Monthly Archives: September 2022

(Fixes typo in para 17)

By Paresh Dave

OAKLAND, Calif, Aug 15 (Reuters) - America's tech giants are taking a modern-day crash course in India's ancient caste system, with Apple emerging as an early leader in policies to rid Silicon Valley of a rigid hierarchy that's segregated Indians for generations.

Apple, the world's biggest listed company, updated its general employee conduct policy about two years ago to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of caste, which it added alongside existing categories such as race, religion, gender, age and ancestry.

The inclusion of the new category, which hasn't been previously reported, goes beyond U.S. discrimination laws, which do not explicitly ban casteism.

The update came after the tech sector - which counts India as its top source of skilled foreign workers - received a wake-up call in June 2020 when California's employment regulator sued Cisco Systems on behalf of a low-caste engineer who accused two higher-caste bosses of blocking his career.

Cisco, which denies wrongdoing, says an internal probe found no evidence of discrimination and that some of the allegations are baseless because caste is not a legally "protected class" in California. This month an appeals panel rejected the networking company's bid to push the case to private arbitration, meaning a public court case could come as early as next year.

The dispute - the first U.S. employment lawsuit about alleged casteism - has forced Big Tech to confront a millennia-old hierarchy where Indians' social position has been based on family lineage, from the top Brahmin "priestly" class to the Dalits, shunned as "untouchables" and consigned to menial labor.

Since the suit was filed, several activist and employee groups have begun seeking updated U.S. discrimination legislation - and have also called on tech companies to change their own policies to help fill the void and deter casteism.

Story continues

Their efforts have produced patchy results, according to a Reuters review of policy across the U.S. industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers from India.

"I am not surprised that the policies would be inconsistent because that's almost what you would expect when the law is not clear," said Kevin Brown, a University of South Carolina law professor studying caste issues, citing uncertainty among executives over whether caste would ultimately make it into U.S. statutes.

"I could imagine that parts of ... (an) organization are saying this makes sense, and other parts are saying we don't think taking a stance makes sense."

Apple's main internal policy on workplace conduct, which was seen by Reuters, added reference to caste in the equal employment opportunity and anti-harassment sections after September 2020.

Apple confirmed that it "updated language a couple of years ago to reinforce that we prohibit discrimination or harassment based on caste." It added that training provided to staff also explicitly mentions caste.

"Our teams assess our policies, training, processes and resources on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are comprehensive," it said. "We have a diverse and global team, and are proud that our policies and actions reflect that."

Elsewhere in tech, IBM told Reuters that it added caste, which was already in India-specific policies, to its global discrimination rules after the Cisco lawsuit was filed, though it declined to give a specific date or a rationale.

IBM's only training that mentions caste is for managers in India, the company added.

Several companies do not specifically reference caste in their main global policy, including Amazon, Dell , Facebook owner Meta, Microsoft and Google. Reuters reviewed each of the policies, some of which are only published internally to employees.

The companies all told Reuters that they have zero tolerance for caste prejudice and, apart from Meta which did not elaborate, said such bias would fall under existing bans on discrimination by categories such as ancestry and national origin.

CASTEISM OUTLAWED IN INDIA

Caste discrimination was outlawed in India over 70 years ago, yet bias persists, according to several studies in recent years, including one that found Dalit people were underrepresented in higher-paying jobs https://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/1450/1/SWI_2018_Report.pdf. Debate over the hierarchy is contentious in India and abroad, with the issue intertwined with religion, and some people saying discrimination is now rare.

Government policies reserving seats for lower-caste students at top Indian universities have helped many land tech jobs in the West in recent years.

Reuters spoke to about two dozen Dalit tech workers in the United States who said discrimination had followed them overseas. They said that caste cues, including their last names, hometowns, diets or religious practices, had led to colleagues bypassing them in hiring, promotions and social activities.

Reuters could not independently verify the allegations of the workers, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared harming their careers. Two said they had quit their jobs over what they viewed as casteism.

Some staff groups, including the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) at Google's parent company, say explicit mention of caste in corporate rules would open the door to companies investing in areas such as data collection and training at the same levels as they do to protect other groups.

"Significant caste discrimination exists in the United States," said Mayuri Raja, a Google software engineer who is a member of the AWU and advocates for lower-caste colleagues.

