Category Archives: Big Tech

Big Tech has just taken a gigantic step toward its objective of gaining total control over what can and what cannot be said on the internet.

Apple and Google have commanded Parler, a social network used by conservatives, to police its users. In effect, what their warning issued to Parler means, do as you are told or face digital annihilation!.

Google suspended Parler from its Play Store, declaring that it will shut the network until it rigorously polices its app. Apple was reported to have followed suit giving Parler 24 hours to fall in line; otherwise it would be removed from Apples App Store.

Apple and Googles declaration of war on Parler has serious implications. These two giant companies make operating systems that support nearly every smartphone in the world. That means that if Apple shuts Parler out of its App Store, people would not be able to download the app on their iPhones or iPads.

The timing of the edict issued by the masters of Silicon Valley is not a coincidence. Parler is one of the fastest growing apps on the internet. Millions of conservatives fed up with the censorious behavior of Twitter and Facebook have been attracted to this social network. In the aftermath of President Trump being forced off Facebook and Twitter, it was expected that millions of his supporters would turn to Parler to freely express their convictions.

Big Tech censorship is nothing new. In recent years, social-media companies once reluctant to be drawn into becoming official censors and arbiters of truth have increasingly clamped down on what they deem to be hate speech or misinformation.

Since the beginning of the pandemic Big Tech companies have behaved as if they are digital gods. These powerful unaccountable billionaires have issued one Papal Bull after another. Facebook has used the pandemic to expand its policing of what can be posted. Initially it stated that it would continue to remove misinformation that could contribute to imminent physical harm, while deploying its army of fact-checkers to flag certain posts, depress their distribution, and direct sharers of such material to reliable information. A few weeks later in April, 2020 it was reported that it was removing event posts for anti-lockdown gatherings.

Early on in the pandemic Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, declared that she saw their role as the arbiter of truth on the coronavirus. She stated that anything that contradicted the recommendations of the WHO would be removed from her platform.

That Big Tech sees itself as a veritable global power that stands above elected governments was strikingly illustrated by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, when he announced that Trumps page would be closed down, at the very least, for the rest of his presidency. A day later, Twitter followed suit and suspended Trumps account permanently. This humiliation of the American president indicates that a handful of billionaire capitalists now get to decide who can have a voice in the digital public square.

Big Tech companies censoring their own platforms is bad enough. However, when they take it upon themselves to determine how another independent social network must police itself, they have in effect assumed a tyrannical role over the entire internet. Their declaration of war on Parler, indicates that they see themselves as not simply private companies but as global institutions that can wield political and policing power over the digital world.

It is likely that Parler will be forced to cave in and accept the terms imposed on it by Apple and Google. John Matze, Parlers CEO, has gone on record to state that he believes that we can retain our values and make Apple happy quickly. If Parler is forced to fall in line with the edict issued by Big Tech then it will constitute the greatest blow struck against internet freedom so far.

Despite its rhetoric of supporting diversity, Big Tech is distinctly opposed to the diversity of opinion. As recent events show they intend to turn the digital world into an entirely homogeneous system, where the only values that can be freely expressed are those of Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

Restoring the freedom to express whatever view you want to put forward on the internet is one of the most important challenges confronting genuine democrats.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Big Tech giants want to prove they are American gods. Anyone watching the watchers? - RT

Adam Smiths free-market economy pivots around minimal government intervention so that markets can self-regulate and operate optimally. Unfortunately, in many cases, such environments allow the rise of monopolies through organic or inorganic growth. While true monopolies are rare in a free market economy, lack of government intervention often allows the rise of a single large player with many minor players with limited competitive ability. In these situations, the large firm is considered to have monopoly power.

Interestingly, the genesis of competition / antitrust laws came as a response to the rise of firms with monopoly power in the 1880s and 1890s in America. With the principle, if we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (Sherman Act) came into force to break the dominance of various trusts (i.e., large integrated manufacturing conglomerates which often enjoyed monopoly power).

After protracted litigation, the US government in 1911 carved its first major trust, the Standard Oil Company (SOC) into 34 smaller companies. For background, after its incorporation in the 1860s, SOC began operations by selling oil at very cheap rates compared to its competitors. Parallelly, SOC engaged in strong business integration through steady organic growth and inorganic acquisitions. Soon after, SOC started raising oil prices significantly, and by the 1890s, if customers refused to pay the exorbitant prices, they would be rendered unable to procure oil. As such, the breaking up of SOC gradually improved the competitive character of the oil market and came as a respite to its consumers.

