Category Archives: Big Tech

While Trump, Republicans, and right-wing media should carry much of the blame, tech companies must atone for their role in far-right radicalization and make bigger changes.

Dr. Julia R. DeCook is an Assistant Professor of Advocacy and Social Change in the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago.

The attempted coup of January 6 and the subsequent fallout are a stark reminder of the miasma of far-right populism and extremism that has taken hold in the United States in the cult of Trumpism. Resulting in five deaths, the far-right mob that descended upon the Capitol are only a small taste of the kinds of violence that will continue in the coming months and years.

The election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris does not downplay the fact that more than 70 million eligible voters aimed to reelect Donald Trump and that 77 percent of those who voted for him believe that the election was rigged. Millions of new users joined alternative social media platforms like MeWe and Parler following the election, where speech that had been banned on Twitter and Facebook flourishes.

But in the midst of all of this uncertainty, we are seeing an inkling of a crisis of legitimacy among even the most fervent of Trumps supporters, particularly following Trumps recent speech where he effectively conceded. In December, Milo Yiannopoulos, whose career was ruined after being de-platformed from major social media sites, had a meltdown on Parler after the Supreme Court dismissed the Texas lawsuit that aimed to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Vowing to have vengeance and to dedicate the rest of his life to destroy the Republican party, Yiannopoulos lamented that he and others defended a selfish clown for nothing. Calling for a secession, Yiannopoulos and other Parler users advocate for a civil war or a Texit as a result of the election.

On Saturday, December 12, thousands of pro-Trump supporters including the Proud Boys descended on Washington, D.C., vandalizing four Black churches, stabbing four people, and resulting in 23 arrests. Notably, the December rally drew a larger amount of Proud Boys than previous rallies, perhaps due to the rise in the groups profile after Trumps famous stand back and stand by comments during the first presidential debate. The rally on January 6 that then turned into an attempted coup was bigger even still, and were only encouraged further by the dearth of conspiracy theories that swirled on these platforms.

All of this has made many researchers, journalists, and concerned citizens wonder where do we go from here? In the aftermath of the election, the far-right very well may latch on to this event in the hope that it will help to bring about a new era. More importantly, the insurrection that was incited by Donald Trump on January 6 is an example of what will become of QAnon, of the stop the steal conspiracy, and the influence of the doubt, suspicion, and skepticism that have become the hallmark affect of the polity, aided and abetted by a flourishing social media news ecosystem that pushes conspiracy theories and dangerous disinformation.

Moments like these require unrelenting truthtelling. We take pride in being reader-funded. If you like our work, support our journalism by joining our private community.

Social media platforms in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 U.S. presidential election finally started enacting actual measures in preventing the spread of dangerous disinformation, synthetic and manipulated content, and fake news. Facebook and Instagram just recently removed Donald Trump from its platforms until the end of his term, with Twitter going back and forth during the 48 hours following January 6 and eventually permabanning Trump on January 8.

Although commendable, one thing that has often been lacking in these policy changes is an acknowledgment of the platforms primary role in radicalization, in spreading disinformation, and their historical and continued role in these processes. These ideologies are not relegated to the seedy underbelly of the Internet, but are spreading and evolving on mainstream platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and now TikTok. A report released on December 8 noted that YouTube was a significant source of information for the Christchurch shooter, who admitted that he had been a more active user and consumer of YouTube than of 4chan and 8chan.

Despite massive changes and initiatives at these platforms to mitigate the spread of misinformation and false content, what the platforms seem to be unable to keep abreast of is how narratives evolve, how users navigate platform constraints, and how they overcome things like bans and censorship.

A professor of mine (Dr. Mary Emery) told me early on as a graduate student that information does not change behavior, and despite the best intentions of informing people that theyve engaged with misinformation or spread fake content, these alerts are insufficient in changing the infrastructure by which this information spreads. Moreover, making things more difficult, research has shown that attempting to correct facts can result in a backfire effect where corrections can actually increase or strengthen their beliefs. The attempt by Facebook and other major platforms to inform people when they have engaged with or shared misinformation may result in this similar pattern.

What these platforms really need to do is to break the infrastructure that allows for the creation and spread of this kind of content in the first place. Although we will never eliminate hate speech and misinformation (for they exist in our offline worlds, of which our online lives are a mirror of), what platforms can do is change the way that content is pushed into peoples feeds.

This may require a complete redesign of their product and business structure. Focusing only on content and content moderation misses the larger picture: what platforms need to contend with are the cultures of hate that they incubate and increase barriers to make their platforms inhospitable environments to hate speech and disinformation.

Banning content alone is insufficient in stopping the spread of conspiracy theories, fake news, hate speech, and dangerous content. What we saw on 6 January with a far-right mob attempting to incite a civil war and overthrow the American government complete with two pipe bombs should be a stark example that bans are not enough.

Dismantling the infrastructure that they rely on things like domain registrars, user accounts, existing networks, algorithms, and Cloudflare services that prevent DDoS attacks is the best way to mitigate online hate and disinformations power. Amazon Web Services took a good step in this direction by announcing they are taking Parler offline.

For platforms and legislative bodies, working with civil society groups particularly groups that are directed by people who are most often the targets of online hatred and treating online hate as a human and civil rights issue are steps that they can take in mitigating digital hate culture and disinformation.

We cannot wait for laws to catch up with our tech and we must demand more of these tech companies namely, like Dr. Joan Donovan writes, that they become more transparent, accountable, and socially beneficial. Rather, we must recognize that technology is a process, and not a product, and strategies for its moderation must also reflect this distinction.

