Category Archives: Big Tech

Published: August 30, 2022

How Big Tech Like Apple and Meta Plan to Weather the Storm of a Poor Economy

By Movieguide Staff

As the economy grows unstable and uncertain, investors are backing off from riskier investments like the tech industry.

According to Variety, the reduced global economy has resulted in a lower marketing budget. Now, big tech companies are looking for additional ways to make up losses due to a lack of advertising.

What were hearing from advertisers, more specifically as it pertains to advertising budgets is what we said before, which is that they are taking this time, given all of those other macro pressures, to reevaluate their priorities to ensure that theyre making the right investments in the right places. And when we talk about digital advertising, it is the easiest thing to turn off, Jeremi Gorman, Snaps chief business officer, told the publication.

Metas COO Sheryl Sandberg added: Many of the macro factors having an impact on our revenue are continuations of things weve seen in previous quarters. But there are also new challenges with rising inflation and uncertainty around a looming recession. We know that recessions put pressure on marketers to make sure their ad budgets are spent in the smartest way possible.

Companies are looking to cut spending by hiring fewer people while the economy struggles.

Given the uncertain global economic outlook and the hiring progress achieved to date, as Sundar previously announced, we intend to slow the pace of hiring. We expect our actions on hiring to become more apparent in 2023, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said. Although we expect the pace of headcount growth to moderate next year, we will continue hiring for critical roles, particularly focused on top engineering and technical talent.

Snap CFO Derek Andersen added: We intend to substantially slow our rate of hiring to effectively pause growth in our headcount, which is a significant portion of our OpEx.

Despite their caution, Apple and other big tech companies are confident in their business models.

As we look forward, were clear-eyed about the uncertainty in the macro environment. Yet we remain ever focused on the same vision that has guided us from the beginning. Cook said. We strive every day to be a place where imagination ignites innovation like nowhere else, where good people come together to achieve great things, where customers are the center of everything we do. And well continue to execute on that vision as we always have, led by a focus on excellence and a desire to leave the world better than we found it.

Movieguide previously reported the dangers of big tech overreach:

The results of a recent survey show that approximately 80% of registered voters favor the idea that the federal government should curb the influence of big tech companies.

Big tech has exercised extensive overreach over the last several months, including cracking down on conservative content while freely allowing terrorist organizations to recruit on platforms like Facebook.

The poll, conducted by Benenson Strategy Group in conjunction with Public Opinion Strategies, gathered relevant data from 2,016 registered voters.

In a society that is often defined by stringent political polarization, the survey found that on many issues regarding perceived problems with Big Tech right-wingers and left-wingers share similar views, particularly when it comes to regulating the power such technology companies possess.

83% of Democrats as well as 78% of Republicans from the survey concurred that U.S. government intervention for the purpose of controlling tech companies interference in their lives would be beneficial.

Such interferences on the part of major tech groups, for instance, include Facebooks limiting platform data accessible to media researchers and Googles censorship of ads from the anti-abortion advocacy group Live Action. And these are but a few of the recent concerns.

Likewise, 84% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans represented in the poll were very nervous about the ramifications that the use of social media can have on minors.

Social media has a long track record of causing a range of mental health dilemmas in children.

Given the visually-stimulating content proliferating across these platforms, youthful audiences are exposed to unrealistic, perfectionist models of body image and to unhealthy sexual tendencies.

Numerous child suicides have been linked to Instagram and have even been posted to the platform.

The Future of Tech Commission anticipates using the data collected via the survey to spur policymakers to strive for the limiting of these Internet giants power.

A co-chair of the commission, Deval Patrick who is a former governor of Massachusetts, holds that the results of the survey point to the need for massive tech companies to operate within boundaries, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Read the rest here:

How Big Tech Like Apple and Meta Plan to Weather the Storm of a Poor Economy - Movieguide

Hi, folks. We wont have Fauci to kick around much longer. But well always have Covid.

The Plain View

In late 1969, Daniel Ellsberg made a brave and consequential decision. As an employee of the RAND Corporation, a US government contractor, he had access to classified documents that contradicted top officials promises that the Vietnam War could be won. He secretly copied the documents and for the next year tried to get them made public, first through Congress, then through the press. In June 1971, The New York Times published the first of a series of articles on what would be known as the Pentagon Papers. The government sued to suppress them, and while the case made its way through the courts, Ellsberg leaked the papers to The Washington Post. By that time the FBI was after him, though he had not publicly admitted his role as the whistleblower. He came clean just before the Supreme Court allowed the Times to continue publishing on June 30. Ellsberg was arrested and tried for theft and conspiracy, going free only because of government misconduct.