Another major divestment under the Sherman Act was of the American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) in 1984 which was broken up to form many baby bell companies. It is believed that while the breakup temporarily caused a reduction in service quality and increase in prices, the market ultimately settled through natural maturation.

Over the course of the century, many other trusts with monopoly power namely, the American Tobacco Company, Northern Securities (railroad company), National Packing Company (beef-packing company), etc., were divested to protect the competitive integrity of relevant markets. However, thanks to legislative evolution, governmental authorities in the recent past have had very few reasons to cause the divestment of firms with monopoly power (outside of a merger control context).

That said, while the jury is still out on this, the long-standing intervention-free position maybe in for a change. It is a popular belief that the exponential rise of big techs like Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. mimics the dominance enjoyed by trusts in the first half of the last century as discussed above. Over the years, many of these firms are believed to have systematically engaged in predatory conduct to drive out competition by way of killer acquisitions and anti-competitive practices for protecting their monopoly-like power in the relevant markets. For the uninitiated, killer acquisitions are competitor buy-outs with a view to shut it down than to compete.

The first response to this rise of big tech came in 2001 when the then US government advocated the breakup of Microsoft. While Microsofts monopoly power was acknowledged, it escaped such fate for several reasons including political motivations.

However, the embers have been fanned once again with growing consensus that big tech now wields overwhelming power and influence resulting in tangible harm to competitors and consumers alike, and therefore needs curtailment. Although antitrust agencies world-wide are contemplating measures to reign Big Tech, the US appears to be leading this endeavour with the Congress seeking sweeping remedies to restrain further threat to competitors, consumers, and democracy itself. For instance, Facebook and Google are already facing heat in multiple states with many parallel investigations concerning their predatory market behavior and acquisitions. Many prosecutors have already called for breaking off Instagram and WhatsApp from Facebook with restrictions on their future deals. The US Department of Justice has also accused few Big Tech companies of illegally protecting their monopoly power in their markets. While it is unclear where the water will flow from here, given the convergence of political will and public sentiment against big tech, it is not out of place to expect a repetition of the SOC or the AT&T breakup.

Further, the impact of the wests events in India cannot be downplayed. Given the globalised era and the Competition Commission of Indias (CCI) penchant to mirror US and the EU antitrust authorities, the probability that the CCI may initiate investigations to assess the dominance of individual big tech firms in India and assess the requirement for a breakup cannot be ruled out. The CCI is already seized with investigations against some big tech firms and the expansion of on-going investigations to include others would not be far-fetched.

Further, the thus far dormant Section 28 of the Competition Act, 2002 (Act) which empowers the CCI to divide a dominant firm to ensure that such firm does not abuse its dominant position may finally be invoked. Interestingly, the scheme of the said section does not require the CCI to make an actual finding of abuse to direct a firms division. Mere apprehension of abuse by a dominant firm is sufficient to trigger the operation of this provision. It is intriguing that the Act itself does not provide any guidance for determining justifiable triggers to develop an apprehension of abuse vis--vis a dominant firm. This lack of guidance severely expands the scope of this provision and strengthens the CCIs power.

All in all, in view of the fast-paced and global development on this front, the recent surge of investigations by the CCI against big tech like Google and Amazon can act as a stimulus that the CCI needs to test the waters within the realm of its powers under Section 28 of the Act. That said, in the absence of defining contours of the scope and application of Section 28 of the Act, its true effectiveness as well as constitutional validity cannot be truly gauged at this early stage. Nonetheless, it goes without doubt that we are sailing in novel waters, and the alarm bells tolled in the US can very well bring about a watershed moment even in the Indian competition law landscape

The content of this document do not necessarily reflect the views / position of Khaitan & Co but remain solely those of the author(s). For any further queries or follow up please contact Khaitan & Co at [emailprotected]

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Breaking Trusts: Is Big Tech in Big Trouble? - Lexology

The head of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Saturday that conservatives and Trump administration officials are "constantly being censored" -- a day after President Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter.

"This is about individuals in positions of power that have a different political and ideological viewpoint and opinion than others and when that happens they try toshut us down," Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said on "Fox & Friends."

TWITTER SUSPENDS @REALDONALDTRUMP ACCOUNT PERMANENTLY

Morgan was reacting after President Trump was locked out of his social media account in the wake of the riotat Capitol Hill -- which a number of people, including Republicans and Democrats, have accused Trump of stoking.

Twitter said it was within that context that the ban was being administered and shared two recent tweets as justification.

One read: "The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!"

The other was a tweet from Trump saying he would not attend President-elect Joe Bidens inauguration.

NIKKI HALEY SAYS TRUMP TWITTER BAN IS 'WHAT HAPPENS IN CHINA'

"These two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the Presidents statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks," the company said.