This article is brought to you by the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right(CARR).Through their research, CARRintends to lead discussions on the development of radical right extremism around the world.

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From Radicalization To Insurrection: A Reckoning For Big Tech - Rantt Media

The Telegraph

All adults to receive vaccine by autumn as jab hubs open doors Don't make us toughen lockdown rules, minister warns The tougher rules Boris Johnson could enforce to reduce infections NHS 'shaming' doctors for taking work in the private sector Public should stop looking for loopholes in coronavirus laws, say police Subscribe to The Telegraph for a month-long free trial Tens of millions of people will be immunised by the spring at over 2,700 vaccination sites across the UK, the Government has announced today. By the end of January, everyone in England will be within 10 miles of a vaccination site or, for a small number of highly rural areas, the vaccine will be brought to them via mobile teams, rapid plans to scale up the Covid-19 vaccine plan show. There will also be capacity to deliver at least two million vaccinations in England per week by the end of January and all residents and staff in over 10,000 care homes across the country will be offered a vaccine by the end of the month, the Government has said. Its taken a tremendous amount of hard work and dedication to make such an incredible start to this ambitious deployment programme," Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said in response to the news. "Our vaccine deployment plan sets out exactly how we will harness these efforts to expand the programme quickly and safely." Follow the latest updates below.

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Dan Bongino: Big tech are more powerful than the government - Yahoo News UK

Big techs decision to pull the plug on president Donald Trumps presence on their platforms, following his supporters attack on the US capital last week, has been seized on in Europe as proof if proof were needed that laws have not kept pace with tech market power and platform giants must face consequences over the content they amplify and monetize.

Writing in Politico, the European Commissions internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, dubs the 6/1 strike at the heart of the US political establishment as social medias 9/11 moment aka, the day the whole world woke up to the real-world impact of unchecked online hate and lies.

Since then Trump has been booted from a number of digital services, and the conservative social media app Parler has also been ejected from the App Store and Google Play over a failure to moderate violent threats, after Trump supporters flocked to the app in the wake of Facebooks and Twitters crackdown.

At the time of writing, Parler is also poised to be booted by its hosting provider AWS, while Stripe has reportedly pulled the plug on Trumps ability to use its payment tools to fleece supporters. (Although when this reporter asked in November whether Trump was breaching its TOC by using its payment tools for his election defense fund Stripe ignored TechCrunchs emails)

If there was anyone out there who still doubted that online platforms have become systemic actors in our societies and democracies, last weeks events on Capitol Hill is their answer. What happens online doesnt just stay online: It has and even exacerbates consequences in real life too, Breton writes.

Last weeks insurrection marked the culminating point of years of hate speech, incitement to violence, disinformation and destabilization strategies that were allowed to spread without restraint over well-known social networks. The unrest in Washington is proof that a powerful yet unregulated digital space reminiscent of the Wild West has a profound impact on the very foundations of our modern democracies.

The Europe Commission proposed a major update to the rules for digital services and platform giants in December, when it laid out the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act saying its time to level the regulatory playing field by ensuing content and activity thats illegal offline is similarly sanctioned online.

The Commissions proposal also seeks to address the market power of tech giants with proposals for additional oversight and extra rules for the largest platforms that have the potential to cause the greatest societal harm.

Unsurprisingly, then, Breton has seized on the chaotic scenes in Washington to push this already-formed tech policy plan with his eye on a domestic audience of European governments and elected members of the European Parliament whose support is needed to pass the legislation and reboot the regions digital rules.

The fact that a CEO can pull the plug on POTUSs loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing. It is not only confirmation of the power of these platforms, but it also displays deep weaknesses in the way our society is organized in the digital space, he warns.

These last few days have made it more obvious than ever that we cannot just stand by idly and rely on these platforms good will or artful interpretation of the law. We need to set the rules of the game and organize the digital space with clear rights, obligations and safeguards. We need to restore trust in the digital space. It is a matter of survival for our democracies in the 21st century.

The DSA will force social media to clean up its act on content and avoid the risk of arbitrary decision-making by giving platforms clear obligations and responsibilities to comply with these laws, granting public authorities more enforcement powers and ensuring that all users fundamental rights are safeguarded, Breton goes on to argue.

The commissioner also addresses US lawmakers directly calling for Europe and the US to join forces on Internet regulation and engage in talks aimed at establishing what he describes as globally coherent principles, suggesting the DSA as a starting point for discussions. So hes not wasting the opportunity of #MAGA-induced chaos to push a geopolitical agenda for EU tech policy too.

Last month the Commission signalled a desire to work with the incoming Biden administration on a common approach to tech governance, saying it hoped US counterparts would work with to shape global standards for technologies like AI and to force big tech to be more responsible, among other areas. And recent events in Washington do seem to be playing into that hand although it remains to be seen how the incoming Biden administration will approach regulating big tech.

The DSA, which has been carefully designed to answer all of the above considerations at the level of our Continent, can help pave the way for a new global approach to online platforms one that serves the general interest of our societies. By setting a standard and clarifying the rules, it has the potential to become a paramount democratic reform serving generations to come, Breton concludes.

Twitters decision to (finally) pull the plug on Trump also caught the eye of UK minister Matt Hancock, the former secretary of state for the digital brief (now the health secretary). Speaking to the BBC this weekend, he suggested the unilateral decision raises questions about how big tech is regulated that would result in consequences.

The scenes, clearly encouraged by President Trump the scenes at the Capitol were terrible and I was very sad to see that because American democracy is such a proud thing. But theres something else that has changed, which is that social media platforms are making editorial decisions now. Thats clear because theyre choosing who should and shouldnt have a voice on their platform, he told the Andrew Marr program.