Earlier this year, Peiter Mudge Zatko made a decision of his own. A security expert handpicked by Twitters then-CEO Jack Dorsey in November 2020 to address the companys chronic failings, he was fired last January after clashes with the current CEO, Parag Agrawal. Zatko believed that Twitters management wasnt taking steps to fix its security problemsand that Agrawal was lying about those shortcomings to the board of directors, shareholders, and regulators. Like Ellsberg, he decided to go public. Unlike Ellsberg, Zatko was able to tap the services of a nonprofit, Whistleblower Aid, set up specifically to assist people like him and keep them out of legal trouble. After meeting him in March, a cofounder of the nonprofit, John Tye, agreed to work with Zatko.

Zatko and his handlers strategized and launched a coordinated campaign to expose Twitters alleged wrongdoing. They used a full rack of Scrabble tiles to file agency complaints SEC, FTC, DOJ. Zatko met with the staffers of several congressional committees and is scheduled to testify. Most dramatically, he and his team broke news by orchestrating a leak of his complaints from one of the congressional committees. The recipients were The Washington Post and CNN, and their stories went live under a shared embargo on August 23. Zatko gave interviews to both organizations, which treated him lovingly. The Post photographer even captured an artsy shot of Zatko and his mirror reflection, full of oracle vibes. (In contrast, Agrawal was pictured glumly roaming the grounds of an unnamed conference in a dark hoodie.)

If this all sounds familiar, its because last year another whistleblower, former Meta program manager Frances Haugen, had a similar rollout of her allegations, complete with agency and congressional briefings and glam images on 60 Minutes and in The Wall Street Journal. And of course, redacted documents leaked just in time from a congressional friend. No coincidence that her whistleblower sherpa was the same as Zatkos, John Tye.

Whistleblowers of conscience have been around as long as institutional malfeasance has existed, but its become something of a trend in tech. In part, this is because of recent laws that give protection to whistleblowers in certain cases, notably when it comes to reporting corporate fraud to the SEC. But the phenomenon also reflects a workforce fed up with employers who have seemingly abandoned their once idealistic principles. Whistleblowing is a growth industry, says Tye, who himself once blew the whistle on the NSA before cofounding his organization.

More here:

Twitter, Meta, and Blowing the Whistle on Big Tech - WIRED

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Worried that you're giving away too much information online through your activities there?

Many people are doing just this but there are steps to take to protect yourself and your privacy.

Kurt Knutsson, AKA The CyberGuy, appeared on "Fox & Friends Weekend" on Sunday morning, August 28, 2022, to deliver some common sense and smart tips.

BACK-TO-SCHOOL TECH: HOW TO GET THE LATEST GADGETS AT A GREAT PRICE

There's a viral conversation going on right now about how "your location can be given out and not just your approximate location, but your precise location," said Knutsson.

A woman uses a smartphone at her desk. Take care to check the privacy settings for the apps you use. (iStock)

That location can be detected based on your iPhone or iPad activity and the settings you're using.

"Grab your iPhone today or your iPad," he said, "go in, go to the home screen and hit settings."

"Apps creep into our lives and figure out exactly where we are, many of them selling that data."

"You'll want to make sure that, first of all, your software is updated" before you do anything else, he said.

From there, you should locate the "privacy" tab then "go to location services," and there, you'll see all of the apps that are on your iPhone or device.

Check out the privacy settings on your iPhone or iPad and make sure you've chosen the setting you want there, advises Knutsson. (REUTERS/Regis Duvignau)

Knutsson explained on "Fox & Friends Weekend" that you might see the notation "always," "only while using," or "never" in terms of how much of your location is getting out via each of those apps.

For the apps that say "always," "you're going to want to dive in there and tap on each one of these apps today," he said and consider changing that notation.

Kurt Knuttson recommends that all iPhone and iPad users make sure they have good anti-virus protection on their devices. (iStock)

You can turn off that precise location on any of those apps, he said.

"These apps creep into our lives and figure out exactly where we are, many of them selling that data," he said.

WHY SITTING ALL DAY LONG IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH, DOCTORS SAY

He also recommended that people use "good anti-virus protection" on all devices.

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To learn more, watch the video at the top of this article, or click here to access it.

Maureen Mackey is managing editor of lifestyle for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent on Twitter at @maurmack.

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Worried that Big Tech is following your every move online? Here's what to do - Fox News

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo had meetings with high-profile corporate tech chiefs, including Apple, Inc. AAPL CEO Tim Cookand Amazon, Inc's AMZNAndy Jassyin April 2021, Bloomberg reported, citing a copy of Raimondo's calendar it obtained.