Over 1,600 Google workers demanded the addition of caste to the main workplace code of conduct worldwide in a petition, seen by Reuters, which they emailed to CEO Sundar Pichai last month and resent last week after no response.

Google reiterated to Reuters that caste discrimination fell under national origin, ancestry and ethnic discrimination. It declined to elaborate further on its policies.

'NOT GOOD FOR BUSINESS'

Adding caste to a general code of conduct is not unheard of.

The World Wide Web Consortium, an industry standards body partly based in Massachusetts, introduced it in July 2020. California State University and the state Democratic Party have followed over the past two years.

In May this year, California's employment regulator, the Civil Rights Department, added caste to its example equal employment opportunity policy for employers.

Yet the move by Apple, a $2.8 trillion behemoth with more than 165,000 full-time employees globally, looms large.

The iPhone maker's fair hiring policy now states that Apple "does not discriminate in recruiting, training, hiring, or promoting on the basis of" 18 categories, including "race, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, religion, creed, age" plus disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.

By contrast, many employers are hesitant to go beyond laws with their primary policies, according to three employment attorneys including Koray Bulut, a partner at Goodwin Procter.

"Most companies simply quote from the federal and state statutes that list the protected categories," Bulut said.

Some companies have, however, gone further in secondary policies that govern limited operations or serve only as loose guidelines.

Caste is explicitly written into Dell's Global Social Media Policy, for example, and in Amazon sustainability team's Global Human Rights Principles and Google's code of conduct for suppliers.

Amazon and Dell confirmed they had also begun mentioning caste in anti-bias presentations for at least some new hires outside India. They declined to specify when, why and how broadly they made the addition, though Dell said it made the change after the Cisco lawsuit was filed.

The companies' presentations include explanations of caste as an unwanted social structure that exists in parts of the world, according to a Reuters review of some of the online training, with the Dell material referencing a recent lawsuit "from the headlines."

John-Paul Singh Deol, lead employment attorney at Dhillon Law Group in San Francisco, said that only including caste in training and guidelines amounted to "giving lip service" to the issue because their legal force is questionable.

This characterization was rejected by Janine Yancey, CEO of Emtrain, which sells anti-bias training to about 550 employers, and a longtime employment attorney.

"No company wants to have employee turnover, lack of productivity and conflict - that's just not good for business," she said.

Yet explicitly referencing caste would likely invite an increased number of HR complaints alleging it as a bias, Yancey added. "Whenever you're going to call out something specifically, you're exponentially increasing your caseload," she said.

Apple declined to say whether any complaints had been brought under its caste provision.

South Carolina law professor Brown expects no immediate resolution to the debate over of whether companies should reference caste.

"This is an issue that ultimately will be resolved by the courts," he said. "The area right now is unsettled." (Reporting by Paresh Dave; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Sudarshan Varadhan in New Delhi; Editing by Kenneth Li and Pravin Char)

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INSIGHT-Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient ... - Yahoo!

(This August 14 story refiles to fix typo in para 17)

By Paresh Dave

OAKLAND, Calif (Reuters) - America's tech giants are taking a modern-day crash course in India's ancient caste system, with Apple emerging as an early leader in policies to rid Silicon Valley of a rigid hierarchy that's segregated Indians for generations.

Apple, the world's biggest listed company, updated its general employee conduct policy about two years ago to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of caste, which it added alongside existing categories such as race, religion, gender, age and ancestry.

The inclusion of the new category, which hasn't been previously reported, goes beyond U.S. discrimination laws, which do not explicitly ban casteism.

The update came after the tech sector - which counts India as its top source of skilled foreign workers - received a wake-up call in June 2020 when California's employment regulator sued Cisco Systems on behalf of a low-caste engineer who accused two higher-caste bosses of blocking his career.

Cisco, which denies wrongdoing, says an internal probe found no evidence of discrimination and that some of the allegations are baseless because caste is not a legally "protected class" in California. This month an appeals panel rejected the networking company's bid to push the case to private arbitration, meaning a public court case could come as early as next year.

The dispute - the first U.S. employment lawsuit about alleged casteism - has forced Big Tech to confront a millennia-old hierarchy where Indians' social position has been based on family lineage, from the top Brahmin "priestly" class to the Dalits, shunned as "untouchables" and consigned to menial labor.

Since the suit was filed, several activist and employee groups have begun seeking updated U.S. discrimination legislation - and have also called on tech companies to change their own policies to help fill the void and deter casteism.