The BBC reports that Hancock also told Sky News Twitters ban on Trump means social media platforms are taking editorial decisions which he said raises questions about their editorial judgements and the way that theyre regulated.

Hancocks remarks are noteworthy because back in 2018, during his time as digital minister, he said the government would legislate to introduce a statutory code of conduct on social media platforms forcing them to act against online abuse.

More than two years later, the UKs safety-focused plan to regulate the Internet is still yet to be put before parliament but late last year ministers committed to introducing an Online Safety Bill this year.

Under the plan, the UKs media regulator, Ofcom, will gain new powers to oversee tech platforms including the ability to levy fines for non-compliance with a safety-focused duty of care of up to 10% of a companys annual turnover.

The proposal covers a wide range of digital services, not just social media. Larger platforms are also slated to have the greatest responsibility for moderating content and activity. And at least in its current form the proposed law is intended to apply not just to content thats illegal under UK law but also the fuzzier category of harmful content.

Thats something the European Commission proposal has steered clear of with more subjective issues like disinformation set to be tackled via a beefed-up (but still voluntary) code of practice, instead of being baked into digital services legislation.So online speech looks set to be one area of looming regulatory divergence in Europe, with the UK now outside the bloc.

Last year, the government said larger social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Twitter are likely to need to assess the risk of legal content or activity on their services with a reasonably foreseeable risk of causing significant physical or psychologicalharm to adults under the forthcoming Online Safety Bill.

They will then need to make clear what type of legal but harmful content is acceptable on their platforms in their terms and conditions and enforce this transparently and consistently, it added, suggesting the UK will in fact legislate to force platforms to make editorial decisions.

The consequences Hancock thus suggests are coming for tech platforms look rather akin to the editorial decisions they have been making in recent days.

Albeit, the uncomfortable difference he seems to have been articulating is between tech platforms that have massive unilateral power to silence the US president at a stroke and at a point of their own choosing vs tech platforms being made to comply with a pre-defined rules-based order set by legislators and regulators.

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Europe seizes on social medias purging of Trump to bang the drum for regulation - TechCrunch

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Big tech companies are clamping downon far-right accounts, personalities, and apps. On Friday, YouTube banned former Trump strategist Steve Bannons War Room podcast. Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trumps account late on Friday. The company also banned former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell, two high-profile promoters of Qanon conspiracy theories who had aided Trumps efforts to overturn the presidential election. Meanwhile, Apple is threatening to pull conservative social media site Parler from its app store unless Parler immediately institutes a moderation policy, according to a report from BuzzFeed News.

The purge comes days after a mob of Trump supporters stormed theUS Capitol Building, clashing with law enforcement and leaving five peopleincluding a Capitol police officerdead. The mob,which shut down counting of the Electoral College vote for hours,was incited by months of false election fraud allegations promoted by Trump, Powell, and their allies. Trump spoke to the mob shortly before the violence and encouraged them to march to the Capitol.

The suspensions come after years of Trumpworld allies using social media to create alternate realities and outlandish conspiracy theories. Trump has used Twitter throughout his presidency to bypass the mainstream media and speak directly to his followers, once even bringing the United States to the brink of nuclear war with North Korea. It took an unprecedented siege of the Capitol for Twitter to finally act decisively, and only after Trump used the platform to repeat his election fraud lies and praise the insurrectionists, whilehalf-heartedly telling them to go home.

YouTube, in particular, has been a hotbed of misinformation over the years. Experts have blamed it for the radicalization of disaffected viewers through algorithms that offera continuous stream of incendiary content, as described by reporter Kevin Roose in his 2019 New York Times investigation. More recently, Bannon used the platform in November to call for the beheading of FBI director Christopher Wray and Anthony Fauci, the countrys top infectious disease expert who has often been at odds with Trump over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Big Tech Is Purging Trumpworld's Biggest Conspiracy Theorists - Mother Jones

Social media giants are facing backlash following the Capitol siege. NYU Stern Professor of Marketing Scott Galloway joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss.

- President Trump is back on Twitter this morning after the platform temporarily blocked his account in response to the Capitol building riots on Wednesday. The president tweeted a video last night ensuring a quote, "smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power." Facebook, meanwhile, continuing to ban the president from the platform indefinitely. Both social media companies now facing growing backlash over their perceived role in inciting the violence that engulfed Washington.

Let's bring in Scott Galloway. He is a professor of marketing at NYU. Scott, I know you have been looking at this issue for some time. You got a lot to say. Where should the conversation go from here in terms of how Congress and lawmakers move forward on regulation?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, I think a fair question is, how did we get here, when we have essentially a mob Insurrection on our capital, and our lawmakers have to use furniture to secure the doors. And we find that the most meaningful action or what we find the next day is that we're begging 30-something-year-old CEOs of companies to block their account. So you sort of have to wonder, how did we get here?

So, you know, I'd like to think that this is the beginning of the end of big tech as we know it. I think this is another example that when you have algorithms that are profit-driven, and these algorithms are different, and figure out the tribalism, and dividing us, is very profitable. And it ends up in an overrun or a seizure of our capital, I think it's just another data point or another point in the line that moves towards increased scrutiny, increased regulation. But I absolutely think it's coming. And this is just going to put on the exclamation point of the fact that something needs to happen here.

- And Professor, I mean, when we talk about what needs to happen, that seems to be you know one of the key areas around social media. But it's not just social media. When we talk about how we got here, too-- and it's something that a lot of focus has not been on some of the traditional media players-- but you look at the viewership at some of these cable news programs during the Trump administration. I mean, this week, when that siege on Capitol Hill happened, CNN hit record numbers in terms of viewership.