Raimondo initiated the meeting with Jassy, which was held on April 5, 2021, while the meeting with Cook took place on April 21 at the behest of the Apple CEO, the report said.

Bloomberg noted that the calendar did not specify the agenda, although it isn't unusual for U.S. businesses to meet with the Commerce Department for discussing trade issues.

The report also noted that Raimondo met with CEOs of companies belonging to other industries such as Mary Barraof General Motors Corporation GM.

See Also:Which US Big Tech Was Highest Lobbying Spender Against Antitrust In Q2 - Answer Is Not Shocking

Raimondo's meetings with the tech stalwarts assume importance because she has been criticized for her ties to big techs. Left-leaning groups have alleged she acts asthe Bidenadministration's mouthpiece forsupporting policies benefiting corporate America, Bloomberg noted.

While Raimondo opposed antitrust legislation against the big U.S. tech companies in Europe, she supported similar legislation in the U.S., the report noted.

The release of the calendar of the commerce chief was in response to requests by activists, Bloomberg said. The closeness between the Commerce Department and some of the world's biggest corporations is concerning, Jeff Hauser, founder of government ethics group Revolving Door Project said, according to Bloomberg.

"The interests of big tech and the interests of the American people are not correlated," he reportedly said.

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Apple (AAPL) Biden Administration Official, Often Criticized For Big-Tech Ties, Met With Tim Cook, Andy - Benzinga

Chinese technology giants including Alibaba have seen slower-to-no-growth as China's economy faces weakness as a result of Beijing's zero-Covid policy.

Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Chinese technology giants are coming off the back of their worst quarter of growth in history as a big slowdown in the world's second-largest economy, stoked by Beijing's strict Covid policy, takes its toll.

In the second quarter of the year, e-commerce firm Alibaba posted its first ever flat year-on-year quarterly revenue growth and social media and gaming company Tencent reported its first sales decline on record. JD.com, China's second-largest e-commerce player, posted its slowest revenue growth in history, while electric vehicle maker Xpeng posted a wider-than-expected loss as well as weak guidance.

Combined, these companies have a market capitalization of more than $770 billion.

In the June quarter, China saw a resurgence of Covid cases. China has stuck to its so-called "zero-Covid" policy, a strict set of measures including lockdowns and mass testing to contain the virus. Major cities, including Shanghai, were locked down for several weeks.

China's economy grew just 0.4% in the second quarter, and that impacted the strength of the consumer as well as spending from companies in areas like advertising and cloud computing.

Those headwinds fed through to China's technology giants.

"Retail sales decreased year-over year in April and May due to the resurgence of Covid-19 in Shanghai and other major cities, and has slowly recovered in June," Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba, said on the company's earnings call this month.

Alibaba's logistics networks in China were also affected, and it said some of its cloud computing projects were delayed.

Tencent, the owner of the WeChat messaging app and one of the world's biggest gaming firms, also felt the impact of the zero-Covid policy. Its fintech services revenue grew more slowly than in previous quarters as fewer people were going out and using its WeChat Pay mobile payments service. The company's online advertising revenue also fell sharply as companies tightened their budgets.

JD.com fared well in the second quarter because it controls a lot of its logistics supply chain and inventory. However, it did see costs rise for fulfilment and logistics in the face of lockdowns.

Electric carmaker XPeng said it expects to deliver between 29,000 and 31,000 vehicles in the third quarter. But that was weaker guidance than the market expected. As well as seasonal weakness, XPeng president Brian Gu said that "traffic in the stores are less than what we've seen before because (of the) post-COVID situation."

China's internet giants enjoyed a boom during the pandemic as people turned to online services such as shopping and gaming amid lockdowns. That has made year-on-year comparisons harder. Now, the Chinese economy is facing a number of headwinds this year that has made the macroeconomic environment even tougher.

China's technology sector continues to contend with a much stricter regulatory environment. Over the past two years, China has introduced tougher policy in areas from gaming to data protection.

With growth rates falling more sharply than in previous years, investors are cautious on their outlook.

"What I find interesting is how the narrative on the big tech companies ... has changed: early on in the pandemic, COVID was expected to benefit the big online platforms at the expense of 'offline' businesses, as much of the economy would be stuck at home with little other choice than to shop online and entertain themselves online," Tariq Dennison, wealth manager at GFM Asset Management, told CNBC via email.

"The recent revenue and earnings dip hitting these big tech names reflects zero COVID concerns short-term, but also has many long-term investors, including myself, revising our estimates of the long-term growth prospects of these names."