Story continues

Their efforts have produced patchy results, according to a Reuters review of policy across the U.S. industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers from India.

"I am not surprised that the policies would be inconsistent because that's almost what you would expect when the law is not clear," said Kevin Brown, a University of South Carolina law professor studying caste issues, citing uncertainty among executives over whether caste would ultimately make it into U.S. statutes.

"I could imagine that parts of ... (an) organization are saying this makes sense, and other parts are saying we don't think taking a stance makes sense."

Apple's main internal policy on workplace conduct, which was seen by Reuters, added reference to caste in the equal employment opportunity and anti-harassment sections after September 2020.

Apple confirmed that it "updated language a couple of years ago to reinforce that we prohibit discrimination or harassment based on caste." It added that training provided to staff also explicitly mentions caste.

"Our teams assess our policies, training, processes and resources on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are comprehensive," it said. "We have a diverse and global team, and are proud that our policies and actions reflect that."

Elsewhere in tech, IBM told Reuters that it added caste, which was already in India-specific policies, to its global discrimination rules after the Cisco lawsuit was filed, though it declined to give a specific date or a rationale.

IBM's only training that mentions caste is for managers in India, the company added.

Several companies do not specifically reference caste in their main global policy, including Amazon, Dell, Facebook owner Meta, Microsoft and Google. Reuters reviewed each of the policies, some of which are only published internally to employees.

The companies all told Reuters that they have zero tolerance for caste prejudice and, apart from Meta which did not elaborate, said such bias would fall under existing bans on discrimination by categories such as ancestry and national origin.

CASTEISM OUTLAWED IN INDIA

Caste discrimination was outlawed in India over 70 years ago, yet bias persists, according to several studies in recent years, including one that found Dalit people were underrepresented in higher-paying jobs https://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/1450/1/SWI_2018_Report.pdf. Debate over the hierarchy is contentious in India and abroad, with the issue intertwined with religion, and some people saying discrimination is now rare.

Government policies reserving seats for lower-caste students at top Indian universities have helped many land tech jobs in the West in recent years.

Reuters spoke to about two dozen Dalit tech workers in the United States who said discrimination had followed them overseas. They said that caste cues, including their last names, hometowns, diets or religious practices, had led to colleagues bypassing them in hiring, promotions and social activities.

Reuters could not independently verify the allegations of the workers, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared harming their careers. Two said they had quit their jobs over what they viewed as casteism.

Some staff groups, including the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) at Google's parent company, say explicit mention of caste in corporate rules would open the door to companies investing in areas such as data collection and training at the same levels as they do to protect other groups.

"Significant caste discrimination exists in the United States," said Mayuri Raja, a Google software engineer who is a member of the AWU and advocates for lower-caste colleagues.

Over 1,600 Google workers demanded the addition of caste to the main workplace code of conduct worldwide in a petition, seen by Reuters, which they emailed to CEO Sundar Pichai last month and resent last week after no response.

Google reiterated to Reuters that caste discrimination fell under national origin, ancestry and ethnic discrimination. It declined to elaborate further on its policies.

'NOT GOOD FOR BUSINESS'

Adding caste to a general code of conduct is not unheard of.

The World Wide Web Consortium, an industry standards body partly based in Massachusetts, introduced it in July 2020. California State University and the state Democratic Party have followed over the past two years.

In May this year, California's employment regulator, the Civil Rights Department, added caste to its example equal employment opportunity policy for employers.

Yet the move by Apple, a $2.8 trillion behemoth with more than 165,000 full-time employees globally, looms large.

The iPhone maker's fair hiring policy now states that Apple "does not discriminate in recruiting, training, hiring, or promoting on the basis of" 18 categories, including "race, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, religion, creed, age" plus disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.

By contrast, many employers are hesitant to go beyond laws with their primary policies, according to three employment attorneys including Koray Bulut, a partner at Goodwin Procter.

"Most companies simply quote from the federal and state statutes that list the protected categories," Bulut said.

Some companies have, however, gone further in secondary policies that govern limited operations or serve only as loose guidelines.

Caste is explicitly written into Dell's Global Social Media Policy, for example, and in Amazon sustainability team's Global Human Rights Principles and Google's code of conduct for suppliers.