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You can make the case that terror, fear, is very good for them. A president rallying his base with lies is very good for them. And you think about advertising around that, it's not just social media. So are you kind of surprised that these companies are getting hit with those questions when maybe perhaps, traditional media outlets are not as much?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: No, that's a fair point. So Facebook and Twitter aren't doing anything that CNN and Fox aren't doing it. They're just doing it at scale using processing power and networking effects. And about 30, 40 years ago, first, CNN, and then mostly, Fox, recognized that news used to be 97% truth in reporting, and 3% novelty and opinion. And they slowly but surely flipped that, recognizing the tribalism and opinion and novelty, which is kind of code for misinformation, drives much more engagement, which leads to more ads.

So I think all of them deserve a certain level of scrutiny. But there's just no doubt about it. And to your point, Facebook and Twitter aren't doing anything new. They're just doing it at a scale that's much more damaging. Instead of a dumpster fire, we have a mushroom cloud. But I think a lot of us are thinking, OK, there needs to be some sense of truth. The truth is a thing, and our media plays such an important role in our society. The question is how do we best-- who is the arbiter of that truth, and how do we best implement and create incentives such that misinformation and divisiveness doesn't result in creating massive wealth for people, which it is done at Facebook and Twitter?

- Scott, you talked about the cable news outlets. But how much of this conversation needs to broaden out to actually, the providers themselves? Those like our parent company, Verizon, who by the way, do show OAN or a Newsmax that have peddled the same conspiracy theories that we've seen on these platforms, too? I mean, is there a broader conversation that needs to happen here? And once again, where do lawmakers start?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, I would argue-- so sure. So is it the content or is it the pipes that ultimately bears responsibility? And I think the answer is yes. And I think that there's probably going to need to be some sort of modifications or carve out to Section 230. There's already a carve out.

And Section 230 briefly protects, quote, unquote, "interactive or nascent interactive platforms that are no longer nascent" from being subject to legal liability if somebody puts content on the platform that inflames, antagonizes, or slanders a party. So they've basically been exonerated from that. And by the way, most traditional outlets are not exonerated or don't have exceptions from that. Just the online platforms.

I think the place to start is with breaking these guys up. I think that it's telling that we seem to be always begging the same one or two firms. I think increased competition would be good. I think you're going to need to see regulation. I think we're going to need to have profit incentives more aligned to the externalities, so I think it would be helpful to have a tax on media that's produced by an algorithm, because that is usually where you find the majority of the trouble starts.

And look, at the end of the day, I think when you have a platform that is consistently weaponized and used for organizing and spreading misinformation that results in the overrun of our Capitol and five dead people, I think those individuals should be held accountable. I'm not sure that anything is really going to change here until there's a perp walk.

And that is these individuals have delayed and obfuscated, slow rolled, they've had the ability to identify hate speech, they've had the ability to get in the way or to predict when there was going to be violence. And instead, they put their hands over their eyes and over their ears. So simply put, competition regulation. And if it's needed, criminal prosecution. This has gone so far beyond where we thought we would be.

- Scott. let me press on that point, because you're certainly right about that the scope and scale of these platforms-- and we're talking specifically Facebook and Twitter. But what we also saw in the lead up to these riots were conversations that were popping up outside of those platforms. Some users, of course, who have been kicked off of those platforms now going to a place like Parler. There was a thread that was going on Reddit-- that was taken off. So they started another site, and started the thread there, too. It feels like there's a bit of whack-a-mole that's happening.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: That's right. And it needs-- there needs to be regulation that applies to the existing guys and any new guys that's-- the side that they can profit from this information and pitting Americans against each other. So yeah, if we were just to say-- if we were just to get angry at Facebook and say, all right, you need to shut Trump down, you're going to see Trump just probably could go somewhere else, and his followers.

I don't think that solves the problem. I think it needs to be what I'll call systemic solutions that say, all right, let's be thoughtful around the harm that any media platform, when they knowingly spread misinformation because they know it creates greater engagement and more Nissan ads and more profits-- so they knowingly spread misinformation that results in harm, that they have liability. And that should be spread across-- I don't see why that wouldn't be spread across any media company. So you're right-- just trying to punish one or the other, like you said, it's just going to-- it's just going to pop up somewhere else. Needs to be a systemic solution.

- But Professor, I mean, we've been talking about that for years. At what point does it become, all right, they need to do something about it. It's just not-- it's clearly not working or Congress can't figure it out, because, you know, Cambridge Analytica was years ago. And now, when we're seeing groups kind of-- I guess the main difference would be actually using these platforms to plan things and act on maybe some of the messages we're seeing play out in more traditional media outlets. I mean, at what point do you just say, all right, look, enough is enough, and you have congressmen and women just come out and say, look, we just have to shut it down, because this has gone on too long?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: I love it when someone is more cynical than me. So yeah, you're right, it has been too long. And, I mean, just as an example, Mark Zuckerberg all of a sudden deciding to suspend the president's account-- it wasn't him calling on his better angels. The reason that President Trump was kicked off of Facebook for two weeks was because of Stacey Abrams. And that is Facebook has done the calculus here, and they recognize the people overseeing these committees are going to have a different view on them.

There was an unholy alliance between Zuckerberg and Donald Trump where basically, the deal was you don't break me up, and I'll let you to continue to weaponize and spread misinformation. And that-- that alliance has been broken. So I'm hopeful that there's a new Sheriff in town, and the shadow being cast by the Biden-Harris administration has already resulted in more change at Facebook in the last 10 days than we've seen in the last 10 years.