Dennison said that Tencent, Alibaba and JD.com previously sustained more than 25% annual revenue growth and a long-term slowdown would be a concern.

"If this quarter is a sign of a permanent slowdown to single digit growth rates, rather than just a temporary dip, that of course would have a significant impact on long-term valuations of these shares," Dennison said.

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Chinese tech giants had their worst quarterly growth on record, thanks to Beijing's zero-Covid policy - CNBC

Above Phone: A new phone is being marketed as de-Googled and comes with a decentralized search engine, powered by blockchain technology.

The Above Phone is being sold with a web browser and search engine that is ultra-private and helps users completely ditch big tech tracking. Michael Saylor definitely needs this to avoid paying his taxes.

Big tech is Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft, among others. Chinese apps like TikTok have also been accused of harvesting data from our phones.

Big tech has been in the news multiple times for making billions by selling consumer data to third parties, sometimes illegally. With the Above Phone, theft of consumer data is blocked by default.

Are you Degoogled? is a current trend whereby consumers take back their data from the big tech giants.

Theres no getting around it. We live in an age of increased worry about surveillance. We also worry about security for crypto assets.

Above Phone say they help their customers get around this. They provide users with a private, secure phone that uses open-source, privacy-focused software. They say their range of apps can replace big techs apps.

Above Phones collab with Presearch means the phone can be taken out of the box, fired up and will have a decentralized search engine ready to go.

Presearch say their search engine has more than 4 million registered users. This makes it one of the largest blockchain projects in the world. Its users do over 100 million searches a month.

Above Phone say the phone is not just an alternative to big tech phones but a platform for ensuring your privacy on the go, featuring the latest cutting-edge alternative operating systems. Above Phone and the Above Privacy Suite provide encrypted voice calls, video calls, text messaging, email, video conferencing, VPN, and now the leading decentralized search engine.

Of course, you can use other browsers. But by setting Presearch as the default web browser and search engine, Big Tech cant see what you are searching for on the Above Phone. Search queries are not stored. This means that users are totally anonymous.

Got something to say about the Above Phone or anything else? Write to usor join the discussion in our Telegram channel. You can also catch us on Tik Tok, Facebook, or Twitter.

DisclaimerAll the information contained on our website is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. Any action the reader takes upon the information found on our website is strictly at their own risk.

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Above Phone: New Device is "DeGoogled" and Keeps Your Crypto Safe - BeInCrypto

The Governance of Emerging Technologies: Platforms in Politics

Full Paper Panel

Participants:(Chair) Peter John Loewen, University of Toronto; (Discussant) Wendy H. Wong, University of Toronto; (Discussant) Simone Chambers, University of California, Irvine

Session Description:Reliance on digital platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams has been deepened by the outbreak of a global pandemic. This panel engages with the need to theorize and measure the impacts of platforms on governance and governments and explores existing strategies from across the political science literature to begin this work. Online services like WhatsApp, Twitter, and Google search have, for many, become integral to everyday life. Correspondingly, the companies that provide these services have become ubiquitous. These multinational platform companies are, among other things, essential communication infrastructures, arbiters of freedom of expression, and distributors of information. Platform companies are governors. At the same time, they are subjects of governance, targeted by states, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations. Such governance efforts include restricting the collection of data about users (e.g., EUs GDPR, the Global Network Initiative), limiting applications of artificial intelligence (e.g., banning facial recognition in law enforcement), and challenging the concentration of market power in a small number of organizations (e.g., US antitrust suits). Perspectives in political science regarding functional and hybrid governance, algorithmic governance, transnational corporate governance, the role of policy networks, and democratic theory have much to contribute to this emerging area of research and policy.

Papers:

Who Governs in the Digital State?Amanda Clarke

Information technologies (IT) have always played a central role in government. They shape and reinforce the organization and management of the public sector. Information and data, and technologies that allow for their collection, analysis and application, are also key policy resources that determine the extent to which a government can effectively design policies and deliver services. Yet, the centrality of IT to governance has long been neglected both in the political science sub-field of public administration and by public administrators themselves. Private sector actors have been more conscious of the centrality of IT to the activities of governing and have since the 1980s benefited from widespread IT outsourcing and consulting contracts to become influential and well-remunerated private governors of public sector IT infrastructures. Repeated high-cost failings of government IT projects, and a growing recognition of the benefits of modern design practices, have inspired a counter-movement which from 2010 onwards has attempted to curb government reliance on private technology firms and management consultants, and instead to build in-house public sector digital capacity. Focusing on Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, this paper evaluates the extent to which this counter-movement is succeeding to limit the private capture of public sector IT, especially in light of the urgent demands for digital capacity ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper reports on public servants testimonies about the role, power and influencing tactics enrolled by private technology and consulting firms and analysis of government contracting patterns on pandemic-related initiatives (e.g. contact tracing applications, vaccine booking systems, and benefits delivery). Beginning from the premise that those who govern public sector IT become de facto governors of government processes writ large, the papers analysis appraises how accountability and power within the digital era state is distributed across public and private actors and contributes new insight to the literatures on public sector accountability and corporate capture, digital government reform, and the role of private technology firms in contemporary democracy.