Amazon and Dell confirmed they had also begun mentioning caste in anti-bias presentations for at least some new hires outside India. They declined to specify when, why and how broadly they made the addition, though Dell said it made the change after the Cisco lawsuit was filed.

The companies' presentations include explanations of caste as an unwanted social structure that exists in parts of the world, according to a Reuters review of some of the online training, with the Dell material referencing a recent lawsuit "from the headlines."

John-Paul Singh Deol, lead employment attorney at Dhillon Law Group in San Francisco, said that only including caste in training and guidelines amounted to "giving lip service" to the issue because their legal force is questionable.

This characterization was rejected by Janine Yancey, CEO of Emtrain, which sells anti-bias training to about 550 employers, and a longtime employment attorney.

"No company wants to have employee turnover, lack of productivity and conflict - that's just not good for business," she said.

Yet explicitly referencing caste would likely invite an increased number of HR complaints alleging it as a bias, Yancey added.

"Whenever you're going to call out something specifically, you're exponentially increasing your caseload," she said.

Apple declined to say whether any complaints had been brought under its caste provision.

South Carolina law professor Brown expects no immediate resolution to the debate over of whether companies should reference caste.

"This is an issue that ultimately will be resolved by the courts," he said. "The area right now is unsettled."

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Sudarshan Varadhan in New Delhi; Editing by Kenneth Li and Pravin Char)

Read the original here:

Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

This article first appeared in the Morning Brief. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe

Friday, September 16, 2022

Today's newsletter is by Julie Hyman, anchor and correspondent at Yahoo Finance. Follow Julie on Twitter @juleshyman.

Another day, another tumble in tech stocks.

The disproportionate shellacking the sector has suffered recently has raised questions about why, exactly, technology is seemingly so vulnerable to rising interest rates.

The answer? Rate hikes are far from tech's only problem.

Traditionally, rising rate periods have implications for many sectors not just tech. When rates go up, it costs more for companies to borrow money to finance their businesses. It can also mean consumers have less disposable income because they, too, are paying more for mortgages and cars and credit cards. That latter point is especially pertinent now. Not only are homebuyers paying more than 6% interest for a 30-year mortgage for the first time since 2008 theyre doing it while paying 13.5% more for groceries than a year ago.

In other words, were seeing the double whammy of inflation and rising interest rates. While the Federal Reserve has been raising rates to tamp down on inflation, the central bank still has a long way to go. Data released on Tuesday revealed that inflation remains high at 8.3%, though it moderated slightly in August.

Of course, this environment has taken its toll on the broader market. The S&P 500 has fallen 17% this year, beginning its decline before the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates on March 16.

Still, tech has gotten slammed harder. The S&P Info Tech Index whose members include tech giants such as Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) has fallen 25% this year. The Communications Services group, with Netflix (NFLX) and Apple (AAPL), has fallen even further by 33%.

Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos accepts the 2022 Economic Development Visionary Award during the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce 2022 Economic Development Summit in Los Angeles, California, U.S., August 25, 2022. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Lets leave aside the modeling and nitty-gritty calculation of higher financing costs and whether Netflix is paying more to service its debt than energy companies (the best S&P 500 performers this year).

Story continues

Some of techs underperformance might come down to vibe. Speaking to Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi this week, Goldman Sachs Managing Director Eric Sheridan pointed out that tech is an inherently risky sector and right now, investors crave safety because they're uncertain of the Fed's next moves.

At the end of the day, what tech investors want is visibility into a calm economic environment, Goldman Sachs Managing Director Eric Sheridan told our Brian Sozzi at his firms tech conference this week. In order for tech stocks to do well, he added, You really need a stable macro environment where people feel comfortable putting more risk back on in their portfolio.

Its not just about feelings, though. Technology companies across the spectrum have seen lower demand recently as COVID-19 has eased and inspired consumers to re-join the physical world. Investors have had to readjust their expectations for the future growth of companies like Netflix and Meta (META).

Semiconductor makers have been hit in particular as theyve struggled to adjust to the tightness in supply brought on during the pandemic, followed by the unwinding of that trend.

Paul Meeks, a veteran tech investor and portfolio manager at Independent Solutions Wealth Management, told Yahoo Finance that semiconductors are a key reason hes underweight tech right now.