So I'm hopeful. I've been hopeful for probably too long. I think you're right. There's been-- there's been a total inaction. They have slow rolled the whole thing effectively. But I think that's about to change. I think all of us were really rattled by the events of this week, I think we're fed up. I think we have an administration now that is probably more inclined to do thoughtful action. But there is going to be action. If it doesn't happen at a federal level, it's going to happen at the state level. I think people are fed up and don't like having to beg 30-somethings to save our country.

- Yeah, far be it for me to steal the cynical crowd away from you. But very, very interesting stuff to see it all play out. And obviously, perhaps, convenient that they would have made these moves against President Trump just two weeks before he's now out of office. And of course, we'll see how it all plays out. But Professor Galloway, I love having you on. Appreciate you taking the time today.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Thanks, guys.

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This may be the 'beginning of the end' for big tech following Capitol siege: Scott Galloway - Yahoo Finance

On 15 December, the EU unveiled the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Acts (DMA/DSA), the ... [+] most thorough reworking of the digital regulatory landscape to date.

By Michael G Jacobides, Sir Donald Gordon Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation and Professor of Strategy at London Business School, Martin Bruncko, deep tech investor and Senior Advisor for Evolution Ltd. and Rene Langen, a Senior Advisor for Evolution Ltd.

On 15 December, the EU unveiled the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Acts (DMA/DSA), the most thorough reworking of the digital regulatory landscape to date. Given that many tech players may comply with the highest common denominator of regulation, to avoid multiple offerings, and given the EUs leadership in regulating tech and the appetite of the US to follow suit, these rules may extend well beyond Europe.

Much of the DMA is focused on a stricter approach to so-called gatekeepers i.e., the dominant, Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Google. The Act is the EUs response to growing unease over our existing regulatory apparatus, which is ill-suited to address the exclusion of rivals and customer abuse in digital marketplaces. Moreover, Europe is concerned about losing out in the digital economy since Big Tech just so happens to be based in the US.

A gatekeeper is a particularly powerful player that may need to be held to higher standards. In deciding what constitutes a gatekeeper, the European Commission focused primarily on customer reach, total turnover and market capitalisation. It concentrated on firms that use their technology platforms to engage with partner firms through multi-party ecosystems, and identified practices that should be banned and controls that should be imposed. Although gatekeepers are open to competition in principle, the key offenders such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are entrenched, partly due to multi-product ecosystems that actively lock customers in. They have based their growth on expanding into an ever-increasing number of verticals. In Googles case, this journey began with search, before progressing to email and storage, followed by content via YouTube, then mobile interfaces with Android, and now health by acquiring FitBit. Facebook, meanwhile, is tightening the links between the parts of its own ecosystem comprising Instagram and WhatsApp, and is keen to expand into new areas-such as finally launching Libra, its own currency.

This multi-product ecosystem approach goes well beyond the conglomerate strategies deployed by the commercial titans of yesteryear. Todays Big Tech firms dont just want to cross-sell or benefit from common overheads. Rather, they harvest their power from users in a cycle that reinforces their strength: their scope enables a deep and detailed understanding of their customers activities and interests, which begets strength in the current services they provide and allows for entry into new onesall amplified by AI capabilities that allow them to build and test predictive models in real time. The sheer breadth and duration of customers engagement underpin the success of Big Tech firms, but each one leverages this access, and the information that it yields, in a different way. The business models of both Google and Facebook depend directly on data that customers generate simply by using digital platforms. Apple relies less directly on data, but still trades in it, receiving billions from Google in exchange for making it the default search engine on Apple devices. Furthermore, Apple may be headed in the direction of its Big Tech peers, as the share of its revenue from (data-driven) services including its App Store and apps within it increases.

By divvying up the pie this way, Big Tech firms conspire to lock customers into the walled gardens they have built. Alternatively, they can exploit the detailed knowledge they have gained, either by selling insight to advertisers or by taking part in the AdTech business themselves. For customers, there is a fine line between the convenience of customised offers and being locked in and Big Tech know exactly how to walk it.

So, what should we do about it? The best place to start is with Big Tech business models. With Chinese firms like Huawei, concern is often focused on how they could be gathering sensitive information about customers actions even though US-based Big Tech is already gathering far more, and monetizing it. So the real challenge, in our view, is to follow the money and look at what firms are actually able to do with the information they obtain. How do they gain power over customers or collaborators? How can they subvert the spirit of regulations, or even evade their scope?

As we assess the merits of proposed regulations, we also need to map their impact on both regulated firms and the collaborators within their ecosystems and ask the hard questions. Big Techs ability to collect information about customers, and their savviness in monetizing it, has obliterated much of the traditional media, undermining quality journalism and, ultimately, democracy. The fact that 70% of the digital ad spend in Europe goes to properties owned by Facebook and Google, as opposed to traditional media such as newspapers and magazines, has undermined the media sector. In the critical months ahead, large publishers such as SpringerVerlag will defend the regulations on these grounds. However, other, smaller publishers, ad agencies and developers will defend Big Tech, because they have formed symbiotic relationships with it. That is why we need to reach a firm yet nuanced view on what the regulation is intended to achieve.

We should also examine how regulations will actually affect Big Tech. Two crucial details could make a difference here: first, the asymmetric enforcement between gatekeepers and others, meaning that key players are held to a higher standard, and second, the fact that enforcement wont be devolved to national regulatory agencies. Yet, based on many interviews and detailed research, weve concluded that several of the remedies under consideration will add friction, but without necessarily changing the game like GDPR.

