Daily Archives: April 19, 2021

Concerned about growing momentum behind efforts to regulate the commercial use of personal data, Big Tech has begun seeding watered-down privacy legislation in states with the goal of preempting greater protections, experts say.

The swift passage in March of a consumer data privacy law in Virginia, which Protocol reported was originally authored by Amazon with input from Microsoft, is emblematic of an industry-driven, lobbying-fueled approach taking hold across the country. The Markup reviewed existing and proposed legislation, committee testimony, and lobbying records in more than 20 states and identified 14states with privacy bills built upon the same industry-backed framework as Virginias, or with weaker models. The bills are backed by a whos who of Big Techfunded interest groups and are being shepherded through statehouses by waves of company lobbyists.

Meanwhile, the small handful of bills that have not adhered to two key industry demandsthat companies cant be sued for violations and consumers would have to opt out of rather than into trackinghave quickly died in committee or been rewritten.

Experts say Big Techs push to pass friendly state privacy bills ramped up after California enacted sweeping privacy bills in 2018 and 2020and that the ultimate goal is to prompt federal legislation that would potentially override Californias privacy protections.

The effort to push through weaker bills is to demonstrate to businesses and to Congress that there are weaker options, said Ashkan Soltani, a former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission who helped author the California legislation. Nobody saw Virginia coming. That was very much an industry-led effort by Microsoft and Amazon. At some point, if multiple states go the way of Virginia, you might not even get companies to honor Californias [rules].

Californias laws, portions of which dont go into effect until 2023, create what is known as a global opt out. Rather than every website requiring users to go through separate opt-out processes, residents can use internet browsers and extensions that automatically notify every website that a user wishes to opt out of the sale of their personal data or use of it for targeted advertisingand companies must comply. The lawsalso allow consumers to sue companies for violations of the laws security requirements and created the California Privacy Protection Agency to enforce the states rules.

Setting up these weak foundations is really damaging and really puts us in a worse direction on privacy in the U.S., said Hayley Tsukayama, a legislative activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Every time that one of these bills passes, Virginia being a great example, people are saying This is the model you should be looking at, not California.

Amazon did not respond to requests for comment, and Microsoft declined to answer specific questions on the record.

Industry groups, however, were not shy about their support for the Virginia law and copycats around the country.

The Virginia law is a business and consumer friendly approach that other states considering privacy legislation should align with, The Internet Association, an industry group that represents Big Tech, wrote in a statement to The Markup.

In testimony before lawmakers, tech lobbyists have criticized the state-by-state approach of making privacy legislation and said they would prefer a federal law. Tech companies offered similar statements to The Markup.

Google spokesperson Jos Castaeda declined to answer questions but emailed The Markup a statement: As we make privacy and security advancements to protect consumers, well continue to advocate for sensible data regulations around the world, including strong, comprehensive federal privacy legislation in the U.S.

But at the same time, the tech and ad industries have taken a hands-on approach to shape state legislation. Mostly, industry has advocated for two provisions. The first is an opt-out approach to the sale of personal data or using it for targeted advertising, which means that tracking is on by default unless the customer finds a way to opt out of it. Consumer advocates prefer privacy to be the default setting, with users given the freedom to opt in to certain uses of their data. The second industry desire is preventing a private right of action, which would allow consumers to sue for violations of the laws.

The industry claims such privacy protections are too extreme.

That may be a bonanza for the trial bar, but it will not be good for business, said Dan Jaffe, group executive vice president for government relations for the Association of National Advertisers, which has lobbied heavily in states and helped write model federal legislation. TechNet, another Big Tech industry group that has been deeply engaged in lobbying state lawmakers, said that enormous litigation costs for good faith mistakes could be fatal to businesses of all sizes.

Through lobbying records, recordings of public testimony, and interviews with lawmakers, The Markup found direct links between industry lobbying efforts and the proliferation of these tech-friendly provisions in Connecticut, Florida, Oklahoma, and Washington. And in Texas, industry pressure has shaped an even weaker bill.

