Monthly Archives: February 2022

During the last decade, a popular narrative has sprung up telling of the grave threat that fintech startups such as Revolut, Monzo and Starling pose to traditional major players in the banking and financial-services sector. But there has long been a more ominous threat to traditional banks, in the form of Big Tech. In 2022, this threat is set to materialise as Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple draw on their already overwhelming global reach and resources not to mention their abundance of consumer data to diminish the banks monopoly power.

Two things play into Big Techs hands. The first is the move towards a cashless society. It will soon become the norm to send money via smartphones to known contacts without even leaving a messaging app or logging into a bank account. Because tech is driving and enabling these advances, it will be the technology companies, rather than the banks, that are likely to be best placed to benefit, as the direct role of financial organisations is reduced.

The second is the crucial role user experience now plays in all facets of our lives. This requires the use of real-time data to capture and analyse insights and tailor recommendations to individuals. Its a process that has long been central to Big Techs operations, but requires major upgrades among traditional banks. These improvements are certainly being made and there is renewed focus in the traditional banking world on the integration of AI and machine learning to enhance customer experience. However, Big Tech has a significant head start when it comes to innovating and using their vast swathes of data to respond quickly to consumer trends, at scale.

Big Tech firms also often sweep up the brightest and best in technology talent, leaving many traditional banks struggling to recruit for the roles needed to catch up. This situation will be no different in 2022 as competition increases even more. Big Tech firms were born agile and ready to adapt. They are always thinking years ahead, and the talent they have and are able to keep attracting is key to this. Without serious culture changes internally, banks will soon find themselves so far behind they might never recover.

If that isnt enough to worry the traditional banking sector, the new strong customer authentication (SCA) regulations that came into force this year in the UK will also play into the hands of technology companies rather than traditional banks. Combined with the continuing advance of open banking, they will offer Big Tech an opportunity to redefine how consumers pay for things. Both Apple Pay and Google Pay are SCA-compliant solutions, making them straightforward options for businesses taking online payments to adopt. Similar regulations are appearing elsewhere around the world and, again, it is Big Tech that is best placed to benefit.

What may start as a payments war will become more existential for banks. The Big Tech companies already have global customer bases and do not need banks infrastructure or capital, eliminating the competitive edge the banks currently have over the smaller fintechs. As consumers increasingly favour the immediacy and ease of tech-enabled smart payments, both for goods, services and in-person cash transfers, the need for banks centralised pots will reduce. The likes of Amazon and Google also certainly have the cash reserves to match them.

In 2022, the traditional banking industry will be watching anxiously for technology companies to make their next move. The banks choice will be stark: whether to ignore the threat or to partner with it.

Get more expert predictions for the year ahead. The WIRED World in 2022 features intelligence and need-to-know insights sourced from the smartest minds in the WIRED network. Available now on newsstands, as a digital download, or you can order your copy online.

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Big Tech's Next Move? Taking on Big Banks - Wired.co.uk

Tech giants climate plans arent as aggressive as they sound, according to an assessment of 25 of the worlds biggest companies published on Monday. The plans many companies have put together rely too much on offsetting their emissions through unreliable methods rather than setting specific targets to prevent pollution in the first place.

We set out to uncover as many replicable good practices as possible, but we were frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies claims, Thomas Day, lead author of the new study released by the nonprofit NewClimate Institute, said in a statement.

The report, which includes both tech giants and other companies operating in sectors like shipping and brick-and-mortar retail, gave Amazons and Googles climate pledges a low integrity rating. Apple and Sony fared somewhat better, with moderate integrity ratings for their climate pledges. None of the 25 companies received a high integrity rating. The companies were rated based on how clear their climate goals are, how upfront they are about their emissions, and how much theyre reducing that pollution versus relying on controversial offsets. On average, the companies only have plans to reduce their planet-heating pollution by 40 percent despite pledges to reach net-zero emissions.

The word net in pledges allows companies to make their climate efforts seem more impressive than they are. Companies can reach net-zero climate goals by reducing some of their CO2 pollution and using other tactics to try to cancel out the negative effects of emissions they continue to produce. They might try to offset emissions by investing in tree farms or forests that naturally draw down CO2, even though its a strategy that has often failed to deliver long-term reductions of carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere. A separate report released last month by BloombergNEF warned that the growing popularity of offsets could threaten gains in corporate clean energy buying if companies decide to invest their money in offsets rather than in renewable energy.