"After assessing the language in these Tweets against our Glorification of Violence policy, we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service."

Morgan was not impressed by that claim, and said that when the Hatfield Courthouse was being sieged by protesters in Portland over the summer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saw no consequences for calling federal agents "stormtroopers."

CBP CHIEF SAYS TWITTER LOCKED HIS ACCOUNT FOR PRO-BORDER WALL MESSAGE

"Now my opinion is that is hateful, that is irresponsible and that is inciteful, but that's my opinions and even how irresponsible that is I still support her right to say that because that is what America is about, that is what we stand for... and that is what makes us different from any other nation in this world," he said.

Morgan said that viewers will struggle to find examples of left-wing politicians being censored.

"What you will find is this administration and conservatives thatare constantly being censored," he said.

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Morgan himself was briefly suspended in October 2020 for a tweet about the wall on the southern border -- but it was reversed on appeal.

"Every mile helps us stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators and drugs from entering our country," the tweet had said. Twitter initiallylocked the account for violating rules governing "hateful conduct."

Link:

After Trump Twitter ban, CBP chief says conservatives are 'constantly being censored' by Big Tech - Fox News

If President-elect Joe Biden bats the thorny question of tech taxes down the road the way Democratic predecessor Barack Obama did, investors will pay the price.

U.S. tech giants are already handing over so-called digital-service taxes to the French government. Unless the incoming administration restarts global efforts to reform corporate-tax rules, the likes of Alphabet, Apple and Facebook will soon face myriad such levies around the globe. On Thursday, the U.S. trade representative said it would delay retaliatory action against France promised by President Trump, essentially leaving the problem for Mr. Biden.

U.S. backing is crucial for a deal. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development started working in 2013 to update industrial-era corporate tax rules for online companies and crack down on what many countries see as aggressive tax avoidance. But the project was soon shelved because of a lack of support from then-President Obama.

Mr. Biden wont necessarily hold the same view of global tax reform he did back then. A lot has changed politically and economically. The incoming administration has also talked of taking a much stronger stance on the regulation and antitrust treatment of big tech companies.

With a technical solution in sight, a deal could be done this year if the U.S. wants it. Mr. Trumps 2017 tax overhaul changed the rules at home, renewing the U.S. Treasurys interest in global reform. That revived the OECD project, which made rapid progress until last summer. It stalled after Washington appeared to get cold feet.

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Joe Bidens Big Decision on Tech Taxes - The Wall Street Journal

So, this is what a latter-day insurrection looks like: the crowd waving their mobile phones. Mirror are smashed, boots are stamped on Nancy Pelosis desk. Among the protests stalk those with the darkest of fantasies, zip ties ready to kidnap their despised liberal enemies. Five people lost their lives and although this is bad enough already, the casualties would have been even higher if the protesters had broken in before the had a chance to politicians flee.

From the point of view of the institutions, the far right were an embarrassment and inconvenience. Trump has lost the election; Biden will replace him. Yet politics is about more than who occupies the White House: it is also about the rise and fall of social movements and the values which underpin then. Before Wednesdays event, the popularity of the Proud Boys and other right-wing extremist groups was already growing, which was confirmed by the broad approval of their actions at the Capitol. They returned home with the applause of tens of millions of right-wing voters ringing in their ears. One in five voters supported their action, including 45 percent of Republicans.

The fallout of Wednesdays events will continue to echo for months, perhaps years to come. For all their seeming partisan difference, the center-left and center-right of US politics have a shared response for dealing with the crisis: it is to demand a greater number of cops and the removal of the social media accounts of the worst perpetrators. But neither strategy is in the interests of the majority of Americans or in particular of the US left.

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The extraordinary thing about the protest is that they did so much with so few people. Barely 15,000 people answered Trumps call to join him in Washington DC to protest the outcome of the elections. The crowd was so small that in order to make the march on the Capitol seem the mass event its believers needed to be, they had to post recycled images of older, better-attended, anti-Trump protests.

Those who had taken to the streets against Trump and against the racism of the US state responded with images of their own, showing militarized lines of police that confronted Black Lives Matter crowds last summer. We remembered the sadism of the state when Black people marched, the way that even water bottles were broken. We saw how few bodies were placed in the way of Trumps march.

Some, but only some, of this will be remembered on the center-right and center-left. There, the message will be a special kind of Never again. Never let a crowd form. Never authorize a demonstration. Never let a march take place without the National Guard being primed to stop it. The revenge for Wednesdays demonstration will be felt in calls to increase police budgets and in demands for the violent suppression of protest. And its victims will not be the new fascists.