Platform Sovereigns: Contact Tracing Applications and the Power of Big TechJamie Duncan, University of Toronto; Alexandra Martin, University of Toronto

Can a smartphone app cure a pandemic? During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen attempts to turn our smartphones into public health surveillance tools in our pockets through the use of exposure notification (EN) applications. This paper examines the introduction of the Google-Apple Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing (GA-PPCT) protocol as a case of coercive policy diffusion. We ask: how did we go from learning of the novel coronavirus to the implementation of a far-reaching network of interoperable EN apps within mere months? We demonstrate how the infusion of technological solutionism with emergency public health responses contributed to the ongoing erosion of state authority to act upon problems defined as technical by bureaucrats and the private expert class of big tech. Drawing on nascent literature in platform governance as well as established research on policy transfer and New Public Management, we contend that understanding technology policy diffusion requires recognizing how such platforms govern through the provision of global standards. We investigate the confluence of demands for rapid public health measures and the control of smartphone platforms by two companies. We show how the private development of the publicly-deployed GA-PPCT protocol enabled its rapid global spread. This case study also shows us the dangers of overreliance on technical solutions for problems that are not only medical, but social and political in nature. Narrowly framing exposure notification apps using discourses of privacy allowed Apple and Google to form temporary strategic alliances with privacy advocates in academia and civil society. Such alliances heightened the perceived legitimacy of their coercive approach to engaging with state authorities, some of whom wished to pursue alternate technical tools. Conversely, the strategic redefinition of political problems as primarily technical issues can also serve the priorities of states. By accepting the expert authority of the GA-PPCT in setting technical parameters for EN applications, states benefit from a narrowing of policy alternatives and expedition of desirable policy outcomesin this case by enabling EN apps to function more efficiently on consumers devices and ensuring the interoperability of EN applications across devices and national boundaries. Approaching privacy as a technical good encourages solutions oriented toward product design and customer experiences allowing states to not only outsource functions but also accountability for their efficacy. To understand the role of private influence and expertise in the development and roll out of EN apps in Canada, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, we analyze technical and policy documentation as well as executive communications related to these apps from March 2020 through November 2020 to observe how the GA-PPCT framework was adopted, challenged, and implemented. Our contribution is twofold. Firstly, we document how the self-constraining impulse toward smaller government has allowed for the emergence of new forms of private sovereignty and technocratic governance exemplified by Google and Apples capacity to impose global standards such as the GA-PPCT. Secondly, as a consequence of this novel form of authority, we propose that research on technology policy diffusion requires a theoretical lens informed by platform governance, which can account for how states and platforms co-exist as governors-that-are-governed on a global scale.

Platform Governance: The Domestic Politics of Online Content RegulationRobert Gorwa, University of Oxford

Billions of people around the world use services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube every day to access information, engage in conversation, and stay in touch with friends and family. These hugely profitable and popular platforms for user-generated content, operated by large multinational technology companies, have in the past decade created complex systems of private regulatory standards that govern online behavior and have a significant impact on the social, cultural, and political lives of their customers around the world. Where these systems were once tacitly accepted or ignored by state actors, governments have in recent years increasingly sought to shape the rules and practices deployed by platform companies through various strategies. In some cases, governments have sought to take back control and re-assert state authority over this privately managed domain, while in others they have opted rather to work directly with companies in a more collaborative fashion. What explains the variation in how governments intervene in platform governance? The paper argues that how governments seek to shape, challenge, or contest private platform rulemaking can be understood as either fitting in within a collaborative or a contested strategy. Building upon literatures from global regulatory politics, especially upon Farrell and Newmans work (2018, 2019) on international/domestic issue linkages in transnational technology policy negotiations, variation between these two strategies is explained as the result of an interplay between three factors: domestic demand for change, the ability to supply that change (regulatory capacity and transnational or domestic institutional constraints on that capacity), and normative understandings of an actors appropriate degree of policy intervention. The conceptual argument, which is being developed as part of a larger ongoing book project, is presented here through one chapter: an in-depth case study of developments in intermediary content regulation in the United States (2006 to the present). Drawing upon qualitative interviews conducted with governance stakeholders (firms, policymakers, civil society) and deliberative policy documents obtained via FOIA requests, the paper shows the non-emergence of successful content moderation focused legislation in the US can be understood best through a combination of unique normative constraints (especially those posed by the First Amendment and American free speech traditions), and generally low levels of domestic demand for new platform-focused rules due to the lobbying and public-facing strategies of industry. Beyond the general theoretical framework presented, this paper seeks to make two specific contributions. Empirically, the paper highlights the domestic factors that help explain why despite the massive increase in public salience that big tech related issues have received in the past five years both in the US and beyond and growing regulatory burden that American multinational technology companies are facing in dozens of jurisdictions, there has been no corresponding regulation in the United States. Conceptually, the paper advances current discussions on the importance of domestic politics for international regulatory issues, and the specific circumstances under which we can expect domestic politics to matter in key regulatory episodes (Bradford 2020; Farrell and Newman 2019).

