Monthly Archives: April 2021

Some of techs largest companies seem to be accelerating their back-to-office plans, including Facebook and Uber.

Facebook plans on welcoming 10 percent of its employees back to its California headquarters in May,according to theSan Francisco Chronicle, which also reported that the company will require those employees to follow certain health-minded protocols, including mask-wearing in the office.

Thats a change from late last year, when Facebook told employees that it was targeting a July 2, 2021 date for getting people back to the office. For offices beyond San Francisco, Facebook states that employees will be able to work remotely until one month aftertheir respective workplace reaches 50 percent capacity, at which point theyll be expected back.

These plans hinge on declining rates of COVID-19 infection in California and other states, and could be rolled back if theres another spike in cases.

Other tech companies are also bringing their back-to-office dates forward.Microsoftand Uber have already begun admitting a limited number of employees back to their headquarters. While Amazon hasnt publicly announced a firm date for bringing workers back, it has stated that it wants employees toembrace an office-centric culturerather than remote.

This drive to quickly bring workers back to the office could resurface questions about the place of remote work within tech. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many workers wondered whether working from home would become permanent. Some companies, most notably Twitter, moved quickly to announce that all employees could work remotely for the foreseeable future.

At other companies, though, executives have put up considerable resistance to the idea that employees should be able to work from home even after the pandemic finally subsides. Even at companies that decided to give employees a permanent-remote option, there were caveats; at Facebook, for example, employees who want to work from home will face a salary cut if they move to a place with a lower cost of living.

Over the coming months, technologists will figure out how much their employers actually believe in flexible and remote work. If companies begin to rescind on promises made during the pandemic about these alternative work options, it could irritate technologists, who have stated in survey after survey that they like the idea of either working from home full-time or only coming into the office a few days per week.

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Facebook, Other Tech Giants Accelerating Back-to-Office Plans - Dice Insights

Image: Cathryn Virginia/Motherboard

Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.

Tech giants and ad companies are likely divulging sensitive data on U.S. web users that can sometimes include their precise GPS location, browsing history, and device identifiers, as part of how the ad industry works. These companies have refused to say which foreign companies it provides the data to.

Motherboard contacted Google, Twitter, Verizon, AT&T, and several other lesser-known ad companies and asked them how many foreign companies they provide so-called bidstream data from U.S. users to, and for the names of those foreign companies. Only Twitter provided a statement and declined to answer the specific question.

Motherboard asked these companies for comment after lawmakers called the data a "goldmine for foreign intelligence services" earlier this month.

Do you have bidstream data you are willing to share with Motherboard? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat onjfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or emailjoseph.cox@vice.com.

"It matters," Johnny Ryan, a fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and formerly chief policy officer of the Brave web browser, told Motherboard in an online chat referring to the answer to these basic questions. Ryan has followed the bidstream market extensively, testifying to regulators and lawmakers about the industry. "Data about (almost) everyone online, where they are and where they have been, what they are reading, watching, and listening to, is being broadcast to thousands of companies without any control at all," Ryan added.

Before an advertisement is shown inside an app or a web browser, a process called real-time bidding (RTB) takes place, where different companies bid to have their own ad displayed. As participants in that process, companies obtain sensitive data on the user, even if the company ultimately does not win the ad placement. The result is that a swath of companies obtain the generated bidstream data, with some even using it explicitly for surveillance. Venntel, a government contractor that sells location data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, uses bidstream data, Motherboard previously reported.

Examples of the sort of data that can be transferred as part of real-time bidding include GPS coordinates, IP addresses, the webpage a user is viewing, their unique advertising identifier, and inferred information about their interests, according to examples Ryan pointed Motherboard to from Google's own documentation.

Besides Google, Twitter, Verizon, and AT&T, Motherboard also contacted Index Exchange, Magnite, OpenX, and PubMatic, which are other companies in the ad industry. Only Twitter replied. (After publication of this piece, Index Exchange said it did not receive the request for comment).