Nearly half of the companies studied havent specified how much they plan to cut down on their pollution directly meaning they could rely purely on offsets.

Another problem is that some corporate pledges dont encompass all of the greenhouse gas emissions for which a company is responsible. The most ambitious climate goals tackle emissions from across a companys entire supply chain and the use of its products. For a tech company, that might include pollution from sourcing materials and building a device, from running a factory or data center, and from consumers using its products or services.

The report faults Amazon for not setting a specific target for how much of its greenhouse gas pollution it will actually cut in order to achieve its goal of net-zero emissions by 2040. After the company announced its net-zero goal in 2019, its carbon dioxide emissions grew by 19 percent the following year as its business boomed during the pandemic.

Google says that it has been neutralizing all of its carbon emissions since 2007. But it became carbon neutral through the use of offsets. By 2030, it plans to operate carbon-free. The new report gives the company some props for implementing a new strategy for matching its electricity use with renewable energy on a 24-7 basis. But the authors point out that its climate efforts could be limited by focusing too much on the companys electricity use. That wouldnt account for a majority of the companys emissions, which come from its supply chain and the use of its products and services.

Both Google and Amazon dispute the reports ratings in statements emailed to The Verge. Google notes that it has a target of reducing emissions by more than 50 percent across its operations and value chain before 2030 (compared to a 2019 baseline). In response to the reports criticism that it has not stated how much pollution it will actually cut to reach net-zero, Amazon tells The Verge that it has not made any net zero claims based on offsets.

Apple, which scored higher in the report, has a climate goal that would reduce its emissions by 62 percent between 2019 and 2030 across its operations and value chain. The report says that Apples plans are reasonably comprehensive and already led to a significant decrease in emissions in recent years. But the company can do more to cut down on downstream emissions from the use of its products.

Sony, unlike many of its peers with the net caveat in their climate goals, has committed to zero emissions by 2050. The company launched its road to zero in 2010 and has updated its strategy every five years. Frequent interim targets, the report notes, are important for keeping companies accountable to reaching their ultimate goal. Still, Sonys progress seems to have stalled its emissions have remained largely unchanged since 2017, the report notes.

Neither Sony nor Apple provided comment to The Verge about the new report.

The reports authors call for more regulatory scrutiny of companies emissions and climate pledges to avoid greenwashing. Misleading advertisements by companies have real impacts on consumers and policymakers. Were fooled into believing that these companies are taking sufficient action, when the reality is far from it, Gilles Dufrasne, policy officer from the nonprofit Carbon Market Watch that also contributed to the report, said in a statement.

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Big Tech's climate goals are weaker than they seem, report finds - The Verge

The WGA East, decrying the negative impact the Big Tech giants are having on ad revenue for news organizations, has submitted written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committees Subcommittee on Competition, Antitrust and Consumer Rights for its hearings on Breaking the News Journalism, Competition, and the Effect of Market Power on a Free Press.

The WGA East, which represents film and TV writers and news writers at CBS News and ABC News and numerous digital news sites, urged the subcommittee to examine the huge, negative impact of Big Tech companies on the ability of news organizations to raise enough revenue to employ professional journalists to do their essential work.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the 2020 presidential hopeful who chairs of the subcommittee and is the daughter of a newspaperman has introduced legislation to rescue the struggling local news industry. Local news is facing a crisis in the U.S., she said last week. These Big Tech companies are not friends to journalism; they are raking in ad dollars while taking in news content, feeding it to their users and refusing to offer fair compensation.

The guild noted in its statement that a Pew Foundation report found that 63% of all advertising revenue in 2020 was from digital advertising, that nearly two-thirds of all digital ad revenue went to Big Tech companies and that 55% of it went to Facebook/Meta and Google/Alphabet alone.

Noting that all news organizations face the challenge of paying for professional journalists while Big Tech takes the lions share of the advertising revenue, the guild said:

The tech platforms do not pay writers and correspondents and editors and producers and crews to investigate and report the news. They simply make money by selling ads against the stories that are created by professional journalists who are employed by news organizations.

