of the land. It would leave behind many billions of dollars in revenue on which is pays only a razor thin level of tax, but it can exercise that right if it cannot find a way to make it work.

    It is quite a stand-off. The relationship between Big Tech and the federal government is on the brink.

    The release on Thursday of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Digital Advertising Services Inquiry will test the relationship further.

    What is happening in Australia, and the process that culminated in last week’s dramatic testimony has been underway for several years, is being closely watched around the world.

    Scott Morrison is not exactly the Lone Ranger when it comes to world leaders who are concerned about the threat that Big Tech’s concentrated market power poses.

    But the media bargaining code just seems an odd issue for the government to have dug in so deep.

    Of all the things that are objectionable about the vertically and horizontally integrated systems of data collection and exploitation, is this the best way to confront that market power?

    If the problem is competition and Google and Facebook’s monopoly-like power, how does the forced extraction of revenue derived from that broken system to be handed to traditional media companies help?

    If the problem is the impact on journalism, is handing new revenue streams to the concentrated interests of Australia’s big media companies the best way to enable a flourishing public interest journalism sector in Australia?

    In the system of the world created by Google and others, it has never been easier or cheaper to launch a publishing company and reach audiences. Deep niche publishing has proliferated, but sustainable commercial models are elusive.

    The simple proposition that mainstream Australia will have to bear the aggravation and considerable damage of Google closing search in order that money can be stripped from Google and given to News Corp and Nine does not pass the pub test.

    While Australians are supportive of greater regulation of Big Tech – and there is widespread concern about the negative impact of the platforms companies on our institutions – it is far from clear that media and aspect of journalism this Big Tech issue captures the imagination of a wide enough spectrum of the public.

    This is especially the case when it’s held up against the concentrated ownership and market power of Australia’s media giants. Are there any Australians outside of the political class who want to die in a ditch in a fight to guarantee revenue for News Corp and Nine? Hmm?

    The findings of the ACCC’s Digital Advertising Services Inquiry will likely shine a brighter light the structural integration in the supply chain that is hindering the operation of the market and potentially hindering innovation and ultimately hurting the consumer. This would provide a more explainable route to confronting concentrated market power.

    Google has built a system of the world over the past couple of decades that is fundamentally integrated into the way our economy works.

    The removal of Google search would be a hammer blow for many businesses. It would spark an unprecedented reorganisation of the digital economy in this country, with winners and losers emerging from the system that replaces it.

    There is no denying that many thousands of businesses are extremely concerned – to an existential degree – about the impact.

    The unknowable level of drama and damage such a withdrawal of Google search would prompt would be devastating for government. It is a supreme communications challenge to sell the benefits of holding the line.

    But if Google were to make good on its threat and withdraw search services from Australia, the supply chains would quickly reorganise. For all the difficulty, it would be replaced with something else.

    This government has shown itself capable of maintaining a policy line in the face of extreme pressure from commercial partners. It seems committed to its current course in relation to the media bargaining code.

    This is what the brink looks like. Strap in.

    The post On the brink: Big Tech fight escalates appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Google has joined Facebook in threatening to withdraw its services from Australia if legislation introducing a media bargaining code is passed by Parliament.

    In a sometimes fiery Senate inquiry public hearing, the local bosses of Google and Facebook faced senators to push back heavily against the proposed code, which would force them to enter into final offer, baseball-style arbitration with media companies to determine revenue-sharing deals.

    The final code was unveiled and introduced to Parliament late last year. It will require Google and Facebook to enter into final offer arbitration if they cannot reach a revenue sharing deal with an Australian publisher for the use of its content within three months.

    Mel Silva
    Mel Silva: Google will withdraw search operations from Australia is the media bargaining code is passed in its current for

    The code will also require the tech companies to provide 14 days’ notice of any relevant changes to the presentation of news on their platforms as a result of human intervention.

    Google and Facebook have railed against the code since it was first proposed by the competition watchdog more than a year ago, with Facebook already having threatened to block the sharing of Australian news content on its platform.

    Google has now backed this threat, with its Australian managing director Mel Silva telling a public hearing for the Senate inquiry into the legislation that Australians would be blocked from using its search engine if it is passed as is.

    Under this scenario, which Google is actively preparing for, any Australian trying to make a search on Google would be presented with a screen telling them the company is “unable” to offer the service in the country, Ms Silva said.

    “If this version of the code were to become law, it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia,” Ms Silva said.

    “Withdrawing services from Australia is the last thing that I or Google want to happen, especially when there is a way forward.”

    The threat from Google came on the same day that the tech giant signed an agreement with a number of French publishers to pay for the use of their content on Google search results.

    Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology director Peter Lewis quickly hit back at Google’s threat and urged the government to stick to its guns on the code.

    “Google’s testimony today is part of a pattern of threatening behaviour that is chilling for anyone who values our democracy,” Mr Lewis said in a statement.

    “Our elected representatives must stand firm against this bullying and support a viable media to act as a counterweight to the power of big tech: the eyes of the world are watching.”

    Ms Silva also told the public hearing that the proposed code is “unworkable” and incompatible with how the search engine, and internet in general, functions. She labelled the arbitration process laid out in the code “very vague and one-sided”, before laying out three proposed changes to make the legislation more palatable for Google.

    These include a focus on its News Showcase feature, replacing the final offer arbitration with standard commercial arbitration, and the removal of the algorithm notice requirement.

    Independent Senator Rex Patrick hit back at Ms Silva’s argument that the code would break the way the internet works, saying this is a distraction and “technically not correct”.