Assessing Global Regulatory Responses to Facebooks Political HarmsSwati Srivastava, Purdue University

As governments around the world mobilize to rein in Big Tech, researchers lack high-quality systematic data for comparative assessment of state responses. This paper analyzes the robustness of over 900 global regulatory responses for effectively targeting Facebooks political harms of mass surveillance, speech management, information pollution, and behavioral conditioning. The research is drawn from an original database of 4,315 major Facebook incidents since the companys founding (2004) until February 2021. Instead of running keyword searches through automated text analysis, student coders carefully read over 50,000 news reports to extract government responses to Facebooks incidents ranging from inquiries, hearings, and proposals to legislation, lawsuits, and administrative rulings. The paper groups the regulatory responses under three themes privacy, anti-monopoly, content moderation and analyzes their scope and strength using an inductively derived coding scheme modeled after the OECDs Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance. The research makes two contributions. First, it maps a fuller spectrum of Big Tech regulatory scrutiny beyond high-profile legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulation and jurisprudence such as the Right to be Forgotten. Second, it identifies major regulatory gaps for developing and enforcing solutions to counter Big Techs power in a transnational context.

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Theme Panel: The Governance of Emerging Technologies: Platforms in Politics - - Political Science Now

Instagram and Facebook posts rejecting the Biden administrations new definition of recession have been flagged as false information, which causes massive censorship of those posts.

The standard definition of recession is a negative GDP growth in two consecutive fiscal quarters. However, in an attempt to deny that the US has entered a recession, The White House published an online article with a new definition of recession.

Related: Sly fact-checking tactics that lead to social media censorship

Both official determinations of recessions and economists assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the dataincluding the labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and incomes, wrote the White House.

Based on these data, it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter indicates a recession.

The post has been criticized on social media, and Meta platforms are flagging the criticism as false information.

Instagram personality Graham Allen posted a video where he asked Siri for the definition of recession. The iPhone assistant defined it as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

The video is available, but to watch it users have to click past a disclaimer that says false information reviewed by independent fact-checkers. The same label is appearing on some posts on Facebook that reject the White Houses definition of recession.

The third-party fact-checker that flagged the posts is Politifact. The fact-checker claims that it is false to say that the White House is now trying to protect Joe Biden by changing the definition of the word recession.

Read more from the original source:

Big Tech fact-checkers flag Biden "recession" definition change ...

The tech industry and Wall Street beefed up bonuses last year to keep employees during an especially tight labor market. But, this year, that trend may see a huge reversal.

At Twitter, based on Q2 performance, the 2022 total bonus pool is now tracking to 50%, the company said. Twitter reported a net loss of $270 million, or 35 cents per share. This is down from a profit of $65.6 million, or 8 cents per share, a year earlier. The companys adjusted 8-cent loss is far short of consensus estimates of a 14-cent adjusted profit. Revenue in the second quarter totaled $1.18 billion, a decrease of 1% year over year. Twitter said its bonus pool is calculated based on its performance against annual, board-approved revenue and profitability goals. Twitter CFO Ned Segals warning to staff about typical bonuses potentially being decreased was first reported by the New York Times on Friday.

When it comes to the potential for a decline in bonuses this year, its more visible in tech, in particular, and financial services, Alan Johnson of the compensation consultancy Johnson Associates, told me. Both industries are coming off last years historic highs in bonuses, Johnson says.