"Protecting the safety and privacy of the people who use Twitter remains a top priority for us. We operate under a robust privacy policy, and launched the Twitter Privacy Center to provide a centralized place for information about the data we collect, and the processes we have in place to protect that data. We adhere to rigorous privacy standards, including third-party audits of key products and services, and proactive enforcement of our policies," a Twitter spokesperson told Motherboard in an email.

When asked explicitly if Twitter was not answering the question because it declines to do so, or if the company does not know the answer, the spokesperson said they had "nothing more to share at this time."

Twitter has published a file on the website of MoPub, its mobile advertising subsidiary, outlining organizations that may receive this sort of data, Zach Edwards, a researcher who has closely followed the bidstream supply chain, told Motherboard in an online chat. Google has published a similar but much more limited list, consultancy firm Jounce Media said last year.

The questions Motherboard asked were similar to ones that members of Congress sent to the companies in letters earlier this month.

"This information would be a goldmine for foreign intelligence services that could exploit it to inform and supercharge hacking, blackmail, and influence campaigns," the letter, signed by Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Warner, Kirsten Gillibrand, Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, and Bill Cassidy, read.

Google is currently facing a class action lawsuit related to the transfer of bidsteam data.

Update: This piece has been updated to include more information from Motherboards email exchange with a Twitter spokesperson, and a response from Index Exchange.

Subscribe to our cybersecurity podcast CYBER,here.

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Tech Giants Wont Name Foreign Companies They Give US Bidstream Data To - VICE

ADAS and other autonomous driving technologies canapply automatic braking, park your car, adapt cruise control to road conditions, monitor blind spots, watch out for pedestrians, and more. These advanced functionsare the result of innovations in embedded technology and chip design.

To achieve the very best in this technology, however, chips must be designed specifically for self-driving cars or advanced driver-assist systems, and there are plenty of chipmakers doing just that:its a market expected to be worth $7.77 billion by 2025.

South Korean media has recently reported a partnership between Samsung and Google (Alphabet) in whichSamsung will design chips for Googles self-driving car via its Waymo subsidiary.

The collaboration between Samsung and Waymo will see the South Korean tech giant design and supplyICs that controlall functions of the vehicle while computing data collected by its many sensors. The car will also communicate and exchange data with the Google data center in real-time.

While details are scant at this time, Samsung is expected to leverage the very same state-of-the-art design and manufacturing processes that it has used to build chips on the 7nm and 5nm process nodes.

Qualcomm,the chipmaker that produces chips used in millions of smartphones,announced at the start of 2020 a new range of chips for self-driving cars that it optimistically claimed could be deployed in cars as soon as 2023.

Known as Snapdragon Ride, the platform solution is designed specifically for autonomous driving and ADAS and is supported by three core pillars:Snapdragon Ride Safety SoCs, a Snapdragon Ride Safety Accelerator, and a Snapdragon Ride Autonomous Stack.

The platform is built upon modular multi-core CPUs, artificial intelligence and computer vision engines, and GPUs. This enables it to support all levels of autonomous driving, from L1/L2 (driver assistance/partial automation, which we currently have in some vehicles) all the way to fully autonomous driving at L4/L5 (high/full automation).

NXP Semiconductor is one of the largest providers of automotive chips and currently accounts for around 11% of the total market. While a large portion of these chips are used in applications like entertainment, infotainment, and in-vehicle networking systems, some are used in applications critical for self-driving such as radar, battery management, and advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS).

NXPs radar technology provides a scalable portfolio of integrated and secure products that are already used in real-world applications to aid with tasks like lane changing, parking, autonomous emergency braking, and adaptive cruise control. It uses several different chips to handle everything from power management (PF5200, FS8400) to high-performance radar imaging (S32R45).

NXPs strength in the market is perhaps best illustrated by Qualcomms 2018 bid to buy the Dutch chipmaker. Regulatory issues derailed these plans, however.

GlobalFoundries recently announced a partnership with automotive supplier Bosch to develop radar chips for self-driving capabilities.