    “That’s like saying that the government is introducing speed limits and that will affect the way a car works at a technical level. Your argument is distracting, and the way it is distracting it is misleading,” Senator Patrick said.

    “This whole code is not about in any way breaking the internet, it’s about breaking your revenue streams, it’s about breaking your bank account. It does not touch the internet and the way in which it works.”

    Senator Patrick also compared Google’s threat to those made by the Chinese government as part of ongoing trade disputes with Australia.

    Nearly all of the senators at the public hearing seemed in close alignment in their support of the bargaining code and the criticisms of the big tech companies.

    The emphasis on News Showcase, which is yet to be launched in Australia, was also labelled a “pillar of smoke” by Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg, who pointed towards Google’s recent tax bill of $59 million on gross revenue of $4.8 billion in Australia.

    Facebook vice-president of public policy in APAC Simon Milner also appeared at the Senate inquiry, standing by the company’s previous claim that it may block all Australia news content from the platform if the code is implemented.

    “We have explained in order to inform the policy-making process, that that is a potential worst-case scenario of the law as it stands. We clearly have been doing some work to figure out what that would actually look like,” Mr Milner said.

    “This would not mean that Facebook would no longer be available. That is not what we want to do, but it is something we have to seriously consider given the nature of this unworkable law.”

    Mr Milner labelled the legislation as “highly prescriptive micro-regulation” that “fundamentally fails” to acknowledge how publishers use Facebook.

    The representatives from Google and Facebook both claimed that their respective news services have not yet launched in Australia due to the planned laws, despite earlier plans to do so.

    The Senate committee will hold another public hearing on 1 February and is expected to table its report on 12 February. It has received 55 submissions as part of its inquiry.

    The post Google will pull out of Aus if code is passed appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • The suspension of US President Donald Trump from a number of social media platforms has kicked off a muddled political storm in Australia, with a parliamentary group set to be launched to push for further regulation of the tech giants.

    Following the violent storming of the US Capitol last week, Mr Trump was banned from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This led to significant debate in Australian politics over censorship and misinformation on social media, with politicians from both sides of the aisles calling for more transparency and stricter regulations for the likes of Facebook.

    Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chair Rod Sims, who has been driving the government’s crackdown on big tech, has also said that more needs to be done and further oversight is needed of decisions made by these big tech firms.

    Karen Andrews
    Karen Andrews: Supportive of new parliamentary group

    Now more than 50 MPs have joined a yet to be launched “parliamentary friends of making social media safe” group, led by Victorian Nationals MP Anne Webster and NSW Labor MP Sharon Claydon.

    Industry Minister Karen Andrews has thrown her support behind the new group, saying social media companies need to be more transparent about their decision-making.

    “There is a deeper question here that we need to start considering, which is the consistency, the fairness of these various rules. And what is that threshold? There have been many instances of comments that have been taken down from various platforms, but yet in some instances, these platforms are very quick to act when it seems as if the subject content is something that they don’t personally agree with,” Ms Andrews told 3AW.

    “That is unfair, it is inconsistent, and it lacks the transparency that we are looking. The conversation really is about social media ethics.”

    The new parliamentary group is about starting that conversation, Ms Andrews said.

    “We really need to make sure that we listen to what the Australian public is saying as a parliamentary group. So it’s a group of MPs that have come together because they have strong views on social media,” she said.

    “The first thing that the parliamentary group will do is look at what the issues are and how best to prosecute that. But of course, as a government we can and will continue to take action, quite aside from whatever advice comes through from that parliamentary group.”

    In an interview with the Nine newspapers, ACCC chair Rod Sims said further regulation may be needed around this issue.

    “Clearly the digital platforms do have some control over what we see and read. How much we can leave it up to the digital platforms…is one of the defining questions we have to face. We definitely need the government to get to grips with this; we can’t just leave it with the digital platforms,” Mr Sims said.

    A number of Coalition ministers raised concerns with the banning of Mr Trump from social media platforms, including acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack and Treasurer Josh Frydenbergy, while former Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce called on the tech giants to remove more content from their platforms.

    The sometimes confusing debate has straddled freedom of speech, censorship and the role of tech companies in policing their own platforms, and how much say governments should say in this.

    Labor MPs, including shadow assistant minister for cybersecurity Tim Watts, have largely backed Facebook and Twitter’s decision to remove Mr Trump,

    “Major social media companies have self-regulatory policies that align pretty well with norms in democractic societies and they are right to enforce them when breached, whether for users inciting violence or otherwise,” Mr Watts told InnovationAus.

    “Social media platforms have a responsibility to stop people from using their platforms to incite violence, engage in hate speech or spread dangerous medical misinformation during a pandemic.”

    Mr Watts also called on the government to take a similar approach and rein in a number of Coalition members, including Craig Kelly and George Christensen, posting unverified and dangerous conspiracies on social media.

    “Scott Morrison has a similar responsibility to show leadership and stop his MPs from sharing dangerous conspiracy theories online. The Prime Minister should make it clear that he expects his MPs not to promote dangerous conspiracy theories, he said.

    “If they can’t agree to this, he should make it clear that he doesn’t want to be associated with them and seek their disendorsement.”

    Shadow home affairs minister Kristina Keneally also called on the federal government to not use any cloud hosting providers that offer services to controversial social media platform Parler, after AWS banned the company.

    “Government should use its customer power to make clear that it will not use internet hosting / cloud providers that host services like Parler that allow people to incite violence and plan terrorist attacks. Those that don’t follow suit and continue to provide services to these groups are complicit in their actions,” Senator Keneally tweeted.

    The post Trumpian debate over social de-platforming appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.