Protocol has previously documented similar efforts in Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, and Minnesota.

Additionally, The Markup found a handful of statesparticularly North Dakota and Oklahomain which tech lobbyists have stepped in to thwart efforts to enact stricter laws.

The path of Connecticuts bill is illustrative of how these battles have played out. There, state Senate majority leader Bob Duff introduced a privacy bill in 2020 that contained a private right of action. During the bills public hearing last February, Duff said he looked out on a room literally filled with every single lobbyist Ive ever known in Hartford, hired by companies to defeat the bill.

The legislation failed. Duff introduced a new version of it in 2021, and it too died in committee following testimony from interest groups funded by Big Tech, including the Internet Association and The Software Alliance.

According to Duff and Sen. James Maroney, who co-chairs the Joint Committee on General Law, those groups are now pushing a separate privacy bill, written using the Virginia law as a template. Duff said lawmakers had a Zoom one day with a lot of big tech companies to go over the bills language.

Our legislative commissioner took the Virginia language and applied Connecticut terminology, Maroney said.

That industry-backed bill passed through committee unanimously on March 23.

Its an uphill battle because youre fighting a lot of forces on many fronts, Duff said. Theyre well funded, theyre well heeled, and they just hire a lot of lobbyists to defeat legislation for the simple reason that theres a lot of money in online data.

Google has spent $100,000 lobbying in Connecticut since 2019, when Duff first introduced a consumer data privacy bill. Apple and Microsoft have each spent $124,000, Amazon has spent $116,000, and Facebook has spent $155,000, according to the states lobbyist reporting database.

Microsoft declined to answer questions and instead emailed The Markup links to the testimony its company officials gave in Virginia and Washington.

The Virginia model is a thoughtful approach to modernize United States privacy law, something which has become a very urgent need, Ryan Harkins, the companys senior director of public policy, said during one hearing.

Google declined to respond to The Markups questions about their lobbying. Apple and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

In Oklahoma, Rep. Collin Walke, a Democrat, and Rep. Josh West, the Republican majority leader, co-sponsored a bill that would have banned businesses from selling consumers personal data unless the consumers specifically opted in and gave consumers the right to sue for violations. Walke told The Markup that the bipartisan team found themselves up against an army of lobbyists from companies including Facebook, Amazon, and leading the effort, AT&T.

AT&T lobbyists persuaded House leadership to delay the bills scheduled March2 hearing, Walke said. For the whole next 24-hour period, lobbyists were pulling members off the house floor and whipping them.

Walke said to try to get the bill through the Senate, he agreed to meetings with Amazon, internet service providers, and local tech companies, eventually adopting a Virginia-esque bill. But certain companies remained resistantWalke declined to specify which onesand the bill died without receiving a hearing.

AT&T did not respond to questions about its actions in Oklahoma or other states where it has fought privacy legislation. Walke said he plans to reintroduce the modified version of the bill again next session.

In Texas, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione first introduced a privacy bill in 2019. He told The Markup he was swiftly confronted by lobbyists from Amazon, Facebook, Google, and industry groups representing tech companies. The state then created a committee to study data privacy, which was populated in large part by industry representatives.

Facebook declined to answer questions on the record for this story.

Capriglione introduced another privacy bill in 2021, but given Texass conservative nature, he said, and the previous pushback, it doesnt include any opt-in or opt-out requirement or a private right of action. But he has still received pushback from industry over issues like how clear and understandable website privacy policies have tobe.

The ones that were most interested were primarily the big tech companies, he said. I received significant opposition to making any changes to the status quo.

The privacy bill furthest along of all pending bills is in Washington, the home state of Microsoft and Amazon. The Washington Privacy Act was first introduced in 2019 and was the inspiration for Virginias law. Microsoft, Amazon, and more recently Google, have all testified in favor of the bill. It passed the state Senate 481 in March.

A House committee considering the bill has proposed an amendment that would create a private right of action, but it is unclear whether that will survive the rest of the legislative process.