While Meeks believes in tech in the long term, he contends the current inventory correction puts them at risk right now. Im really worried now, because the key driver for the tech sector is semiconductors. The semiconductor stocks are in peril," he said. Semiconductor companies will be required to lead us out, and unfortunately, they are really sagging here. I dont see near-term relief.

While inflation and interest rates are two problems for tech, theyre clearly not the only challenges the sector faces right now. In the short term, at least, investors might continue to stay away.

10:00 a.m. ET: University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment, September preliminary (60.0 expected, 58.2 during prior month)

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Tech giants have bigger problems than rising interest rates: Morning Brief

China has introduced rules that aim to govern how technology platforms use recommendation algorithms. It is part of a broader push from Beijing to more closely regulate China's domestic technology sector.

Thomas White | Reuters

Chinese technology giants shared details of their prized algorithms with the country's regulators in an unprecedented move, as Beijing looks for more oversight over its domestic internet sector.

The Cyberspace Administration of China, one of the country's most powerful regulators, released a list on Friday of 30 algorithms alongside a brief description of their purpose from companies including e-commerce firm Alibaba and gaming giant Tencent.

It comes after China brought in a law in March governing the way tech firms use recommendation algorithms. The rules include allowing users to opt out of recommendation algorithms, as well as requiring companies to obtain a license to provide news services.

Algorithms are the secret sauce behind the success of many of China's technology companies. They can be used to target users with products or videos based on information about that customer.

But during the past nearly two years, Beijing has tightened regulation on China's technology sector in areas from data protection to antitrust in a bid to rein in the power of the country's giants that have grown, largely unencumbered, over a few years.

The March law also requires companies to file details of the algorithms with the cyberspace regulator.

Details are thin in the public filing. For example, the algorithm made by ByteDance for Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, is used for recommending graphics, videos, products and services that may be of interest to users through behavioral data such as clicks and likes, according to the CAC filing.

The algorithm for Taobao, Alibaba's Chinese marketplace, is used for content recommendation on the homepage and other parts of the app through a user's historical search data, the filing says.

While the public filing from the CAC keeps things brief, it's unclear how much insight the regulator had into the inner workings behind the algorithms from the technology companies.

CNBC has reached out to Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, ByteDance and NetEase for comment.

China's move to create a registration system for algorithms is unprecedented. The U.S. and European Union have yet to introduce anything like the law seen in China, although European lawmakers are currently debating rules around the use of artificial intelligence.

More here:

Chinese tech giants share details of their algorithms with ... - CNBC

Washingtons move to ban exports of two advanced chips to China is likely to affect most major tech companies running public cloud services or artificial intelligence training modules, experts said on Thursday.

China voiced its opposition to the move on Thursday afterNvidiarevealed the news onWednesday (US time). The California-based chip designer said US officials told it to stop exporting two top computing chips to China that are used for artificial intelligence work.

Advanced Micro Devicesalso said it had received new licence requirements that will stop its advanced AI chip called MI250 from being exported to China.

Shu Jueting, a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson, told a regular press conference that Beijing opposes the measures, saying they undermine the rights of Chinese companies and threaten to disrupt global supply chains.

The orders underscore deepening US-China tensions over access to advanced chip technology.

Were going from blocking certain US companies from supplying to a certain company, as was the case with Huawei, to banning certain US products from selling to China period, Jay Goldberg, CEO of D2D Advisory, a finance and strategy consulting firm, said.

The worst-case scenario would be Washington broadening the ban to block contract chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Coand Samsungfrom making chips for Chinese chip designers, Jefferies analysts said in a note.

We are not there yet, and the US will likely evaluate the effectiveness of each incremental step before drastic action is considered, it said.

Market watchers say the latest ban is likely to hit a swathe of Chinese tech companies including giants such as Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings, Baidu, and Huawei Technologies.

However,Nvidiasaid on Thursday Washington had allowed exports and in-country transfers needed to develop the companys H100 artificial intelligence chip.

The government authorised Nvidia to fulfill orders of the A100 and H100 AI chips via its Hong Kong facility up till September 1, 2023, it said.

The ban, which affects its A100 and H100 chips designed to speed up machine learning tasks, could interfere with the development of the H100, the flagship chip the company announced this year.

Jefferies added affected companies could either rely on cloud services from AlphabetsGoogle or Amazon.comsAWS to develop AI software and export it back to China, or use multiple lower-end chips to replicate the processing power of the banned, high-end chips.