As part of the deal, GlobalFoundries will develop high-frequency radar chips for Bosch at its Fab 1 facility in Dresden, Germany. The chips will be designed to operate at a much higher frequency than previous generations to help the radar detect objects that are farther away at a higher degree of accuracy than lower-frequency radar chips seen in current vehicles.

GlobalFoundries said the chips are being targeted for delivery in the latter half of this year.

Chips act as the brains of advanced driver-assist systems, without which current autonomous driving achievements and tomorrows self-driving cars could not be feasible. This is exactly why the current chip shortage is hitting the automotive industry so hard; theyre an essential component in virtually every modern car, even at the most basic level.

However, many key chipmakersincluding Intel, SK Hynix, and GlobalFoundrieshave announced plans to expand fabrication plants in an effort to ameliorate the automotive chip shortage.

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Tech Giants Enter Their Chips in the Race for Self-driving Cars - News - All About Circuits

Get insights on the latest news about emerging trends in cyberspace from Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center and former European Parliamentarian:

Today, we talk about the "T word", as I often refer to: taxation. But that taboo is finally broken in the United States.

How would a global minimum corporate tax rate, like the one Janet Yellen has called for, affect Big Tech?

Now, ideally, it would ensure a level playing field for all companies, and European leaders embrace the US change of course, but they did add that there should be ways to tax tech giants for their global profits. It's a demand that is widely shared in Europe. So the hope is that that can be arranged between all OECD members.

What has been Silicon Valley's reaction so far?

I haven't heard so much from Silicon Valley, so perhaps they're lobbying US leaders behind the scenes, more so than publicly. But it does look like the US government needs to compromise on that digital tax question to get their global minimum corporate tax rate done at all.

Link:

Will tech giants be taxed for worldwide profits with a global tax rate? - GZERO Media

In my lifetime (a long one), I have never known a key industry to be allowed such freedom in terms of self-regulation, than the tech corporations. There are hopeful signs that we are starting to catch up, but self-regulation remains a central concept.

The Big Tech industry generates three myths to disguise their greed and the need to regulate the industry. The first is the right to free speech by pretending that this is an absolute right. It is no such thing. It has always been trammelled by the need to balance competing rights: The right not to be slandered, to be free of hate speech, to a private life, to know the identity of your accuser, and many other rights.

The second myth relates to privacy. The right to privacy is fundamental but, again, it can be restricted when necessary in a democratic society to pursue a legitimate aim. We all have social security numbers, passports, telephone numbers, and on and on. These grant relatively easy access to the police if a crime is suspected.

The third myth is that of anonymity and this, in itself, is an existential threat to democratic societies. The first two are just distractions to hide the industrys need for this one. Anonymity adds enormously toonline traffic and thereby to profit. The term anonymous free speech' is an oxymoron. It has no identifiable source, tells us nothing of vested interests, bias, or motive. It smears unjustifiable pain, uncertainty, and lies throughout our societies. It is unconscionable that this should be accepted to bolster the profits and power of Silicon Valley.

Anonymity itself is not intrinsic to internet functioning. Every web-enabled machine has at least two identifiable registration numbers: an IP (internet protocol), which provides an address and a MAC number, which identifies the exact machine. The industry has decided that these numbers must be secret, identities readily available to themselves only, except when it suits them to release the data to analytic companies.

The social media corporations want to publish endless anonymous opinions, but without the responsibility, mainstream media must bear, when they use an anonymous source.

What exactly would our legislators do if the auto industries owned the roads, controlled and kept secret the allocation and ownership of car registration numbers and, to add insult to injury, allowed some owners to have blank plates and yet others whose numbers changed every time they started the engine.

In reality, this is what the Big Tech industry is getting away with. Why is everyone faffing about and refusing to regulate them as we should?

Very recently, the execrable Pornhub was forced to delete two-thirds of their posts and to demand proof of identity for new ones. This action was forced on them, not by legislators or police but by Visa and MasterCard. Is this to be the future of legislation?

Frank Kennan

Roundwood House

Mountrath

Co Laois

Sinn Fin leader shows some nerve

The leader of Sinn Fin having started the whole thing betweenfunerals, Brexit, and a United Ireland is now calling on the unionists to show enlightened leadership. Has she lost the plot entirely?