To be clear, the news is going online, which is where the Big Tech companies take the revenues. Pew reports that in 2021 fully 84% of Americans got news from digital devices like smartphones and computers and 51% said they often got their news digitally. This is a continuing trend. As recently as 2016, only 28% of Americans said they preferred to get their news online. Thus, news organizations increasing rely on digital distribution to reach their readers and audiences, regardless of whether they are principally newspapers, broadcasters, or digital-native publications. If Big Tech continues to siphon off such a huge share of digital advertising revenue, there will be no money to pay journalists to do their work.

This is not just a matter of platform. There is nothing inherent in digital technology that would preclude news organizations from obtaining revenue by distributing their stories online. The problem is the concentration of market power by a tiny handful of Big Tech companies. Facebook and Google and to a lesser extent, at least for now, Twitter and Amazon have the market power to completely dominate the digital advertising market. News organizations simply cannot compete.

The result is predictable: Continued consolidation and cutbacks and layoffs in newsrooms across the country. Local newspapers have slashed their newsroom staffs. Local broadcasters often fill their newscasts with stories created by national chains. Even digital-native news organizations, which had been growing enormously, face severe headwinds as ad revenue gets more and more difficult to find. WGAE members have been laid off at premier digital news organizations like HuffPost, Vice, G/O media, and others. Digital-native enterprises are forced to shutter verticals and to consolidate with other digital companies just to survive in the current climate.

Two pillars of American democracy are (1) competitive markets free from domination by a small number of giant firms and (2) a robust, free press, the guild said. Both pillars are undermined by Big Tech companies gorging on the digital ad revenues that could, and should, be used to pay professional journalists to investigate and report the news.

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WGA East Decries Big Techs Negative Impact On Journalism - Deadline

When GoFundMe shut down funding Friday for the truckers Freedom Convoy, it didnt just clobber Canadian rig drivers. It dealt a blow to the rights of Americans. Silicon Valley executives are trying to limit the causes Americans support, favoring leftist ones and canceling conservatives.

Canadian truckers launched a convoy to Ottawa last month, to protest Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus vaccine mandate on all rig drivers. Never mind the absurdity of requiring a truck driver alone behind the wheel for 18 hours a day to be vaccinated.

The convoy set up a fundraising site on GoFundMe to pay for fuel, food and lodging. Many Americans rushed to support it. It had reached $10 million in donations when GoFundMe pulled the plug.

Nearly one-quarter of Americans donate on crowdfunding sites, according toPew Research. GoFundMe is the largest. Its the public square for fundraising, and it should be open to all, regardless of their politics.

Yet GoFundMe shuts down fundraising for causes the left doesnt like. Thats as dangerous to our democracy as when other Silicon Valley tech giants like Facebook and Twitter silence viewpoints.

We Americans have a constitutionally protected right to donate money to whatever causes we choose, the Supreme Court ruled inBuckley v. Valeo. Money funds political activity, and limiting where we can donate is like gagging our speech.

The Freedom Convoy reached Ottawa Jan. 29 and has clogged the citys streets with 18-wheelers and demonstrators calling for health-care freedom and an end to overreaching government COVID mandates.

GoFundMe claims it shut down the truckers and wont release their funds to them because of reports of violence and other unlawful activityviolating the companys terms of service.

Thats a joke. Even CNN reports no bloodshed.The New York Times concedes the worst issnarled traffic and blaring truck horns.

As of Friday evening, when GoFundMe permanently shut the site down, there had beenonly three arrestsdespite thousands protesting. As of Sunday, police reported more arrests and investigations, but the number is still minuscule overall.Ottawa Mayor Jim Watsons biggest complaintis that the truckers are showing insensitivity by creating noise and turning it into a party.

Compare that with the mayhem and violence in Portland, Ore., in 2020. Truth is, GoFundMe had no problem with that disorder.The site raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Portland General Defense Committee to defend rioters who set fire to police stations, vandalized city hall, wielded weapons and injured police officers.

Even now, GoFundMe is raising money forBlack Lives Matter NYCto engage incivil disobedience and disruption. GoFundMe likes BLMs brand of civil disobedience.

The framers of the Constitution banned government from censoring, but they didnt anticipate Big Tech. Democrats are happy to deputize Silicon Valley lefties to muzzle the deplorables and prevent an exchange of ideas. And money.

Democrats in Congress insist Big Tech should stamp out misinformation. Trudeau slammed the truckers for spreading misinformation.