Barring the nuclear option of a breakup, we expect Google to be affected most, then Facebook, and finally Apple. However, the new rules may affect more than cash flow. First, Big Tech will have to put great effort into designing compliant IT systems. This will hold back their expansion and growth which regulators (understandably) want to slow down. It may hamper their innovation but can facilitate the innovation of other players by increasing competition, and reduce Big Techs control over their ecosystems. Furthermore, if expansion into new areas such as healthcare becomes more difficult for Big Tech, its hard to see how they will be able to sustain the growth rate implied in their current multiples. And if acquisitions are monitored more closely, with an eye to fostering competition, the firms may lose some of their allure for investors. Overall, the devil will be in the detail, and much depends on the vigour of implementation.

We expect significant pushback and debate in future months. Big Tech has geared up for the lobbying fight of its life. On the EU side, there is steely determination, partly for the right reasons. However, we believe there should be a far clearer separation between issues of regulation and customer dependency on one hand, and industrial policy on the other. Europe should set clear criteria that will apply to EU, US and Chinese firms alike, and consider how to regain its industrial might. It should not try, as the US did with China, to undermine its rivals firms to gain strength. Rather, it should cultivate its own tech ecosystem based on more democratic, open structures, and enact policies to boost EU tech.

EU regulations can help nudge the tech world onto a more competitive trajectory. While we may lose some of the seamlessness of a tightly run ecosystem, we will gain by ensuring competition really is a click away- which is far from being the case today. We expect 2021 to be a year of intense debate. We must ensure that we understand Big Tech business models and multi-product ecosystem lock-ins, so as not to lose the forest for the trees.

Michael G Jacobides is the Sir Donald Gordon Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation and Professor of Strategy at London Business School, Chief Expert Advisor on the Digital Economy at the Hellenic Competition Commission, and Lead Advisor at Evolution Ltd. Martin Bruncko is a former Innovation Minister of Slovakia & Head of Europe for the WEF, deep tech investor and Senior Advisor for Evolution Ltd. Rene Langen is a former Senior Partner at McKinsey a Senior Advisor for Evolution Ltd.

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EU Big Tech Regulation: Good Job On Trees, But What About The Forest? - Forbes

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Ive always been skeptical about the push to sue, legislate, and regulate social media companies toward better behavior. My view has been they might get their wrists slapped, but that the risks werent material to the stocks. And that has largely been the right call. Now Im not so sure.

State and federal litigation against Facebook (ticker: FB) and Alphabet -owned Google (GOOGL) is mounting. And social media firms are taking heat for their role in creating the fraught political climate that led to a mob taking over the U.S. Capitol this past Wednesday. In short, the risks to the social media companiesand their shareholdersare rising.

This past week, the social media networks took their most drastic actions yet to rein in President Trumps public comments. The most shocking news came late Friday when Twitter (TWTR) permanently suspended his account, citing the risk of further incitement of violence. (The stock was down nearly 4% in late trading Friday night.) Facebook has banned Trump on its platform at least until his presidency ends on Jan. 20.

The social media companies may finally be feeling pressure to take some responsibility for our nations discourse and behavior, especially in the wake of the attack on the Capitol, which left five people dead and dozens injured. And its hard to avoid the feeling that social media is somehow to blame. Rioters, after all, gathered with the help of social media and then posted in real-time to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other sites as they stormed the Capitol.

Its just the latest in a long list of issues for social media. On the same day last week when Congress members had to suspend counting the Electoral College vote to hide in safe rooms, Facebook revised the terms and privacy policy for WhatsApp, the companys wildly popular messaging service that has two billion monthly users. Among other things, the revised policy requires users to agree to allow WhatsApp datatheir phone number, transaction data, IP address, and other informationto be shared with Facebook, so the social network can make suggestions to you and serve up relevant offers and ads. Users have two options: Click yes, or stop using WhatsApp.

Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook who has become one of its greatest critics, has spent the last four years urging regulators, prosecutors, and legislators to end the companys practice of converting user data into dollars, largely via targeted advertising. Its what Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism.

In an interview last week, McNamee told me that Facebooks WhatsApp change was a giant f-you to antitrust regulators...a completely irresponsible action.

A WhatsApp spokesperson says that it began notifying some users of the change in December and that new terms are intended to make it easier for businesses to communicate with consumers through WhatsApp. The company provided an opt-out of data sharing with Facebook back in 2016 but no longer offers that option.

Facebook is positioning itself as a friend to small business. It recently ran a series of full page ads in major newspapers attacking a new Apple (AAPL) policy that requires Apple device users to opt-in to having their activity tracked across apps and websites. Apple sees this as a consumer privacy issue; Facebook positions it as bad for small business. More to the point, it would also be bad for Facebooks business.

So far, investors remain unconcerned about social medias liability; and the events of the past week, which also included Democrats taking control of the Senate, dont seem to have changed their mind.

After an initial flutter, tech stocks still raced higher on the week. One veteran internet analyst I spoke with sees the risks of tech regulation only slightly heightened by Georgia voters flipping the Senate to Democratic controlthe tech giants, after all, have detractors on both sides of the aisle.

President-elect Biden, like Trump, has called for the elimination of Section 230, a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that protects online businesses from being liable for their users posts. Still, investors seem unconcerned about imminent change. In the early going, Biden will have his hands full trying to address a raging pandemic and a wounded economyfixing Section 230 might not be high on his to-do list.

And yet, theres no question the risks to big tech are greater than they were a year ago. McNamee, for one, predicts that the megacaps, including Facebook, Google, Amazon.com (AMZN), and Applewill all lose antitrust cases in the months ahead. He sees particular risk in the case filed against Google in Texas by a group of 10 state attorneys general. They argue that Google conspired with Facebook to engage in price fixing in the online advertising market.