What a nerve.

Michael Foley

Rathmines

Dublin 6

Will we ever learn about the North?

The Six Counties continue to fester and foment. Identifying the contributory strands is one thing, but tackling the root causes towards permanent resolution is foreverelusive. These Six Counties as an autonomously contrived statelet have never been viable, having been perfidiously construed 100 years ago.

The Treaty deal was informed by electoral contortions and partisan distortions ensuring a deliberately ambiguous dispensation emerged. Such ambiguity was always going to founder given that it was postured as a temporary arrangement to one side, while the other was sold what they presumed was to be a permanent dispensation. And so it goes on and on ad nauseam, albeit with varying complexions of violent unrest, endemic distrust. and social incohesion.

So many British governments in the interim have been dilatory and derelict in their oversight of the inevitable upshot of that malignant Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921. A Pete Seeger refrain springs to mind: When will they ever learn?

Jim Cosgrove

Lismore

Co Waterford

A cleanup operation underway at Lanark Way in west Belfast, following scenes of violent disorder over recent nights. Repair work was carried out on a peace wall gate, pictured, separating the loyalist and republicans communities after it was set on fire during rioting.

Peace walls foster a greater divide

Images of clashes at the Peace Gate at the Springfield Rd/Lanark Way interface in Belfast (April 8) suggests that the interface walls are keeping warring factions apart. This is a distortion. These walls creates the impression that both sides were engaged in tit-for-tat sectarianattacks. This is not the case. The peace walls, despite being testament to political failure, were the consolidation of make-shift barriers erected by nationalist communities for protection from loyalist death squads like the Shankill Butchers.

According to a peace monitoring report issued by the Rowntree Trust, the anticipated shared future and ending of religion-based divisions between the two main communities has not just ceased progressing but has actually begun to slide into reverse. The report also states that the number of interface walls has more than doubled since the Belfast Agreement.

Following decades of unionist State-sponsored forced segregation is it any surprise that the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance and mutual trust, envisaged emerging from the Good Friday Agreement, still largely eludes us?

Tom Cooper

Pearse St

Dublin 2

Bidding against ourselves for sports

My brother teaches English in Madrid. My nephews are soccer-mad wee Madrileos. They support Athletico. But they admire Real. And my brother is the reason why English is spoken with a Cork accent in Madrid.

Liverpool played Real in the Champions League this week. I watched it on RT. I texted a pal of mine in Letterkenny during the match. Hes a fanatical Liverpool supporter and he was watching the match. I emailed my brother and my nephews in Madrid in the same spirit. My brother replied: Its pay per view here so we dont have it. In the same way, we cant watch the US Masters Golf on RT.

It put me thinking. Sky and others pass the hat around and tell us throw in a few bob there lads and you can see the match. They then take our money out of the hat, outbid RT and the BBC for the rights to the match, and then sell the match back to us for a grossly inflated price. In the end, were being conned into bidding against ourselves. Id like to take this opportunity to thank RT for broadcasting the match into my home this week. The licence fee is worth every penny.

Michael Deasy

Carrigart

Co Donegal

Broadcasters must justify high wages

It might now be to the advantage of the Government and the RT Authority to come together; following on from the RT staff overwhelmingly rejecting the pay cut plan and other measures at Montrose.

It seems the Government and the RT Authority will answer the pertaining question of how does RT and its top broadcasting staff justify those high earning wages of near to half a million euro yearly each.

So, it is back to the drawing board for the Government and the RT Authority, by bringing in the time and motion experts immediately, to reduce those top broadcasters wages by half, thus saving RT?

Edward Mahon

Clonskeagh

Dublin 14

A dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is prepared.

UK stole a march on EU with vaccines

Re. A Leavys letter, Praise of UK is undeserved, dated April 7.

May I begin with a quote attributed to Ursula von der Leyen with regard to the vaccine rollout: We were late to authorise, we were too optimistic when it came to massive production and perhaps were too confident that what we ordered would actually be delivered.