Who decides whats misinformation? Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said the best test of truth is whether it survives in the competition of the market. Silicon Valley is snuffing out competition.

There are two remedies. The first is for Congress to regulate Big Tech like public utilities or common carriers, compelling them to serve all customers without viewpoint discrimination. Water companies and railroads cant deny service to customers with unpopular opinions. Big Tech should operate by the same rules.

Unfortunately, such legislation is unlikely to pass.About half of Democratic members stock holdings are in Big Tech, compared with only 14% for Republicans.

The second remedy is the Supreme Court. Its possible the majority will limit Big Tech censorship when a case arises.

In April 2021, Justice Clarence Thomas warned, in a concurring opinion, that the CEOs of the social-media giants a mere handful of executives have the power to exclude even a president of the United States from the digital public square.

Thomas appears poised to rule that the First Amendment bans censorship not only by government but also by social media.

GoFundMes attack on the Freedom Convoy is the latest red flag that Silicon Valleys power over us has to be stopped.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.

Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey

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GoFundMes $10M shutdown of Canadian truckers shows its time to rein in Big Tech - New York Post

One of the biggest threats to U.S. national security and economic well-being is coming not from antagonistic nations such as Russia, China, or Iran. Instead, the source of this danger is the U.S. Senate, specifically, the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The committee recently voted out a bill, the American Innovation and Choice Act (AICA), that threatens not only to weaken this countrys advanced technology sector but also adversely impact Americas supply chains in a time of crisis. If passed into law, AICA will give both state and non-state actors new opportunities to do considerable damage to U.S. national security. It also fundamentally changes the regulatory standard for pursuing antitrust actions and sends a chilling message to firms seeking to compete for a leading place in the online economy. The bill is irrevocably flawed, and the full Senate must reject it.

The bill addresses large companies that run covered online platforms, which it defines as a website, online or mobile application, operating system, digital assistant, or online service. It would prohibit these firms from using their online platforms in a manner favoring their own products or services, disadvantaging rivals, or discriminating among businesses that use their platforms in a manner that would materially harm competition on the platform.

Another violation of the act would be for these platform providers to unfairly limit the ability of another business users products, services, or lines of business to compete on the covered platform relative to the covered platform operators own products, services, or lines of business in a manner that would materially harm competition on the covered platform. These companies would be forbidden from preventing interoperability with the services of other companies and from exploiting the other companys information to compete against them.

The approach taken by AICA to improving online competition is misguided. First, it applies only to a handful of big tech firms rather than all operators of online platforms. These are companies with at least 50 million active monthly users or with 100,000 active business users or with net annual sales or a market capitalization of no less than $550 billion. This means that AICA would apply to at most five big tech firms: Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Microsoft. Major retailers such as Walmart and Target could acquire an online platform and discriminate against competitors but be exempt from the law because they currently fall below the market cap threshold. Conversely, if Tesla or Berkshire Hathaway, both of which have market caps in excess of the standard, entered the online platform business, they would immediately become subject to AICA should it become law.

Second, it upends decades of antitrust law and regulation by making a negative impact on competitors, not consumers, the standard for a violation. This threatens to make the government the arbiter of what constitutes fair competition, a role for which it is unsuited. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that clearly presaged the economic and legal harm the bill would cause. It partly read:

The outcome of such radical change to antitrust would drive inflation, hamper innovation, undermine job creation, and damage Americans [sic] global competitiveness. This legislation represents a gateway to supporting a larger and radical antitrust agenda that seeks to divorce economic analysis from the law with the aim of applying these same concepts to a much wider swath of our economy.

Possibly even more dangerous for the nation are the potentially deleterious effects of AICA on the security of major online platforms. Several of the affected companies not only provide major covered platform services to consumers but also the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community (IC).

Government organizations look to reduce the costs for implementing cloud computing while enhancing innovation by acquiring commercial cloud services, albeit with enhanced security. The IC selected both Amazon Web Services and Microsoft to provide specialized classified cloud services, based in part on their ability to guarantee the security of the applications and information used. DoD recently announced that it would sign contracts with at least four major cloud platform providersAmazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oraclethrough its Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability program to provide enterprise-wide computing and storage capability, including for highly classified information, down to the tactical edge.