McNamee points out that federal law, at least, allows for felony treatment of price-fixing actions. Last year, a former CEO of Bumble Bee Foods was sentenced to 40 months in prison for conspiring with rivals StarKist and Chicken of the Sea to fix canned tuna prices. For now, Big Tech is dealing with civil cases. McNamee thinks the details in that 130-page Texas complaint are damning. Google says the case is meritless. Facebook has declined to comment.

Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com

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Facebook and Google Face a Growing Threat from Regulators - Barron's

The internet has pretty much been the Wild West for over two decades, which is a good thing and has allowed the best among various internet companies to grow.

We have all benefited. To me the greatest value-add of social media is that I can directly follow the smartest people on earth: Nobel prize winners and others whose opinions I find worth considering.

But somewhere down the line the winners in this internet battle (Big Tech companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Twitter) seem to have become too big for their boots. They have begun to trample upon the liberty of their customers.

We have always had problems with these companies not adequately protecting our privacy but through the years we had struck sort of a balance. That is why, for long Ive argued that governments must not regulate Big Tech. Ive trusted in their innate common sense (they cant afford to annoy customers too much else they lose business) and in peoples ability to move to alternative platforms if they are unhappy with a particular service.

But 2020 has changed my mind. The option to move to alternative platforms means that still there is only a minimal case for regulation, but governments must now step in to define the minimum expectations from speech-related platforms. Terms and conditions cannot be allowed to be used to get people to sign away their liberty, just as contracts for slavery are forbidden. Speech-related companies must develop an industry code or be forced by the law assure their customers of the same speech protections that are assured by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

To the rest of the world, the USA is a beacon of liberty. The First Amendment restricts only the US government from infringing free speech but the spirit of liberty represented in the Statue of Liberty represents something more: a belief amongst people across the world that the USA will lead us all to freedom. Through social media people living outside the USA get to experience some of that American liberty.

But in 2020, these companies have egregiously blocked content and even disabled the accounts of highly talented, competent people. One would not expect anything better from companies based in other countries but when American companies start trampling liberty, the world is facing a problem.

Over the past year I have been personally affected by these attacks. LinkedIn has banned me permanently a couple of months ago for posting material that I had taken from publicly available data sources. They claimed my post was not professional whatever that means. But it was absolutely true and authentic. The information I had posted casts doubt about the classification of covid deaths (an issue that has been repeatedly confirmed from other sources). All I can think is that this information might have been inconvenient for LinkedIns owner Bill Gates, with his drive to vaccinate everyone regardless of the true risk of covid among various age groups.

Likewise, with Facebook, on which I have diligently built around 50 pages and groups over the past decade to promote liberty. Then, in late 2020, I was banned twice. First, I was banned for 3 days for sharing a meme critical of Victoria Police. By blocking my criticism of the atrocities being committed by Victoria Police, Facebook has behaved no differently from the Chinese Communist Party. It is colluding with the oppressive acts of Western governments.

I resumed posting after the 3-day ban expired but within days, Facebook banned me for a further 7 days for sharing an extract from a publication which discussed how people had grossly exaggerated the magnitude of the swine flu. I compared this with the official covid narrative which is also greatly exaggerated. That was sufficient for Facebook to block me, in an uncanny resemblance to totalitarian CCP.

These are not minor infringements that can be shrugged off. These attack everything that the free world stands for and that freedom fighters gave up their lives for even the Indians who fought Nazi totalitarianism during the second World War. Now that all governments (except Swedens) have adopted a totalitarian path to deal with a minor pandemic, Big Tech companies are treating people like Nazi Germany would have done.

This is intolerable. Either they must tell us that they are being forced by totalitarian governments to block our speech or they must immediately stop trampling upon our freedoms.

If speech-related companies wont self-regulate then a new law is needed. This law would require them to block direct incitement to violence (it must be direct) and content that obviously breaches criminal laws. They would be allowed to have age-appropriate settings for customer content, to protect children. But for all other speech, they would be forbidden from blocking or restricting content except on the orders of a court. And forbidden from forcing people to sign off their free speech rights through terms and conditions.

The more I see the character of some of the leaders of the Big Tech companies, the less I find to admire about them. They lie and do not keep their promises. The recent breach of promise by WhatsApp is a glaring example, with data that users were assured would never be released now being handed over to Facebook.

No one expects private business leaders to behave with any integrity. As Indias only pro-busines party, Swarna Bharat Party does not expect business leaders to be paragons of virtue. But we trust government leaders even less. The reason why our party prefers private businesses to undertake most activities in society and not the government is because we believe that competition can keep the private sector in check whereas there is no check on the excesses of monopoly governments.

Fortunately, people have the option even today of voting with their feet. I am making arrangements to permanently abandon WhatsApp and will incrementally move out of Facebook in which I had once invested considerable time and money to build groups and pages. I will take my business elsewhere, blacklist any company that advertises on totalitarian Facebook, and recommend that we all look for and support free speech platforms.