With regard to the Pfizer vaccine, the UK began ordering it when it began showing promise and well before it got final approval. The EU was much slower in signing the contracts.

With regard to the AstraZeneca vaccine, the UK signed a better contract than the EU which enabled it to acquire its full supply even when there were shortages due to production problems.

Thirdly, the UK availed of emergency vaccine supplies in December when the EU didnt. This was permissible under EU law.

The EU centralised the purchasing of the different vaccines in order to secure a better price from the pharmaceutical companies. This slowed up the procurement process. On the contrary, Britains main focus was on sufficient supply with price being a secondary consideration. I concede that with regard to the pandemic in general the UK did come up short in some areas but with regard to the procurement and rollout of the vaccine, which was the theme of my original letter, April 5, Britain did steal a march on the EU.

Michael Henchion

Ballincollig

Cork

Quarantine list explanation needed

Can anyone explain to me how the Government and the health authorities have put together the list of countries on the mandatory hotel quarantine list? There has been a debate in the past week about adding France, Italy and Germany to this list. Yes, of course, they all have 14-day incidence greater than our own. However, another 22 countries in the EU have 14-day rates greater than France, Italy and Germany. Are we now going to add all these countries to the existing list?

Pat OSullivan

Fountainstown

Co Cork

Shankly was right

It looks like the GAA players of Dublin and Monaghan agree with Bill Shankly that football is much more serious than life and death.

Mattie Lennon

Lacken

Blessington

Co Wicklow.

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Letter to the Editor: Tech giants want power but accept no responsibility - Irish Examiner

Do you know writing and selling fake reviews online is turning into a proper business? People give fake misleading reviews online for a website and in return get paid a pretty good amount for that and such tactics are increasing online day after day.

UKs Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and its regulators are intervening since last year and asking social media giants to remove such groups that are trading fake reviews on its platform and prevent their platforms from being used as thriving marketplaces for selling fake reviews. It managed to pressurize EBay and Facebook to act against fake reviews and the CMA had managed make Facebook to remove a mere 188 groups and disabled 24 user accounts last year and this year the CMA looks more on the role as it has come to news that Facebook has managed to remove 16,000 groups that were trading fake reviews on its platform after another intervention this year.

Although Facebook has managed to disable individual accounts which do such fake review selling online but its number is comparatively lower than the tech giants removal of groups and that is because the regulators at CMA are more inclined towards tech giants removing groups more because according to them banned or suspended users are able to create new profiles, whereas removing the group in which fake reviews are being traded is seen as a more effective way to impact and deter the activity.

Facebook made a few changes to combat this fake review problem on its platform such as suspending or banning users who are repeatedly creating Facebook groups and Instagram profiles that promote, encourage fake and misleading reviews. The tech giant has introduced new automated processes that will improve the detection and removal of this content more which will make it harder for people to use Facebooks search tools to find fake and misleading review groups and profiles on Facebook and Instagram. By doing all this the company is hopeful that there will be a decline in the fake review selling activity on their platform.

But even though Facebook has taken quite a few steps to reduce the groups and accounts selling reviews on their platform the CMA is not satisfied with the tech giant claiming that Facebook is not doing enough to clean up to curb the fake reviews issue because CMA asked tech giants to reduce this activity on their platforms over a year ago and since then Facebook could have taken a lot more steps to reduce this activity than they did. On this Facebook said that their resources to tackle the problem have been greatly impacted due to the ongoing pandemic with a lot of employees working from home and even though Facebooks full year revenue increased in 2020 but so too did its expenses.

Photo: Jeff Chiu/AP

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CMA Intervenes for The Second Time and Asks Social Media Giants to Remove Groups Selling Fake Reviews On Their Platform - Digital Information World

Quantum physics sounds like science fiction to most people. That's because until recently, it has been largely theoretical. It describes the behavior of atoms and fundamental particles, and asserts that these can be in two states at once or somehow entangled with one another despite being separated by a vast distance.