Friends tell me that there must have been some secret command from well-placed Trump allies, to make sure that his protest went on without being stopped. But life is rarely that convenient. The reason the police take sides with the fascists is ideology. The belief-system of American liberalism in both its Democrat and its non-Trump Republican form, accepts Trumps claim that the far left are violent, secretive and likely to destroy property.

The police take a cue from that politics. They recognize that the fascists share with them certain core politics a belief in the nation and in private property rights they see anti-fascists as instigators and as challengers to their monopoly use of force, and never see far-right street movements in the same negative light

Between the start of 1994 and summer last year, white supremacists and other right-wing extremists in the US carried out attacks that left 329 people dead. In the same period, a single attack staged by an anti-fascist resulted in one killing (the anti-fascist perpetrator). You would have thought with a death toll so one-sided, the state would have to take sides against hate. But in the mindset of US centrism, the Proud Boys and like-minded extremist groups are almost invisible, their right-wing politics inexplicable. Both the far left and far right require suppression in their view. And if the clubs are going to fall hardest on left-wing backs, then is that not a price worth paying?

For two years, the social media companies have been slowly deplatforming the worst of the far-right offenders both in Britain and the US. In 2019 and 2020, the Daily Shoah podcast, was taken down from iTunes, Twitter and Facebook. Much the same happened to the Daily Stormer website. Former Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos was relegated from Twitter to Gab, complaining that I cant post without being called a pedo [sic] kike infiltrator half a dozen times I cant make a career out of a handful of people like that. I cant put food on the table this way. In the UK, Britain First (once the second most popular political page on UK Facebook) was relegated to the much smaller world of Telegram.

Last summer, when tens of millions of people took to the streets in support of Black Lives Matter, YouTube banned former Klan leader David Duke, alt-right leader Richard Spencer and so-called race realist Stefan Molyneux. Reddit deleted more than 2,000 subreddits including r/The_Donald. Two months ago, Steve Bannon was banned from Twitter.

This week, after Donald Trump repeated his praise of the people who had marched for him, Twitter finally took down his account, leading to howls of protest from right-wingers and claims that the most sacred value in US society, the First Amendment, was being contravened.

This is a tougher political question for the left than whether we want there to be more policing. For, after all, the removal of right-wing websites makes life harder for our opponents. In the short-term, it carries seemingly no risks for us.

But if Trump is now a hate-monger, he was no less of one in October last year when he used Twitter to demand what became the extra-judicial killing of Michael Reinoehl. He was no better last spring when he first began calling the people onto the streets who became this Wednesdays crowd. He was no different when he separated immigrant children from their parents, or when he promised to lock up Hillary Clinton. He has been the same for years, and for most of this time his presence has been of immense value to Twitter.

Between joining Twitter in 2009 and summer 2017, Trump posted more than 30,000 times acquiring 36 million followers. Every time he posted, and newspapers or television companies reported his latest outrage, he drove people onto the site to read him. From the perspective of the owners of the platform, he was devoting an incredible amount of time to boosting its profile. In 2017, one financial analyst, James Cakmak, estimated that if Donald Trump had to leave Twitter the companys value would fall by $2 billion. Between then and Friday, when his account was taken down, the number of his followers on that site had nearly tripled.

The strategy of deplatforming carries all sorts of concealed risks for the far left. On occasion, we have seen marginal individuals with modest public platforms use the fact that they were banned from social media as a way to invoke the morality of self-defense and build up a huge new audience, greater than anything they had had before.

The left and the right are never simply fascist or anti-fascist but combine multiple other causes. When they ban right-wing figures from social media, the companies look to the left next, search for sites they could punish in order to prove that they are above politics. Last year, that meant taking down such anti-fascist sites as Its Going Down, CrimethInc and Enough is Enough.

Five or ten years ago, you would often find leftist critiques of the tech giants for their social policies and, above all, for the way in which they had opted themselves out of the tax system. That criticism is still made, however it has become more muted just when it needed to become more urgent. Last year, the wealth of Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg passed $100 billion, making him the worlds fourth richest person.

The amount of time which the average American online has increased from less than two to more than seven hours a day in the last decade. The top five wealthiest companies in the US by market capitalization are all part of the digital-industrial complex: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook. At the same time, American schools and hospitals and libraries have been steadily defunded and spending on the sorts of infrastructure you need to keep an economy functional (roads, water, electricity) has been cut substantially over the past decades.

The wealth of the major companies has been achieved, in other words, at public expense. People are poorer, their lives diminished and they are in greater debt because of a series of behaviors at the heart of which is the diminishing willingness of the rich to pay tax, with the owners of the social media platforms being the ideal poster boys for this type of behavior.

