In my lifetime (a long one), I have never known a key industry to be allowed such freedom in terms of self-regulation, than the tech corporations. There are hopeful signs that we are starting to catch up, but self-regulation remains a central concept.
The Big Tech industry generates three myths to disguise their greed and the need to regulate the industry. The first is the right to free speech by pretending that this is an absolute right. It is no such thing. It has always been trammelled by the need to balance competing rights: The right not to be slandered, to be free of hate speech, to a private life, to know the identity of your accuser, and many other rights.
The second myth relates to privacy. The right to privacy is fundamental but, again, it can be restricted when necessary in a democratic society to pursue a legitimate aim. We all have social security numbers, passports, telephone numbers, and on and on. These grant relatively easy access to the police if a crime is suspected.
The third myth is that of anonymity and this, in itself, is an existential threat to democratic societies. The first two are just distractions to hide the industrys need for this one. Anonymity adds enormously toonline traffic and thereby to profit. The term anonymous free speech' is an oxymoron. It has no identifiable source, tells us nothing of vested interests, bias, or motive. It smears unjustifiable pain, uncertainty, and lies throughout our societies. It is unconscionable that this should be accepted to bolster the profits and power of Silicon Valley.
Anonymity itself is not intrinsic to internet functioning. Every web-enabled machine has at least two identifiable registration numbers: an IP (internet protocol), which provides an address and a MAC number, which identifies the exact machine. The industry has decided that these numbers must be secret, identities readily available to themselves only, except when it suits them to release the data to analytic companies.
The social media corporations want to publish endless anonymous opinions, but without the responsibility, mainstream media must bear, when they use an anonymous source.
What exactly would our legislators do if the auto industries owned the roads, controlled and kept secret the allocation and ownership of car registration numbers and, to add insult to injury, allowed some owners to have blank plates and yet others whose numbers changed every time they started the engine.
In reality, this is what the Big Tech industry is getting away with. Why is everyone faffing about and refusing to regulate them as we should?
Very recently, the execrable Pornhub was forced to delete two-thirds of their posts and to demand proof of identity for new ones. This action was forced on them, not by legislators or police but by Visa and MasterCard. Is this to be the future of legislation?
Frank Kennan
Roundwood House
Mountrath
Co Laois
Sinn Fin leader shows some nerve
The leader of Sinn Fin having started the whole thing betweenfunerals, Brexit, and a United Ireland is now calling on the unionists to show enlightened leadership. Has she lost the plot entirely?
What a nerve.
Michael Foley
Rathmines
Dublin 6
Will we ever learn about the North?
The Six Counties continue to fester and foment. Identifying the contributory strands is one thing, but tackling the root causes towards permanent resolution is foreverelusive. These Six Counties as an autonomously contrived statelet have never been viable, having been perfidiously construed 100 years ago.
The Treaty deal was informed by electoral contortions and partisan distortions ensuring a deliberately ambiguous dispensation emerged. Such ambiguity was always going to founder given that it was postured as a temporary arrangement to one side, while the other was sold what they presumed was to be a permanent dispensation. And so it goes on and on ad nauseam, albeit with varying complexions of violent unrest, endemic distrust. and social incohesion.
So many British governments in the interim have been dilatory and derelict in their oversight of the inevitable upshot of that malignant Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921. A Pete Seeger refrain springs to mind: When will they ever learn?
Jim Cosgrove
Lismore
Co Waterford
A cleanup operation underway at Lanark Way in west Belfast, following scenes of violent disorder over recent nights. Repair work was carried out on a peace wall gate, pictured, separating the loyalist and republicans communities after it was set on fire during rioting.
Peace walls foster a greater divide
Images of clashes at the Peace Gate at the Springfield Rd/Lanark Way interface in Belfast (April 8) suggests that the interface walls are keeping warring factions apart. This is a distortion. These walls creates the impression that both sides were engaged in tit-for-tat sectarianattacks. This is not the case. The peace walls, despite being testament to political failure, were the consolidation of make-shift barriers erected by nationalist communities for protection from loyalist death squads like the Shankill Butchers.