Johnson Associates August report projected that after the second quarter we would see a year-end decrease in incentive compensation across financial services. Investment banking underwriters will most likely see a decrease in bonuses by as much as 45%, according to the report. Meanwhile, asset management professionals and corporate staff might see a decline of 15% to 20%. Depending on the size of their firm, private equity professionals might receive up to a 10% bonus cut.

Its a volatile business, Johnson explains. Some of those did terrific in 2021. But the revenues have just gone off the cliff in terms of, for example, M&A or underwriting. Bonuses were abnormally high in 2021; and this year, its going to be abnormally low, he says. The firm calculated the projected year-end incentives on a headcount-adjusted basis based on publicly available data and direct conversations with clients, Johnson says.

I asked him when financial services companies typically conclude they have to start cutting back on bonuses. It varies, he says. As you get into August and September, youve got a pretty good idea how the year is looking, Johnson explains. Usually right after Labor Day, firms will very aggressively start to think about how big the aggregate pools might be, and also begin to pencil what [bonuses] would be for individuals.

Are there areas where bonuses will go up? Fixed income has benefited significantly from the volatility in the market, Johnson says. So, bond traders would be the leading candidate to go up, he says. They will go up, but probably much less than they would have if the results of other areas have been better.

Are layoffs in financial services on the horizon? Unfortunately, I think so, Johnson says. I think most firms feel theyre a little overstaffed. Theyve already started to restrain their recruiting, and theyre going to look at voluntary turnover. But if that doesnt get them to the numbers theyre looking for, theyre certainly going to have layoffs. By February or March of next year, I think most firms want to be at what they perceive as their right headcount and composition.

See you tomorrow.

Sheryl Estradasheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Upcoming events:In September, theFortuneCFO community will meet in person in Chicago and Dallas for two in-depth dinner conversations. I will be joined byFortuneCEO Alan Murray and leading CFOs as we delve into the new leadership strategies CFOs must embrace. If you are a CFO in the Chicago area,click here to applyto join us at Sepia on September 22, orclick here to applyto join us on September 29 at The Mansion Turtle Creek in Dallas. Please note that attendance is complimentary and subject to approval.

Persistent inflation may be deterring people from leaving their jobs. Eighty percent of respondents of FlexJobs Career Pulse 2022 Survey said the decision about whether to look for a new job with a higher salary or negotiate with their employer for a higher salary has been impacted by inflation. Job seeker confidence is trending down, according to the report. When asked how confident they are The majority (45%) are only somewhat confident in their ability to find a new job right now. Just 12% are extremely confident, 26% are very confident, and 17% are not confident at all. The findings are based on a survey of 4,000 professionals.

"The Great Resignation is starting to slow down, but bosses should pay attention to what employees are doing instead," a new Fortune report by Megan Leonhardt,explains thatthe number of U.S. workers leaving their employer dropped to 4.1% in July, down from 5.9% a year ago. However, while the number of workers actually moving to new jobs has decreased, that hasnt stopped Americans from continuing to look around for better jobs.

Brad Littlewas named CFO atDIRTT, an industrialized construction company (Nasdaq: DRTT, TSX: DRT), effective August 23. Little will lead the finance team as DIRTT continues to realign the organization, according to the company. He brings over 20 years of experience in finance with companies including Black Mountain Sand, Cornerstone Building Brands, Willbros, Technip, and PwC. Little is also a published author and co-founder of 84 Phoenix, a non-profit that supports education in underdeveloped areas.

Andrew Steinbergwas named CFO atHonor Technology, Inc., a home care network for older adults and technology platform. The announcement comes a year after Honors acquisition of Home Instead and Series E funding. Steinberg was previously a managing director at Evercore, where he was focused on M&A and capital markets advisory in the software, AI/ML, medtech, and travel tech markets. Before Evercore, he worked in a global strategy role at Google and as a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Expectations of an ongoing surge in inflation in Europe along with the sentiment that central banks will pursue aggressive tightening is making investors extremely anxious.

Greg Daco, EY-Parthenons chief economist, believes the markets will remain in a highly volatile environment for the foreseeable future," as reported by Fortune.

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Wall Street and Big Tech brace for much lower bonuses this year - Fortune

In late July, after finalizing plans to break itself up last year, General Electric announced that the new companies would be called GE Aerospace, GE Vernova, and GE Healthcare. A few months earlier, cereal manufacturer Kellogg Co. announced it would also be splitting itself into three companiesfor cereals, snacks, and plant-based foods. Just a few years ago, Dow Chemical and DuPont merged, but with the plan of reorganizing and then spinning off three separate companies: Dow for commodity chemicals, DuPont for specialty chemicals, and Corteva for agricultural chemicals.