One former senior staffer at AMD in China said that the restrictions wont stop Chinese tech companies from advancing their AI research, but will make research more expensive and less efficient in the short-term.

Its a resource impact. They will still work on the same projects, they will still be moving forward, it just slows them down, he said.

Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Huawei declined to comment.

The Nvidia and AMD chips targeted by Washington are used for AI and machine learning applications, particularly building training modules for tasks such as natural language processing.

These modules could be also be useful for militaries in modeling bomb simulations and designing weapons.

Goldberg at D2D said there are few Chinese companies that could offer chips to replace those of AMD and Nvidia quickly and the restrictions would likely spur more funding for domestic chip startups to narrow its gap with US firms.

China is home to a number of startups aspiring to make chips that can compete with Nvidia and AMD. Many were founded by former staffers of those companies, though few have attained meaningful scale.

Shares in Chinese AI chipmakers Hygon Information Technology Coand Loongson Technology Corpsurged on Thursday, rising 10% and 6%, respectively.

Last week, Biren, a company founded by alumni of Nvidia and Alibaba, unveiled a 7nm chip that experts say marks notable progress for Chinas chip sector.

There are several dozen Chinese chip companies working on all flavors of AI accelerators, and their order books are going to fill up tomorrow, Goldberg said.

Jim Pollard is an Australian journalist based in Thailand since 1999. He worked for News Ltd papers in Sydney, Perth, London and Melbourne before travelling through SE Asia in the late 90s. He was a senior editor at The Nation for 17+ years and has a family in Bangkok.

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US Chip Ban Likely to Hit Most of Chinas Tech Giants

A question: whats the average lifespan of an American company? Not any old company, mind, but one big enough to figure in Standard and Poors index of the 500 largest. The answer is surprising: the seven-year rolling average stands at 19.9 years. Way back in 1965 it was 32 years and the projections are that the downward trend will continue.

Remember that were talking averages here. The trend doesnt mean that no companies currently extant will get to their first century. Some almost certainly will, as some have in the past: AT&T, for example, is 137 years old; General Electric is 130; Ford is 119; IBM is 111; and General Motors is 106. But most companies wither or are gobbled up long before they qualify for a telegram from the president.

With that thought in mind, let us examine the giant tech corporations that now straddle the globe and overawe our legislators. Apple is 46 years old; Amazon is 28; Microsoft is 47; Google is 24; Meta (ne Facebook) just 18.

Which of these, if any, is most likely to make it into three figures? The answer depends on two things: which ones are providing goods or services that the world really needs and which are most vulnerable to shifts in public opinion and political attitudes towards their activities and business models.

Viewed through that lens, Microsoft and Amazon look like sure bets. In the western world at least, every big organisation public or private runs on Microsoft software and operating systems. (In the NHS alone, there are probably more than a million PCs and laptops running Windows.) For its part, Amazon has already established itself as part of the logistical infrastructure of western societies. And between them, Amazon and Microsoft cloud-computing services host an increasing number of critical services.

Apple has grown to be the worlds most valuable company by making beautiful kit, flogging it at high margins, building a closed hardware-software ecosystem and leveraging that to build an increasingly profitable services business. Its not a racing certainty to reach 100, but worth a punt.

Which leaves us with Google and Facebook. Both have the same business model to use close surveillance of their users to facilitate targeted advertising. Of the two, Google looks more secure, because at the core of its business is dominance of something that every internet user needs: a powerful search engine. In a sense, the company has built a prosthetic memory for the planet and although other search engines are available, none has come close to challenging it for dominance. The world would miss Google if it didnt exist.

Is the same true of Meta/Facebook, though? Its business model is basically the same as Googles facilitating targeted advertising using the kind of close surveillance that the search engine giant initially pioneered. As well as Facebook, Meta owns Instagram and WhatsApp, with a contingent rats nest of challenges, caused by toxic user-generated content, which it seems unable to manage effectively. In what is being spun as a bold strategic gambit (but looks awfully like an attempt to exit from the resulting stink), the companys boss has bet the corporate ranch on building a metaverse.

If he thought that with that one bound he would be free, however, he was mistaken. Instagram was originally a playground for the legions of young people fleeing Facebook and for a time worked nicely in that role. But then came TikTok, a Chinese-owned platform for people to upload short, funky videos, which has proved irresistible to those aforesaid youngsters and is driving Meta executives wild.