The source of the danger is in the portion of the bill that specifies unlawful conduct. Section 2(b)(1) creates an opening for competing third-party service providers and potential bad actors to gain access to the platform providers back-end infrastructure. This section makes it unlawful for the platform provider to materially restrict or impede the capacity of a business user to access or interoperate with the same platform, operating system, hardware or software features that are available to the covered platform operators own products, services, or lines of business. . .

This section potentially opens the door for commercial users of so-called covered platforms to access critical hardware and software, some of which will inevitably be the same as the systems supporting critical government departments and agencies. While the bill does allow subject companies to protect IP and undertake measures necessary for security, it creates opportunities for malign actors to go exploring through providers hardware and software looking for vulnerabilities.

In addition, the providers of cloud services must meet an impossibly high bar with respect to the imposition of security measures. Companies can restrict access for security purposes only so long as doing so does not come at the expense of interoperability and access and requires a company to show that the security measures could not be achieved through less discriminatory means. This turns the demand for secure cloud infrastructure on its head, giving preference to users demands for equal access over protecting systems and critical software. In a world where foreign actors are constantly trying to attack U.S. companies, do we want the strongest online security or the least discriminatory environment?

This bill is ill-conceived and poorly written. The Senate Judiciary Committee held no hearings on the proposed legislation. Consequently, it failed to uncover the unintended but highly negative consequences of its efforts to promote competition in online markets. In particular, by promoting accessibility at the expense of security, the proposed act could seriously hamper the ability of the Defense Department and intelligence community to acquire innovative commercial cloud technologies and place users at peril, particularly members of the Armed Forces in combat.

Dan Gour, Ph.D., is a vice president at the public-policy research think tank Lexington Institute. Gour has a background in the public sector and U.S. federal government, most recently serving as a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. You can follow him on Twitter at @dgoure and the Lexington Institute @LexNextDC.

Image: Reuters.

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Senate Attack on Big Tech Will Harm U.S. Economic And National Security - The National Interest

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. EXCLUSIVE: Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., dove into numerous foreign policy matters involving the U.S., from heightening tensions between Russia and Ukraine, which has the Florida National Guard caught in the middle, to Big Tech and the Biden administration's handling of China and the controversial Beijing Olympics.

During an interview with Fox News Digital in Tallahassee, Florida, on Monday, the governor said that it is a "mistake" that American athletes are competing in the 2020 Winter Olympic Games, underway in Beijing, China. The Biden administration and its international allies are enacting a diplomatic boycott of the games over the genocide of Uyghur Muslims by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But DeSantis said it does not go far enough to stand up to America's "number-one geopolitical foe."

DESANTIS INSISTS NARRATIVE OF TRUMP RIVALRY IS 'TOTAL BUNK': HE'S 'A FRIEND OF MINE'

"I've said previously that I would boycott [the Beijing Olympics]. I mean, I think it's a mistake. I mean, China is our number-one geopolitical foe. If you look at what they're doing, they're amassing huge amounts of power. And it's not just that they're building up their military, they are, they command huge influence within the United States," DeSantis told Fox News Digital.

Ron DeSantis sat down with Fox News Digital in Tallahassee.

DeSantis noted the role of NBC, the news outlet carrying the games in the U.S., saying it is "whitewashing" what he calls the "genocide Olympics." NBC's broadcast of the opening ceremonies last week saw a historic low and was down 43% from previous Games.

"This is a genocide Olympics. And the thing is you see these, the broadcast on NBC, where they're whitewashing this stuff. You look at these corporate sponsors that are signing up on that. You know, they will blow, these corporations in America, and they'll blow a gasket, you know, for these small issues in the United States. But yet they're willing to underwrite games of the country that's committing genocide. I think it's a disgrace what's going on."

Corporate sponsors of the Games, including Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble, have been silent on the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs in China but extremely vocal about their opposition to Republican states' election laws and other human rights issues in the U.S.

In addition to China, the U.S. is facing aggression from Russia. Tensions between Russia and America's partner Ukraine have increased to the point of near-war, and the Department of Defense confirmed last week it is moving approximately 3,000 troops to Germany, Poland and Romania.

Florida is uniquely positioned in this crisis due to the fact that there are about 150 Florida National Guard inside of Western Ukraine on a previously scheduled training rotation.