We cannot be at ease with an anti-fascist strategy of deplatforming which give Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey the power to decide what kinds of opinions are worthy of being heard and which deserve to be silenced.

In the face of a growing far-right, these are going to be the issues which dominate the next four years: whether to depend on the state and social media platforms to take on Trumps supporters, or whether anti-fascists need to build our own strength.

Read more:

More Cops and Big Tech-Led Deplatforming Won't Help Us Defeat the Far Right - Truthout

Public debate now takes place largely on the Internet. The same rules of the game must apply there as in the public space. Awakened unelected Big Tech companies are not allowed to set the rules of debate, Forum for Democracy said in response to disgusting dictatorial actions by tech giants that silenced Trump and many of his allies last night . FVD wants to ban censorship of non-criminal statements. In addition, the party will go to Telegram, which FVD hopes is an alternative possibility of communication with supporters.

The Forum for Democracy is currently the only Dutch party to condemn Donald Trumps Twitter ban (and the Facebook and Instagram bans), and is one hundred percent committed to free speech. In the so-called free Netherlands, one would expect all parties to share this opinion, but nothing could be further from the truth. Hes probably staying with one or two clubs. Others will find this censorship fan-tas-tic, and will want to apply it in their own country as soon as possible.

Samuel Jong, FVD employee and parliamentary candidate, adds that the FVD also wants to give alternative platforms free space. This way the Internet remains free and open!

FVD also sees where it is going: It starts with bans on Trump and the people who support him in America, but ultimately the entire right-wing movement throughout the Western world will have to believe it. Anything and everyone who does not wake up will be silenced in the near future. Political parties will be banned from social media, non-politically correct websites will be rejected everywhere (from social media to search engines).

Because FVD understands this, the party is trying to find or develop alternatives at lightning speed. The way its done now is through Telegram:

Of course, I joined the channel. Very practical, because they have already started to communicate. And this without the interference of Big Tech.

Do yourself a favor and stop using major social media like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp. Switch to alternatives like Parler, Telegram, and Signal today. And as with search engines, DuckDuckGo is also a great alternative Home Page.

After all, YouTube is of course no better. Steve Bannons WarRoom, for example, was scrapped last night (further proof that these actions were being coordinated by Big Tech). Two good alternatives are Banned Video in To scold.

Of course, at De Daily Standaard we will also work with these alternatives. You will hear more about this later.

For now: know that the digital battle that people like me have been warning about for years has officially started tonight. Big Tech now wants to permanently restrict our freedom of expression. Where you can legally defend yourself with a dictatorial government, you dont have that option when it comes to Big Tech. If they shut you up, its over, over and over again.

In the saddle its gonna be a bumpy ride. We will not only win this battle. Its going to get a lot worse including with entire websites down and / or no longer being found on search engines. we duty do something and find yourself other ways. But: dont give up! If we do not let ourselves be silenced, we will win in the end and we will simply reclaim our rights.

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Unelected awakened Big Tech companies! We must have alternatives! - The Daily Standard - DodoFinance

Sinan Aral, MIT David Austin Professor of Mgmt. and The Hype Machine Author, joined Yahoo FInance Live to break down how the pro-Trump riots in Washinton DC are impacting the economy and what they mean for big tech.

SEANA SMITH: We want to turn and look at the role of big tech in all of this. And for that, we want to bring in Sinan Aral-- he is the author of "The Hype Machine"-- on how this really could impact some of those big tech giants that we've talked about, like Facebook and Twitter here.

And Sinan, when you take a look at the role that big tech has played-- at least today, they have been flagging tweets. They have been fighting those that they say could incite violence. But from your perspective, what do you think the role of big tech has been and should be in this type of situation? And it looks like you might be muted. Just unmute.

SINAN ARAL: Rather than just focus on superficial social media tweets or posts, I think it's worthwhile to think about the underlying information ecosystem that is contributing to coordinating and enabling this kind of activity. So people who study the riot process, people who understand deeply the concept of protest and the concept of violence erupting from riots and protests, understand that this does not happen without information. Information is necessary to motivate. Information is necessary to coordinate.

Social proof that you see others in your community saying they will or are actually in the capital doing, what you are thinking about doing, that others are supportive of what you're thinking about doing, all of this type of information is essential to this kind of outcome. And what we've seen, whether it's in the plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan and different types of Boogaloo Bois arrests and violence, in what we're seeing in the capital today, in even the Pizzagate scandal, where the person who was believing in those conspiracy theories about the pizza parlor, who shot up the pizza parlor, information is absolutely essential to all of these dot coms--

Story continues

ADAM SHAPIRO: Sinan.