Quantum computing uses its "spooky" principles to tackle problems that are too complex for traditional computing. While traditional computers represent every operation in binary digits, or bits (zeros and ones), qubits (quantum bits) offer an infinitely faster method since they have no fixed state. Tech giants like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) have been racing to build useful quantum computers, but IBM (NYSE:IBM) just signed a partnership that could vault it to the top of the pack in the healthcare space.

Image source: Getty Images.

IBM agreed to a 10-year tie-up with the Cleveland Clinic as its official partner for artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing. In the deal, the nonprofit academic medical center would have the first on-premise quantum computing system in the private sector. That's no small feat considering the system requires near absolute zero temperatures (about negative 469 degrees Fahrenheit) and a continuous supply of helium and liquid nitrogen to operate.

The goal is to use the computing power to generate and analyze data in areas like genomics, population health, and chemical and drug discovery. As an example, it currently takes about 15 years for a new therapy to be developed and tested before it gets to patients. This technology could reduce that to weeks if not days. It won't be the first time the two institutions have partnered on AI. They previously worked together using IBM's Watson to assist physicians and help guide care across a patient's entire journey through the healthcare system.

To understand why it is such a leap forward, it's helpful to find a clear-cut comparison. University of Virginia researchers recently deployed a "toy", or simplified, problem on an IBM quantum system to classify genomic data. If they used all four DNA building blocks to perform the classification (A,G,C, and T), a traditional computer would execute three billion operations to perform the task. Using a quantum computer, it took 32. In a similar jaw-dropping display in 2019, Google's quantum computer was able to complete a task in 200 seconds that would have taken an estimated 10,000 years on a traditional computer. Quantum computing controls the atoms and fundamental particles in the system, assigning identity, like a probability, rather than a zero or one. Not only does that make it more efficient, it means natural systems can be modeled more accurately.

It could enable super-fast drug development with clinical trials conducted on virtual humans, instantaneous genome sequencing for a personalized prescription, or the creation of comprehensive electronic health records (EHRs) using every piece of relevant data to generate truly predictive care. It would even be possible to search every molecule and simulate its interaction with different types of cells to identify a cure for a disease. There is already precedent.

In 2015, AI-based firm Atomwise took four months using artificial intelligence to search existing drugs and identify two as potential candidates to treat Ebola. Imagine if quantum computing could have been used for a COVID vaccineand tested on tens of thousands of virtual humans in a matter of days. Moderna's COVID vaccine had been designed by mid-January of 2020. It was the clinical trial that took ten months. With quantum computing, we might have the vaccine for the next pandemic the same week it is declared.

Peter Chapman, the former director of engineering for Amazon Prime and current CEO of IonQ (a Microsoft partner), believes quantum computing will also produce a human-like AI. In medicine for example, there is no way a doctor can have full knowledge of the latest information available, but a quantum computer could sift through all the medical studies at once and offer support for any decision a doctor has to make.

Whether IBM commercializes it first or not, it appears the future of computing is quantum. Despite the technical challenges of deploying a quantum system, the economic potential is too large not to solve them, and advances keep coming. Last year, a team in China claimed supremacy with a system that is 10 billion times faster than the one Google highlighted in 2019.

For investors, there are a growing number of ways to invest in the potential of quantum computing. Aside from the technology giants, Honeywell (NYSE:HON) has also promoted its quantum system, and IonQ is planning to go public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called DMY Technology Group (NYSE:DMYI). It's hard to say which company will ultimately succeed. IBM's relationship with the Cleveland Clinic and its on-site quantum system give it a leg up in accessing large amounts of data and rolling out applications. As Tesla has shown with autonomous driving, a data advantage in artificial intelligence applications can compound very quickly, rendering competitors mere technological footnotes.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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This Tech Dinosaur Just Took a Game-Changing Step in Healthcare - The Motley Fool

Tech regulation is a delicate balancing act and cannot be implemented too early or too late, according to the CEO of Tech Mahindra, which provides software services.

His personal belief is that "the regulator should chase innovation," C. P. Gurnani told CNBC on Tuesday, as part of World Economic ForumGlobal Technology Governance Summit.