Let us make it clear to all these people that our freedoms are non-negotiable.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

Excerpt from:

Time for big tech to respect liberty or be forced to do so - The Times of India Blog

National Review

Law enforcement officials announced Friday that they had arrested the man pictured in a viral photograph sitting in House Speaker Nancy Pelosis office with one leg up on her desk when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.Officials said they took 60-year-old Richard Barnett into custody in Little Rock, Ark. and also released details about crimes for which several people will face federal charges.Barnett, who faces charges of violent entry and theft of public property, among other things, told KFSM that he was looking for a bathroom when he saw that the door to Pelosis office was open."I sat down here in my desk. Im a taxpayer. Im a patriot. That aint her desk we loaned her that desk," he told KFSM. "And she aint appreciating the desk, so I thought I would sit down and appreciate the desk."Barnett is being held in the Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville, Ark., awaiting his initial appearance, according to NBC News.A New York Times reporter on Wednesday shared a video of Barnett, which he said was taken after the Arkansan's time in the speaker's office, and shows him bragging about taking a personalized envelope from the office, which he says he didn't steal.> Heres Mr. Barnett, who goes by Bigo, telling the story in his own words pic.twitter.com/oSyKiCDXgy> > -- Matthew Rosenberg (@AllMattNYT) January 6, 2021"I left a quarter on her desk," he said, and later added that he left a "nasty note" as well."I'll probably be telling them this is what happened all the way to the D.C. jail," he added.Barnett said that he knocked politely on the door to the office, but was then pushed inside by other rioters.Pelosi's aides have said her office was vandalized on Wednesday and that a laptop from a conference room had been stolen, though the equipment was only used for presentations.Officials earlier announced the arrests of 82 people at the state, local and federal levels, according to reports, while the FBI's Washington Field Office on Friday released 40 photos of people who are wanted in connection with the rioting at the Capitol.A state lawmaker from West Virginia was also charged Friday in connection with the riot at the Capitol. Derrick Evans, a Republican, reportedly recorded and then deleted a video of himself joining the crowd, leading to a petition asking for him to step down.Meanwhile, 70-year-old Lonnie Coffman of Falkville, Ala. is accused of having two handguns, an assault rifle and 11 Molotov cocktails that included gasoline and what appeared to be homemade napalm, officials said.Police were able to link Coffman to a suspicious red GMC pick-up truck with Alabama plates, according to NBC News.Mark Leffingwell was charged and is accused of knowingly entering restricted ground and assaulting an officer after entering the Capitol. Leffingwell repeatedly punched a U.S. Capitol Police officer in the helmet and chest, according to court papers.Christopher Michael Alberts of Maryland is accused of illegally entering the Capitolwhile in possession of a loaded Taurus 9mm handgun and a separate magazine filled with ammunition. Alberts, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, is also accused of having a pocketknife at the time.He "immediately tried to flee" before police detained him, according to court papers. Hetold police he had the gun "for personal protection and he did not intend on using the firearm to harm anyone."

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Big Tech is discriminating because of their political bend when banning conservatives: Andrew McCarthy - Yahoo News

Share This Article:President Trumps Twitter account during the 12-hour lockout.By Chris Jennewein

The online revolution centered in Californias Silicon Valley came to the rescue of democracy Wednesday by temporarily locking out President Trump from social media platforms.

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When Trump refused to quickly condemn the riot he incited at the Capitol, and later offered only mealy-mouthed calls for calm that reiterated his big lie about the election being stolen, Twitter and Facebook acted on their own.

Twitter locked out the President for 12 hours. Facebook went further, making the ban indefinite, as did Snapchat. That did this to prevent Trump for possibly inciting further violence.

Unlike many, perhaps most countries, media is the United States is almost entirely in private hands. We dont have a public broadcaster like the BBC, an official newspaper like the Peoples Daily, or a state news agency like ITAR-TASS. Its entirely up to private American owners to decide how to cover the news.

A lot of politicians throughout the world hate independent, privately owned media because they cant control it. This is especially true of the new media types spawned by the creativity of Silicon Valley.

Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and Americas world-champion technology companies like Amazon, Google and Apple are increasingly under attack exactly because of such independence.

A number of states have filed antitrust suits, and Trump has been singularly fixated on removing Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. In fact, he vetoed the important annual defense bill because it didnt specifically include repeal of this unrelated law.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, the man who infamously raised his fist in support of the mob outside the Capitol before objecting to the certification of Joe Bidens victory, is also fixated on this section.

For too long, Big Tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook have used their power to silence political speech from conservatives without any recourse for users. Section 230 has been stretched and rewritten by courts to give these companies outlandish power over speech without accountability, according to Hawley.

Why are they so fixated on this law? Because it gives ordinary Americans an easy way to make their thoughts and and concerns public. It turns every person with a computer or smartphone into an independent publisher. This really, really threatens politicians.

In authoritarian countries like China, the solution is simple: monitor everything and everyone though a social credit system. But in the United States, the First Amendment and Section 230 prevent this.

The section states very simply that no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. It means that when you write a restaurant review, post a video, or tweet that Trump is a Facist, the online platform isnt responsible and cant be sued.

Now Trump, Hawley and other politicians, businesses aggrieved by bad reviews, and celebrities seeking to remove unflattering photos arent going to go though a lot of effort to try to sue you. Theyd rather sue the deep pockets: Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Google, Amazon and so on. Section 230 prevents that.

If there was no Section 230, your restaurant review would be subject to editing and your video would be taken down to avoid a lawsuit. And Trumps tweets from Wednesday telling his very special mob I know your pain would still be public to avoid any accusation of unfairness.

Social media companies came through for democracy on Wednesday by exercising their independence in the great tradition of American media independence. If we take away their speech protections, its as bad as inviting the mob back into the Capitol.

Chris Jennewein is editor & publisher of Times of San Diego.

Opinion: Amid the Capital Chaos, Big Tech Sought to Protect Democracy was last modified: January 7th, 2021 by Chris Jennewein

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Opinion: Amid the Capital Chaos, Big Tech Sought to Protect Democracy - Times of San Diego