SINAN ARAL: Yes.

ADAM SHAPIRO: It's Adam. It's good to see you. We only have about two minutes. So what do we do? The Biden administration, as well as Republicans, want to repeal Section 230. And I know we only have two minutes. Is that enough? Is that what you do?

SINAN ARAL: No, repealing Section 230 will either cause social media to become a swamp if the social media companies decide not to moderate anything, or it will completely curtail speech if they decide to moderate everything. The protection from civil liability allows them to make educated choices about moderation, which is a much better middle ground. We can reform Section 230, but we can't repeal it. Otherwise, large parts of the internet will be destroyed for the free internet.

What I'm really concerned about, Adam, is, what's going to happen next? What's going to happen tonight? What's going to happen in the next two weeks before the inauguration? And what is the information role in what happens tonight and the next two weeks? What's Facebook's role in stopping the coordination, the motivation, and the social proof? What's Twitter's role? How can we subvert sort of the information motivation and mobilization of this kind of violence?

SEANA SMITH: Sinan, real quick, we only have about a minute here. But just your biggest concern here between now and tomorrow morning. I know you were saying that the role of information and what that plays and what these big tech giants need to do, but what's your biggest concern right at this point?

SINAN ARAL: My biggest concern is that social media platforms, through private messaging, through public messaging, through shows of public support, will be used to motivate, coordinate, and mobilize further violence. And I think that there are ways that the platforms can curtail this.

And I think that they have a responsibility to make sure that any information that is advocating violence, supporting violence, advocating the violent overthrow of the government, and so on, be stemmed. This is a content moderation decision. It is a flash point in actual physical violence. Someone was shot on the Capitol today. And I think they have a responsibility to play a role here.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Sinan Aral is author of "The Hype Machine." We appreciate you joining us here on Yahoo Finance Live.

Read more here:

Analyzing the 'information role' big tech has in the coordination, motivation of riots: MIT Professor - Yahoo Tech

This story is part of CES, where our editors will bring you the latest news and the hottest gadgets of the entirely virtual CES 2021.

CES 2021 kicks off as a virtual event on Monday, but some companies are already offering a peek at their brand-new products. Kohler is ringing in 2021 with a host of new smart kitchen and bath products ranging from a smart water monitor to a $16,000 tub.

We've seen smart toilets and voice-controlled faucets from the established manufacturer in years past, and this year the focus lands squarely on relaxing and home and keeping our hands free from germ-ridden surfaces as much as possible.

If you'd rather buy a bathtub than a used car, Kohler's stillness bath might be right up your alley. This square tub combines light, fog and aromatherapy to create a spa-like experience at home.

Get the best reviews, videos and comparisons in CNET's Smart Home and Appliances newsletter.

The bath is based on the practice of Japanese forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku. Water fills from the bottom of the bath and overflows into a Hinoki wood moat. The tub is surrounded by lighting, but that's not all. You can also choose to envelop the surface of your bath with a fog and add essential oils for aromatherapy.

The Stillness Bath will be available this year in configurations ranging from $6,198 to $15,998 fully loaded.

If there's anything a global pandemic taught us, it's that touching stuff is not the best for personal hygiene, especially in the bathroom. Kohler released the Sensate touchless kitchen faucet in 2019, and this new bathroom-focused model offers the same hands-free interaction. Two styles will be available, one with built-in sensing in the faucet itself and another with a button beside the faucet.

Pricing isn't available yet, but Kohler says we should see the touchless bathroom faucet come to market by the end of 2021.

This intelligent toilet doesn't have technically have any smart home integrations, but it is pretty jam packed with extra features at a lower (but still expensive) price than the company's previous intelligent toilets. Innate includes a heated seat, auto opening and closing, a remote, as well as a personal bidet function. Kohler also says you can install the toilet yourself thanks to its DIY-friendly ReadyLock design.

The Innate Intelligent Toilet will be available this summer with an MSRP of $3,100.

Kohler is adding more touchless toilets to its portfolio for 2021, bringing us two new styles costing $600 and $1,000. A sensor in the flush lever of the toilet flushes with the wave of your hand. A built-in LED light can be customized through the Kohler app. Both of these toilets are slated for release in March of this year. I've never been so excited about a touchless bathroom as I am after living through 2020.

Perhaps the most affordable and truly smart home-centric product from Kohler this year is the Kohler Whole Home Water Monitor powered by Phyn. Phyn, a spin off of gadget maker Belkin, has been in the smart water market for several years now, and Kohler's new partnership puts them in a better position to reach consumers looking for options from traditional bathroom and kitchen brands.