"The need for tech governance only comes in when you have a problem or when you anticipate a problem," he said. "You do it too soon you stifle it (innovation). You're doing it too late, you allow the misuse to happen."

His comments come as U.S. tech giants like Google and Facebook face increasing scrutiny from regulators in the United States, as well as in Europe and the rest of the world.

Facebook, Google and Twitter logos are seen in this combination photo from Reuters.

REUTERS

The EU has been leading the fight against Big Tech, pushing for new rules that focus on increasing competition and making online platforms responsible for the content they host.

While tech regulation is necessary at this stage globally, Gurnani argued that "ethical governance" is the better way forward. He explained it means educating people on "what is right and what is wrong."

"I am convinced that governance too soon means bad for innovations, bad for (research and development) and bad for thatearly initiative guy who creates," he said.

Meanwhile, as global competition heats up in the tech sector, India is well positioned to bridge the gap with China, according to Gurnani.

"I think China has unique advantages, the way they invested in that infrastructure and the way they build some of their technology," he said. "I think India has no choice in the current (stage). We will have to build our semi-conductor capacity."

Still, he added, in software development, India is "leaps and bounds ahead of China or most other countries."

"We have become a necessity for West or Each, when it comes to IT and services," he added.

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Not too early or too late: Regulating Big Tech requires a delicate balance, says Indian CEO - CNBC

James Taylor

For Mr. Taylor, the most important thing for state legislators and the general public to understand -- because we have been told this myth over and over again -- is that Section 230 precludes states from passing legislation that would protect people's free speech rights on the Internet.

Said Taylor: Yes, federal law preempts state where the two conflict, but Section 230 does not give tech giants (the tech cartels) the right to censor political free speech. This is something the tech giants (the tech cartels) have given a lot of money to a lot of people and a lot or organizations on both sides of the political aisle to lay claim to.

Looking at the statute

Explained Taylor:Section 230 is part of theCommunications Decency Act of 1996. The Act suggests that Congress was concerned at the time about the ability of people to post excessively violent or sexually obscene material on the Internet."

Whereas Congress wasn't going to prohibit that, we [Congress] understand that the hosts of Internet social media sites may wish to prevent sexually obscene or excessively violent material on their websites."

We don't want them fearing lawsuits by doing so, so we are going to place this Act that says that If such a platform decides to block the above, they can do so and don't have to fear tort claims.

Section b3 ofCommunications Decency Act of 1996 explained

Taylor went on to explain further by reading Section b3 of the Act.

It is the policy of the Act to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services.

As such, the b3 section of 230 explicitly says the purpose is to maximize user control, not Facebook control, not Google control, not platform control.

Section C of the Communications Decency Act explained

Taylor then addressed this question: "Under what circumstances or what justification do the tech giants claim they have this mandate that they can block anything they want under any circumstances?"

Taylor again referred to theCommunications Decency Act of 1996under Section C, whose title isProtection for Good Samaritan Blocking and Screening of Offensive Material.

As Section C states: "No provider or user of an interactive commute computer service shall be held liable on account of any action taken voluntarily in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, harassing or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."

Said Taylor: That last phrase of Section C, otherwise objectionable, is what the tech giants are hanging their hats on. Keep in mind that it's under a bill that's a communications decency act. Furthermore, Good Samaritan blockage under Section C of the bill must be either sexually obscene of excessively violent, otherwise you don't have the blanket authority to play God in terms of what you do or don't allow on the Internet. The statutory language of the bill makes this so.

Attacking a myth

It is based on myth that tech cartels have the right to play God through the organizations they fund, through putting out papers and statements, and also what is heard on Fox News or MSNBC or CNN.

State legislators need to know it's not true. You have the ability, if you so choose, to put into place legislative causes of action, legislative prohibitions against tech cartels restricting political free speech for the citizens of your state.

If the tech cartels decides that they would like to invoke Section 230 fine, let them show that what they are prohibiting is sexually obscene or excessively violent; otherwise, they do not have that right whether their talking heads say so, whether the public policy organizations they fund say so, or whether they themselves say so. It doesn't matter, that is what the law is.