DeSantis slammed President Biden for keeping Floridians stationed in the middle of the Ukraine crisis on a federal deployment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the opening of a monoclonal antibody site, Aug. 18, 2021, in Pembroke Pines, Florida. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

"That would have been Joe Bidens doing, not ours. You know my view is I dont want to see American troops in Ukraine. I think that we have a lot of problems here in the United States. Weve given Ukraine a lot of support over the years under the Trump administration we provided huge amounts of lethal aid, and so I think that theyve been equipped to defend themselves, but to put American troops in the midst of that is not something that I want to see, particularly with Floridians."

The governor recently announced that he will be re-establishing the Florida State Guard, for which he has garnered pushback from state Democrats who are calling him a "wannabe dictator." DeSantis responded that the reason he is planning to reinstate the State Guard is because Florida doesn't have enough National Guardsmen, and the new guard would be free from the "whims of the federal government."

"And so this will give us more people to be able to do things like respond if there's disorder, like respond to disasters and all those other things. It also gives us the ability to have people who are not subject to federal requirements. So, for example, [the federal government] wouldn't be able to mobilize and deploy people who are in the State Guard," DeSantis told Fox News Digital. "They also wouldn't be able to impose mandates on people in the State Guard. They are trying to do that with the federal guard. And so I think it will help us complete our mission and will also allow us to do in a way which is not subject to the whims of the federal government."

DESANTIS ON JOE ROGAN CONTROVERSIES, DISTRUST OF CNN, MEDIA: 'DO NOT APOLOGIZE. DO NOT KOW TO THE MOB'

DeSantis also dove into criticism of America's Big Tech companies, who he says "bend the knee" to the CCP, along with Biden, who he says has worked to "empower Beijing."

"A lot of these corporations, the Apples of the world, the Facebooks, they will not buck the Communist Party of China. I mean, they will bend the knee. Hollywood bends the knee to these people. Our financial institutions bend the knee. So they have an inordinate amount of influence over our domestic situation, which is much different than, say, the Soviet Union back during the Cold War. So they are a very formidable adversary. They do not have our best interests at heart."

DeSantis praised former President Trump for being the first leader to call out the tight ties between American businesses and China.

"And I think President Trump was really the first one to really call that out. A lot of administrations have really helped to elevate and empower Beijing, including Biden. And I think the best policy for America is to understand that they're an adversary, and we should want to weaken their grip over our economy and over our political system."

The Florida governor went further in his criticism of Big Tech, saying that these companies are controlling so much political speech in the U.S. that they are trying to "impose an orthodoxy." He pointed specifically to the censorship of online speech on COVID, as many online platforms have censored or blocked speech that is not in line with statements put out by White House chief medical adviser Dr. Antony Fauci.

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"I think at the end of the day, you can't have a situation in which a handful of companies control so much of the political speech in this country, and they are censoring, and they are and trying to impose an orthodoxy," said DeSantis.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

"If you put something out on COVID that Fauci disagrees with, they will censor you, even though Fauci has been wrong on a lot. If you dissent from the CDC, they will censor you well. When you're acting as an arm of the government, then the First Amendment does apply."

The governor also mentioned the ongoing controversy with GoFundMe, an online fundraising platform that came under fire recently for attempting to divert funds intended for Canadian truckers protesting the governments COVID vaccine mandate. DeSantis has pledged to investigate the matter further.

"But I think Big Tech, I mean, it's almost like they're cutting off the nose to spite their face. They're so ideological, they're in this bubble, and they take these actions that alienate so many of their potential customers that they're going to end up, I think, really hurting what they're trying to accomplish."

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DeSantis slams Big Tech and media for 'whitewashing' the 'genocide Olympics,' says Biden is weak on China - Fox News

Amid drama at Spotify, Joe Rogan reportedly declined Rumbles $100 million offer to host his podcast this week. Yet its remarkable that Rumble, a much-needed competitor to YouTube, was in a position to even make the pitch. The platform is growing fast, serving like Parler as a critical test of our free market system and its resilience against monopoly power.

That experiment, however, raises a major challenge for Big Techs competitors, who offer alternatives almost entirely on the basis of their approach to free expression, but havent yet distinguished themselves from their counterparts unhealthy business models.

In moderation, YouTube is great. I trust the public to moderate their use of it more than I trust the government to moderate for us. This is basically the debate conservatives made against Michael Bloombergs mayoral effort to ban Big Gulps.