Kohler will launch two co-branded products with Phyn this year, the Kohler Whole Home Water Monitor Powered by Phyn, and a second version with an automatic water shut off. The monitor is a self-installed system that mounts under one sink in your home. From there, it detects water use throughout your plumbing system and notifies you if if a leak is detected anywhere in the home. It will also provide detailed insight into how each fixture uses water.

The model with automatic shut off uses high-definition pressure wave analysis to alert you the moment a leak is detected and shut off your water.

The basic Kohler Whole Home Water Monitor Powered by Phyn will cost $300, and the automatic shut off option will cost $500. You can expect to see the Kohler Whole Home Water Monitor in the second half of 2021.

The top 6 trends to expect at CES 2021

Sure, a $15,000 bathtub probably isn't within most of our budgets, but Kohler's idea of turning our homes into spa experiences echoes the striving for peace and relaxation at home many of us have felt in the last year. Smart water monitors, on the other hand, can be great additions to smart homes. With a more affordable price point and a practical application, it might be the smartest thing Kohler brought to CES.

Stay tuned to CNET as we follow these and more exciting new products on their journey to a smart home near you.

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The Democrats winning the Georgia runoffs has big implications for Big Tech.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is a part of US law that provides tech companies with two important protections. Firstly, it gives them the ability to decide how to moderate content on their own platforms. Secondly, it shields them from liability for what their users post.

This means that when a user posts something illegal on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube for example, child abuse imagery or terrorist content the platform isn't liable.

Section 230 has come under heavy fire from Trump and the Republicans, who claim that the Big Tech companies discriminate against conservatives. Trump called for the revocation of Section 230 numerous times, and vetoed a $741 billion defense bill over it in December.

A new administration does not mean reform of Section 230 will be abandoned, as Democrats have also attacked the law, saying it gives the tech companies too much legal protection for hosting harmful content. President-elect Joe Biden in January said he was in favor of repealing it.

This could place tech companies in major jeopardy, as it would expose them to huge legal risk for what their users post, and with the Democrats controlling both Houses they now have more of a chance of legislating Section 230 how they see fit.

Even small changes to Section 230 could majorly shift how platforms approach moderation. If platforms become more liable for the content users post, they may be more indiscriminate in how much content they remove under their moderation policies.

Big Tech executives including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have resisted calls to repeal Section 230, saying it would mean platforms would end up stifling free speech in a bid to avoid being hit with a deluge of lawsuits.

Business Insider spoke to six legal experts about how the Democrats' win could shape the future of Section 230.

Two of the legal experts said it's unlikely the Biden administration will do anything to Section 230 in the first 100 days of his presidency.

"Their focus will be on nominations, COVID response and vaccinations," said June DeHart, an attorney specializing in policymaking proceedings at Manatt law firm.

Jeff Kosseff, a cybersecurity law expert who wrote a book on Section 230 entitled "The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet," also said legislative changes would be slowed because there's not yet a clear consensus on what to do.

"I think probably the most immediate impact is [the administration change] would affect the nature of the hearings about platforms and Section 230 that we're going to see," said Kosseff.

This gives the tech companies some wiggle room, but doesn't mean they can rest easy. "They will get to it and want to make changes, clearly," said Daphne Keller, director of Stanford Law School's Program on Platform Regulation.

"My hope is that they will take the time to craft thoughtful legislation, perhaps modeled in part on the EU's major new draft law, the Digital Services Act, and on last term's PACT Act, which was the smartest of the bills. A lot of the 2020 bills were the product of time pressure and political theater, [the Democrats] should be able to take a breath and be more deliberate now," she added.

Read more: Experts lay out the criteria for choosing Biden's CTO, who will be faced with using tech to tackle everything from climate change to vaccine distribution

She said a big problem for the Democrats in tackling harmful content via Section 230 is that a lot of the content they're worried about isn't actually illegal speech.

"Things like hate speech and medical misinformation are often First Amendment protected speech, for better or for worse. That means CDA 230 is not the reason it gets left up [...] In fact, CDA 230 actively encourages platforms to take that content down by giving them the immunities they need to engage in content moderation," she said.

Scott Shackelford, associate professor of business law and ethics at Indiana University, said it raises the stakes because it makes it more likely that the Democrats can push through comprehensive legislation.

"The razor thin majority will mean that moderate Senators will have an outsized role in crafting potential reforms," he added. DeHart also pointed to the narrow margins in both Houses, saying this means reform of Section 230 is more likely than revocation.