According to a peace monitoring report issued by the Rowntree Trust, the anticipated shared future and ending of religion-based divisions between the two main communities has not just ceased progressing but has actually begun to slide into reverse. The report also states that the number of interface walls has more than doubled since the Belfast Agreement.
Following decades of unionist State-sponsored forced segregation is it any surprise that the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance and mutual trust, envisaged emerging from the Good Friday Agreement, still largely eludes us?
Tom Cooper
Pearse St
Dublin 2
Bidding against ourselves for sports
My brother teaches English in Madrid. My nephews are soccer-mad wee Madrileos. They support Athletico. But they admire Real. And my brother is the reason why English is spoken with a Cork accent in Madrid.
Liverpool played Real in the Champions League this week. I watched it on RT. I texted a pal of mine in Letterkenny during the match. Hes a fanatical Liverpool supporter and he was watching the match. I emailed my brother and my nephews in Madrid in the same spirit. My brother replied: Its pay per view here so we dont have it. In the same way, we cant watch the US Masters Golf on RT.
It put me thinking. Sky and others pass the hat around and tell us throw in a few bob there lads and you can see the match. They then take our money out of the hat, outbid RT and the BBC for the rights to the match, and then sell the match back to us for a grossly inflated price. In the end, were being conned into bidding against ourselves. Id like to take this opportunity to thank RT for broadcasting the match into my home this week. The licence fee is worth every penny.
Michael Deasy
Carrigart
Co Donegal
Broadcasters must justify high wages
It might now be to the advantage of the Government and the RT Authority to come together; following on from the RT staff overwhelmingly rejecting the pay cut plan and other measures at Montrose.
It seems the Government and the RT Authority will answer the pertaining question of how does RT and its top broadcasting staff justify those high earning wages of near to half a million euro yearly each.
So, it is back to the drawing board for the Government and the RT Authority, by bringing in the time and motion experts immediately, to reduce those top broadcasters wages by half, thus saving RT?
Edward Mahon
Clonskeagh
Dublin 14
A dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is prepared.
UK stole a march on EU with vaccines
Re. A Leavys letter, Praise of UK is undeserved, dated April 7.
May I begin with a quote attributed to Ursula von der Leyen with regard to the vaccine rollout: We were late to authorise, we were too optimistic when it came to massive production and perhaps were too confident that what we ordered would actually be delivered.
With regard to the Pfizer vaccine, the UK began ordering it when it began showing promise and well before it got final approval. The EU was much slower in signing the contracts.
With regard to the AstraZeneca vaccine, the UK signed a better contract than the EU which enabled it to acquire its full supply even when there were shortages due to production problems.
Thirdly, the UK availed of emergency vaccine supplies in December when the EU didnt. This was permissible under EU law.
The EU centralised the purchasing of the different vaccines in order to secure a better price from the pharmaceutical companies. This slowed up the procurement process. On the contrary, Britains main focus was on sufficient supply with price being a secondary consideration. I concede that with regard to the pandemic in general the UK did come up short in some areas but with regard to the procurement and rollout of the vaccine, which was the theme of my original letter, April 5, Britain did steal a march on the EU.
Michael Henchion
Ballincollig
Cork
Quarantine list explanation needed
Can anyone explain to me how the Government and the health authorities have put together the list of countries on the mandatory hotel quarantine list? There has been a debate in the past week about adding France, Italy and Germany to this list. Yes, of course, they all have 14-day incidence greater than our own. However, another 22 countries in the EU have 14-day rates greater than France, Italy and Germany. Are we now going to add all these countries to the existing list?
Pat OSullivan
Fountainstown
Co Cork
Shankly was right
It looks like the GAA players of Dublin and Monaghan agree with Bill Shankly that football is much more serious than life and death.
Mattie Lennon
Lacken
Blessington
Co Wicklow.
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Letter to the Editor: Tech giants want power but accept no responsibility - Irish Examiner