Indeed, the Chinese government is taking an increasingly active role in moderating individuals time on social media. Hoping to stay in the governments good graces, ByteDance makes Douyin users take a five-second pause when theyve been on the app for too long. Childrens daily use is capped and confined to certain hours.

The Chinese government is using a cost-benefit-analysis that posits the social costs of excess Douyin use are not worth the heightened financial benefits to the company and the country. Its the basic cost-benefit-analysis lawmakers here apply to questions of regulatory oversight, from tobacco to seatbelts, but with a high-tech twist.

Of course, China wants its companies to be successful. The more Coca-Cola we drink, the more profitable an American company is. The same goes for the more time people spend on Douyin or, in Americas case, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Again, I trust the public to make these personal health decisions more than the government. When youre in the throes of mass addiction and dependence, however, that project becomes more difficult.

This is the situation in which we find ourselves now. Big Tech is a public health emergency in the way some see Big Tobacco, but on an infinitely wider scaleweve transferred our personal and professional and political lives onto platforms designed to affect us like slot machines. There is absolutely no historical precedent for this.

Its why, in a sense, classical liberalism has to be the savior of classical liberalism. Our contemporary interpretation of it may need some post-postmodern modifications, to be sure. But without free markets to boost competitors and a free press to hold power accountable, the solution would be outsourcing more personal decisions to our broken and bloated federal government. That wont be better.

As conservatives join forces with heterodox centrists and liberals to build parallel institutions that compete with Big Tech, from Rumble to Parler to Gettr to all of the future platforms, theyre participating in an absolutely critical experiment. Its perhaps the single most important effort in the country today, the only thing that can loosen us from the control of poisonous platforms and their oligarchical executives. But the public health concerns are as important as those regarding free expression.

Yes, this requires Big Techs competitors to sacrifice user addiction in the hopes that people want to be less addicted and more free to speak openly. I think thats still a good bet.

Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young Americas Foundation. Shes interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including Fox News Sunday, Media Buzz, and The McLaughlin Group. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center and a visiting fellow at Independent Women's Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.

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Big Tech's Speech-Centric Competitors Need To Also Offer Healthier Use - The Federalist

(NEXSTAR) Like it or not, its time to embrace the metaverse.

On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed his company Facebook Inc. would be rebranding itself as Meta, to better reflect its focus on building the metaverse, described by Zuckerberg as an embodied internet where youre in the experience, not just looking at it.

The concept of the metaverse, meanwhile, has been around long before Facebook even existed. Often described as the successor to the internet, futurists and tech experts have envisioned the metaverse as a place where our physical realities converge with various virtual experiences in a shared virtual space. This idea has been explored in some way or another by science-fiction authors or Hollywood filmmakers over the past several decades, generally depicted as a virtual-reality platform where users can create an avatar to interact with fellow members of the digital population.

The concepts name the metaverse was even adopted from the 1992 novel Snow Crash, in which the plot plays out in both virtual and physical realities.

The term predates the internet we know today, explains Trond Undheim, PhD, a futurist and author whose podcasts explore technological innovation and artificial intelligence, among other topics. But it has now become the term for the gradual shift in digital communication whereby the internet is becoming a hybrid reality, meaning its becoming physical and digital at the same time.

The easiest way to envision this concept, perhaps, is to observe the gaming community which is the closest any group has come to entering the so-called metaverse, as far as Undheim is concerned. These gamers have established virtual avatars of themselves, which interact with other virtual avatars across persistent online worlds. Theyre working together in real time, arranging meet-ups, even spending in-game currencies all while communicating via headsets or chat.

There have even been reports of people hosting their wedding inside the cutesy virtual world of Nintendos Animal Crossing and inviting their friends digital avatars to attend after the pandemic canceled their real-world receptions. More recently, Fortnite reimagined Washington D.C. circa 1963 to teleport players back to the Capitol to watch Martin Luther King, Jr. give his iconic I Have a Dream speech.

But the future of open-world gaming is just one of the many ways the metaverse will take hold of our lives. Big Tech, of course, is ready to take things a step further.