Their first response was to create a copycat product called Reels to enable Instagram users to create TikTok-type videos. Strangely, it hasnt worked. Or, rather, it has worked but perversely. It turns out that a significant proportion of Instagram Reels actually originated as TikTok videos! If imitation is, as the adage goes, the sincerest form of flattery, TikTok executives are doubtless delighted.

But, as an internal company report that was leaked to the Wall Street Journal reveals, Meta bosses are anything but. It turns out that Instagram users are spending 17.6m hours a day watching Reels, which is less than a tenth of the 197.8m hours TikTok users spend each day on that platform.

Its strange to see a huge company flailing ineffectually like an elephant being tormented by a wasp, but thats whats happening at Meta. In addition, the metaverse project is burning money like it was going out of fashion, which possibly explains why the company is hiring 30% fewer engineers than it had originally intended this year. A survey by the Hustle newsletter found that the number of open job listings under augmented reality (AR) shows that Apple now has more vacancies than Meta in that critical field.

Looming over all this, though, is the realisation that if liberal democracies are to survive, they will eventually realise that surveillance capitalism is such a danger to democracy that it will have to be outlawed. If that happens, then the chances of Meta (and possibly also Google) being around in 2122 are, well, vanishingly small. Sic transit gloria and all that.

Antisocial mediaWhat the Truth Social Flop Says About Trump is a lovely Politico column by Jack Shafer on Trumps attempt to create his own Twitter.

The words have eyesWhat Does GPT-3 Know About Me? is an interesting article by Melissa Heikkil on what she discovered when she started asking an AI questions about herself.

Lost connectionsThe Chaos Machine is a useful review by Tamsin Shaw of Max Fishers new book on how social media has rewired our minds.

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Will todays tech giants reach a century? Its all about the quality of the product - The Guardian

Were taking aggressive action in California to protect the health and wellbeing of our kids, Newsom said in a statement, adding that as a parent, Im familiar with the real issues our children are experiencing online.

Californias adoption of both bills marked back-to-back blows for the tech sector, whose lobbyists had argued such laws would set costly new rules and stall innovation. Some have suggested the legislation could infringe on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from being held liable for what is posted on them.

These bills would create significant and potentially costly compliance requirements that may unintentionally stifle innovation and competition. The measures require study, as they may raise constitutional concerns and conflict with federal law, said Khara Boender, state policy director for the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

The companies will have until mid-2024 to adhere to the new rules aimed at shielding young Californians from online predators and social media addiction, among other harms. The law, AB 2273, also restricts the collection and sharing of kids personal data, specifically information thats unrelated to the online platforms services.

Californias new legislation raises the stakes of a data privacy proposal being debated in Congress which, as written, would override such state regulations. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled her support for Californias AB 2273 as she called for changes to the federal bill to make sure it wouldnt undercut the states laws.

States must be allowed to address rapid changes in technology, she said in a statement.

Industry lobbyists in Sacramento tried unsuccessfully to exclude older teens from the new law. But the law will give businesses 90 days to make fixes before they can be subject to fines, a provision sought by companies.

The bill sped through Californias Legislature at the end of August without a single no vote, with lawmakers sharing stories about their own children and grandchildrens relationships to social media and technology. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) was the proposals main author.

The bills sponsor, the London-based 5Rights Foundation, helped enact similar rules in the U.K. that took effect last year. Tech giants reacted to the U.K. rules by tamping down the accessibility and intrusiveness of certain features for kids. TikTok and Instagram, for example, turned direct messaging off between children and adults who dont follow each other.

Californias new privacy protections and design features will extend to anyone under 18 who accesses the internet in California, even if the company in question is headquartered out of state. At a news conference last month outside the state Capitol, Wicks and other supporters said they hoped the rules would ripple beyond state lines.

Youth advocates from the #GoodforMEdia campaign published an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sept. 7 calling for Newsom to sign the bill. Another campaign led by youth advocates, the Design It For Us campaign, has been rallying around the bills passage for the past few months, taking out a full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times and sending a billboard-covered truck to legislators at a tech summit in Napa.

Safety parameters exist on everything that kids touch except social media. Social media was not designed for children, it was designed for adults, said Emi Kim, legislative director for the LogOff Movement, at the Sacramento news conference.

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Newsom signs bill to make tech companies protect kids online - POLITICO