Its not just American companies either. Recently, British pharmaceutical giant GSK completed a spinoff of its consumer healthcare business to create an entirely new company, Haleon PLC.

Corporate breakups are a routine part of capitalism. So why is it deemed an irreparable interference in markets when regulators break up companies, instead of CEOs or activist investors?

When we think of breaking up companies, famous examples such as Standard Oil in 1911 or AT&T in 1982 come to mind. In these cases, trustbusters in the government split the company to restore competition or to rein in the power of one dominant firm.

Less known is that when the U.S. Supreme Court broke it up into 33 separate companies, it became worth more to investors in pieces than it was together. Rockefeller was on the golf course when he heard the news. Buy Standard Oil was his response, which proved an excellent stock tip. Today, some investors make similar arguments in favor of breaking up Facebook and Alphabet.

Not a death sentence

While antitrust breakups are rare by comparison, they are conductedin theoryfor reasons of public benefit. Public figures like Elizabeth Warren and Zephyr Teachout have advocated for them, but antitrust breakups are often painted as radical, ineffective, or impractical. Fiona Scott Morten, a professor of economics at Yale, has written that Just break them up is an oversimplified sound bite, not a real policy that would restore competition in digital markets and benefit consumers. Other tech journalists have called them a messy proposition and even a nuclear option.

As federal and state antitrust investigations ramp up against Google, Facebook, and Amazon by the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and state attorneys general, narrative resistance also builds.

When it comes to breakup rulings, defenders of free markets and corporate sovereignty usually rely on a few key claims. First is the omelette argument: Just as it is impossible to unscramble an egg, it is impossible to unwind companies. Proponents of this view claim that it is a technical nightmare to separate internal functions and infrastructure, organizational arrangements, and technical specifications for products that have been built together. The American Action Forum, a conservative public policy think tank, has said that for highly integrated tech firms, breakups are a death sentence.

However, as investors and corporate executives regularly show us, where there is a willand a balance-sheet incentivethere is a way. Painting the breakup of companies as radical not only ignores the fact that this is regularly (and voluntarily) done by corporate executives but also flouts the legal remit of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to administer these remedies.

In 1961, Justice Brennan of the Supreme Court observed in a DuPont case, Divestiture has been called the most important of antitrust remedies. It is simple, relatively easy to administer, andit should always be in the forefront of a courts mind when [an anticompetitive merger] has been found.

Other arguments against breakups include the notion that investors are better market watchdogs than governments or that markets will self-correct in favor of competition. Government action is seen as a slow, cumbersome, and blunt toola boulder thrown into the otherwise smooth waters of market efficiency.

Proponents of this view also argue that governments respond to the whims of popular political sentiments, politically charged talking points, and the electoral pressures of whichever politician happens to be in power. Current FTC commissioner Christine Wilson has previously tweeted about her need to fight for the integrity of [The FTC], sound (not subjective and politicized) antitrust enforcement; the rule of law and due process; and free markets, which beget free people, because command & control economies fail.

However, markets are not abstract forces guiding companies to better and more efficient business decisions. They are public creations that are governed by politically determined rules. Right now, we have markets governed by one set of rules that allows constant mergers and acquisitions, which has resulted in one of the most concentrated economies in American history.

Only recently, under the leadership of Chair Lina Khan, has the FTC begun challenging mergers, like the recent attempt to block Metas acquisition of app creator Within. Over the previous decade, the FTC did not block a single Amazon, Google, or Facebook merger, as tech companies amassed unprecedented market power.

A different set of rules could lead to fairer markets, a more level playing field, and better outcomes for consumers.Breakups are routine for business and should be similarly routine for antitrust enforcers. Breaking up companies is not a baseless interference in markets, the politicization of legal precedent, or a Herculean task. When warranted, breakups are just good commercial governance, as investors regularly show us.

While tech companies and their networks of paid academics and advisors will try to color breakups as a radical last resort, enforcers should take courage from private sector precedent. They can look to the vast literature on voluntary corporate divestitures to guide them.

Breaking up companies can be good for consumers, workers, small businesses, and even investors. Breakups may be a rare example of a true win-win scenario. As the FTC takes on an aggressive campaign to rein in big tech, the agency aligns itself with capitalists the world over who regularly break up companies to keep markets competitive.

Denise Hearn is a senior fellow at theAmerican Economic Liberties Projectand co-lead of theAccess to MarketsInitiative. She is co-author ofThe Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competitionand writes theEmbodied Economicsnewsletter.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs ofFortune.

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Corporations break themselves up all the time. So why shouldnt regulators break up Big Tech? - Fortune