Free market solution

In talking about The Heartland Institute, Taylor emphasized Heartland's belief in promoting, developing, and discovering free market solutions to societal problems.

As much as Taylor was offended seeing public figures and elected officials banned from presenting information to their constituents, he was even more offended seeing common citizens who don't have access to their own website, or access to speaking on cable news, being banned from sharing their political views on Facebook and Twitter and elsewhere.

Still Taylor thought, Well, hey, this is a problem the market will solve. Someone will see that there is a market, and they can build a competitor to Facebook and Twitter.

The market succeeded. Parlor was built, put on-line, then the tech cartel destroyed it. Parlor may or may not be able to come back in some way, shape, or form, but that shows that in this case we don't have a free market. Nevertheless, Taylor still believes in the market.

Concluding thoughts

230 does have good intentions. It allows people to say if I'm hosting a platform, I don't want on my platform excessively violent, lewd, lascivious, or obscene material.

Now, however, multinational corporations think 230 gives them a blank check to tell Americans what they can say, think, and share of our political speech with our friends, our neighbors, and even our elected officials communicating with us.

To Taylor this is a huge problem. When the market did step in to solve it, the cartels smashed it. It is Taylor's hope that state legislators who are perhaps watching this video, as well people throughout this country who are watching, will understand the following:

We are powerless only if we allow ourselves to be powerless, but we can stop in, we can take action, so that our free speech rights, which are the first and foremost right that we must cherish and protect in this country, will continue to be protected even against multinational tech cartels."

Cameron Sholty

Cameron discussed what we are seeing in the states and what some of the legislators have been working on.

Sholty indicated that currently 28 states are looking on about 47 bills or resolutions related to this issue. TN is leading the charge. Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas are also looking to rein in big tech.

Four Approaches

As to how the states are dealing with Big Tech, Sholty noted the following four different strategies:

1. Creating a Cause of Action

2. Empowering AG's to investigate/bring penalties

3. Withhold Economic Development Tax Credits/Payments

4. Canceling contracts

"#1 is the most common approach, which basically allows individual users of a social platform to sue Twitter, Facebook, and You tubeonlyfor censoring religious or political speech."

"#2 is similar to what you would see in an antitrust lawsuit if there is a big company that is distorting the market and is acting monopolistic. In these cases, state Attorney Generals, or the Consumer Protection Agency in a state, are empowered to investigate and bring penalties."

#3 is one of the more creative ones in Cameron's opinion. As happens in this example given: "When Amazon announces to the world that they are going to open a new distribution or a second or 3rd headquarters, states will trip over themselves to have Amazon build these large massive facilities and to employ the residents of those states. They do it with tax credits or outright payments to Amazon. If determined through investigation by the state's AG, they will withhold tax credits and those payments."

Where we are now

Opposition Obfuscation

Said Cameron: "Regarding bullets points 1 and 2, just because Congress deems a market free does not a free market make.

"The fact that Section 230 exists is prima flash evidence that it's not a free market. Free markets exist separate and precede legislation, so legislation saying something's a free market doesn't make it so."

"Bullet point 3 is what will preserve the free speech of users on the social media websites."

Concluding thoughts

Facebook, Twitter, and all claim to have 1st amendment protection to act or to censor, but this goes back to the point that they have 1st amendment protection in so far by what has been granted to them in Section 230. Section 230 sees big tech curators of content, not publishers of content, therefor the 1st amendment applies differently and more narrowly.

Our instinct is to always censor if we don't like something. The answer is not to censor. The answer is simply, if we do not like speech political or religious speech, or if we find it disagreeable, or if we want to, or if we don't like it and our instinct is to censor, our instinct ought to be that we need more speech.

"The best antidote to speech with that which we disagree is more speech."

Questions were received throughout the Zoom Webinar event and then fielded by Jim Lakely for response by Brent, James and Cameron.

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Part 2 - Big Tech Curators of Content, Not Publishers - The Heartland Institute