"I suspect that a complete revocation of 230 is unlikely [...] that would be a big lift to overcome the industry opposition, and the path of extending regulatory oversight will be much easier by comparison," said Richard Lawson, a partner at Gardner Brewer Martinez-Monfort law firm.

Three of the experts also noted the lobbying power of Big Tech.

"Any legislation related to CDA 230 will likely face intense opposition from the tech industry, and with Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google alone having a market cap of $5 trillion one can easily imagine that resources will be made available to combat any changes," said Richard Lawson.

"Reform is still not a foregone conclusion. There are powerful interest groups, and lobbying outfits funded by tech firms that enjoy some of the deepest pockets in the world. Still, given the outcome in Georgia, and the pronouncements by President-elect Biden on this topic, I think the safe money is that there will be a push to reform the tech regulatory landscape with Section 230 being one aspect of that effort," said Shackelford.

Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, agreed reform is more likely.

"Any controversial legislation faces an uphill climb in a closely divided Senate. But I think there is now a chance that a thoughtful updating of Section 230 could pass Congress and get Biden's signature," said Barrett.

Jeff Kosseff said when politicians dig into the technical details of Section 230 they may realise that repealing it won't let them stand up to Big Tech in fact it could end up solidifying Big Tech's power.

"The companies impacted by Section 230 are not just Facebook and Twitter and Google. It's any company that operates a website that hosts user content, so it's everything from Facebook to a small local news site that allows user comments," he said.

"I think there's a concern about making sure that the changes that are made don't further entrench the dominance of a few large players. Because whatever changes are made there's a pretty good chance that the biggest companies will be able to afford the costs of those changes, but the smaller companies might not be able to do that," he said.

Read more: 54 tech startups to bet your career on in 2021

"I think the one common thread between both sides of the aisle is that, many people are upset with Big Tech and Section 230 is really being used as a proxy for big tech. When in fact changing Section 230 might not address their concerns and it actually might make Big Tech even bigger," Kosseff said.

Any change to Section 230 may be slow, although the focus on the potential harm of the Big Tech platforms may well be renewed by Wednesday's violent assault on the Capitol, where rioters displayed their beliefs in online conspiracy theories like QAnon.

Read more:

How Section 230 could be reformed now the Democrats have both Houses - Business Insider - Business Insider

Twitters banning of Donald Trump illustrates the increasing appetite of social media giants to suspend controversial accounts.

acebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, also suspended Mr Trumps account indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete, said Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg.

The outgoing US presidents Twitter account, his main method of communication, was permanently revoked on Friday, adding his name to a list of people who have been kicked off Big Tech platforms in recent years.

Katie Hopkins, the former Apprentice star turned right-wing provocateur, had more than a million followers on Twitter when she was booted off the site last year.

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Katie Hopkins (Philip Toscano/PA)

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Twitter said she was suspended for breaking rules on hate speech after sparking outrage with comments on race, religion and immigration.

She had been heavily criticised over remarks comparing migrants to cockroaches as well as claiming the photograph of a dead Syrian boy lying on a beach which sparked a wave of compassion across Europe was staged.

Keeping Twitter safe is a top priority for us abuse and hateful conduct have no place on our service and we will continue to take action when our rules are broken, a Twitter spokesman said.

Ms Hopkins appears to be posting videos to a small Facebook page currently, which has just over 23,000 followers.

Another British right-wing personality, Milo Yiannopoulos, was banned from Twitter in 2016 after being accused of urging his followers to abuse actress Leslie Jones and her role in the female-led Ghostbusters reboot.

The former technology editor at the Breitbart website had more than 300,000 followers on the site and described himself as the most fabulous supervillain on the internet.

He came to be seen as an alt-right figurehead, was recruited to Breitbart by Mr Trumps former chief strategist Steve Bannon, and was known to refer to the president as daddy.

Facebook has also stepped up its banning of accounts deemed to be extremist, including one belonging to Mr Yiannopoulos.

In 2019, the social media site banned figures including Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, and right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for violating its policies on hate and violence.

The company said it has also banned right-wing figures Paul Nehlen, Paul Joseph Watson and Laura Loomer, along with Mr Joness conspiracy-promoting site Infowars.

The permanent suspensions were criticised by Mr Trump at the time, who said he was monitoring and watching, closely!!

He has previously claimed social media companies are biased against conservatives, something the companies have rejected.

Supporters of Mr Trump have cited the fact that Mr Farrakhan, who has been widely accused of anti-Semitism and has referred to Satanic Jews, and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini remain on Twitter.

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Trumps social media suspension part of Big Techs increasing use of bans - Belfast Telegraph