As Zuckerberg described in a video released Thursday, Meta is trying to build a part of the metaverse that would let users do almost anything you can imagine or at least be a place where they can interact, work, shop, play games, gather for social events or create content. He also claims Metas efforts will create millions of job opportunities, much like the internet eventually created jobs that were previously unheard of.

I expect that the metaverse is going to open up lots of opportunities for people in the exact same way, Zuckerberg said. But the reality is that no one knows exactly which models are going to work and make this sustainable.

In addition to Facebook, which had previously boasted its virtual playgrounds and boardrooms, Microsoft has also been discussing its own metaverse apps for creating, and connecting to, all-new shared digital spaces.

The pandemic only accelerated the need for at least some types of metaverse-adjacent experiences, with more folks working from home and relying on technology in order to be places that they cant physically be. Theres also growing interest in making virtual events more accessible, allowing users to attend art galleries or concerts with other online friends, or patronize virtual businesses where they can spend their hard-earned currency (or cryptocurrency) on goods or services real or digital.

The metaverse is different and much more powerful than a complete virtual reality, Undheim says, because it is combining the two without merging them all the way.

It doesnt truly exist yet, he adds. But well know it when we see it.

Much of the technology needed to create the metaverse already exists, or is currently in development. But there are still several hurdles to cross before the concept can be put into use, including bandwidth requirements, and getting enough people on board. Undheim also fears that the metaverse may become too commercialized very early on, making users feel alienated or exploited before the concept has a chance to reach its full potential.

What Undheim does know, though, its that the metaverse is coming relatively fast, too.

We will see this wash over us in the next five to seven years, Undheim believes. [Its here] the moment a reasonable person would say, I dont really know if I would value my physical reality over interacting online. Maybe they dont even recognize the distinction between the two.

Link:

What is the metaverse? A look at what Big Tech views as the next stage of the internet - FOX40

Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and even Lego participated in Safer Internet Day by unveiling new policies to protect users of all ages across platforms.

Most recently, Facebook, owned by Meta, announced a joint lawsuit Tuesday against two Nigerian-based scammers. An unnamed financial services company is joining the platform as a second plaintiff in the suit, which is reportedly the first of its kind.

"Between March 2020 and October 2021, the defendants engaged in phishing attacks intended to lure people using Facebook and Instagram to phishing websites with the goal of compromising their financial services accounts for profit," Meta alleged in a statement. "To conceal their activities, the defendants used a network of computers to control over 800 impersonating Facebook and Instagram accounts and evade technical enforcement measures."

DA'S YOUTH GROUP TO OFFER INTERNET SAFETY PROGRAM

The platform previously attempted to stop the alleged scammers by "disabling Facebook and Instagram accounts, blocking impersonating domains on its services and sending a cease and desist letter."

Twitter rolled out its new reporting policy Tuesday. Rather than flagging a tweet as "abusive" or "suspicious," users can explain their problem with a post with a fill-in-the-blank system. In December, the company announced it had begun testing the new process in the United States. Safer Internet Day marked the first day the platform implemented the system worldwide.

TikTok announced a new policy to protect its gay and transgender users. The ban includes the use of transgender individuals' old names or pronouns, engagement in misogyny, or promotion of pro-conversion therapy content. In addition, the short-form video platform donated $1,000 to 40 schools to further educate teenagers about internet safety.

Lego created a new animated miniseries all about internet safety. The toy company's goal is to "empower children to become positive digital citizens, who contribute to healthy digital communities." Characters include the Oversharer, Meanie, and the Big-Eyed Monster, who takes a break from screens.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Safer Internet Day began as a European Union initiative in 2004.

See more here:

Big Tech unites to make internet safer with tutorials, grants, and lawsuits - Washington Examiner

Everyones paying up for loyalty some way more than others.

Why it matters: Anxious employers across all industries have been boosting salaries and benefits.

Driving the news: Bonus season is underway on Wall Street, with $10 million to $25 million payouts being some of the largest in about a decade.

It got us thinking who else has been bumping up bonuses?

What they're saying: These bonuses are idiosyncratic whereas wage gains [in other areas of the labor market] are a little bit more sustainable and worth highlighting as very positive for workers in the lower end of the income spectrum, Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, tells Axios.

The big picture: The size of these paystubs also speak to the way economic inequality has grown over the past two years.

What to watch: When employer generosity might wane.

See the article here:

Wall street and tech reward big, rare bonuses - Axios