Other statesIllinois, Kentucky, Alabama, Alaska, and Coloradohave Virgina-like bills under consideration. State representative Michelle Mussman, the sponsor of a privacy bill in Illinois, and state representative Lisa Willner, the sponsor of a bill in Kentucky, told The Markup that they had not consulted with industry or made privacy legislation their priority during 2021, but when working with legislative staff to author the bills they eventually put forward, they looked to other states for inspiration. The framework they settled on was significantly similar to Virginias on key points, according to The Markups analysis.

The sponsors of bills in Alabama, Alaska, and Colorado did not respond to interview requests, and public hearing testimony or lobbying records in those states were not yet available.

In North Dakota, lawmakers in January introduced a consumer data privacy bill that a coalition of advertising organizations called the most restrictive privacy law in the United States. It would have included an opt-in framework, a private right of action, and broad definitions of the kind of data and practices subject to the law.

It failed 7519 in the House shortly after a public hearing in which only AT&T, data broker RELX, and industry groups like The Internet Association, TechNet, and the State Privacy and Security Coalition showed up to testifyall in opposition. And while the big tech companies didnt directly testify on the bill, lobbying records suggest they exerted influence in other ways.

The 20202021 lobbyist filing period in North Dakota, which coincided with the legislatures study and hearing on the bill, marked the first time Amazon has registered a lobbyist in the state since 2018 and the first time Apple and Google have registered lobbyists since the state began publishing lobbying disclosures in 2016, according to state lobbying records.

A Mississippi bill containing a private right of action met a similar fate. The bills sponsor, Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, did not respond to an interview request.

While in Florida, a bill that was originally modeled after Californias laws has been the subject of intense industry lobbying both in public and behind the scenes. On April 6, a Florida Senate committee voted to remove the private right of action, leaving a bill substantially similar to Virginias. State senator Jennifer Bradley, the sponsor of Floridas bill, did not respond to The Markups request for comment.

Several bills that include opt-in frameworks, private rights of action, and other provisions that experts say make for strong consumer protection legislation are beginning to make their way through statehouses in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. It remains to be seen whether those bills current protections can survive the influence of an industry keen to set the precedent for expected debate over a federal privacy law.

If the model that passed in Virginia and is moving forward in other states continues to win out, it will really hamstring federal lawmakers ability to do anything stronger, which is really concerning considering how weak [that model] is, said Jennifer Lee, the technology and liberty project manager for the ACLU of Washington. I think it really will entrench the status quo in allowing companies to operate under the guise of privacy protections that arent actually that protective.

This article by Todd Feathers was originally published on The Markup and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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Big Tech is pushing states to pass privacy laws, and yes, you should be suspicious - The Next Web

When it comes to big-cap tech stocks, there are five companies that tower over the rest:Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL),Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN),Facebook(NASDAQ:FB),Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT), andAlphabet(NASDAQ:GOOGL)(NASDAQ:GOOG). In thisFool Livevideo clip,recorded on April 8, Fool.com contributors Matt Frankel, CFP, and Jason Hall, along with chief growth officer Anand Chokkavelu, discuss why each is such an impressive business now.

Anand Chokkavelu: I'll take the first one with Facebook. We talk a lot about the power of investing in platforms, and quite simply, Facebook may have the largest platform in the world. With Facebook, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram, as the No. 1, No. 3, No. 4, and No. 5 social media networks in the world. Only Alphabet's YouTube at No. 2 breaks its ranks. With those platforms, Facebook can and does layer on things like sub-communities, person-to-person transactions, small business support, e-commerce, and with Oculus virtual reality. It's a buffet of monetization options as we go along. Matt, I think you've got Apple.

Matt Frankel:Yeah. These are five companies that really don't need introductions. When it comes to consumer electronics, it's really Apple, and then there's everyone else. There are over a billion people around the world that use the iPhone. Apple practically invented the tablet-computing market. Did you know that there are less than 200,000 tablets sold worldwide in total before the iPad, and seven million in the iPad's first year? They pretty much invented that market. The Apple Watch and the Mac laptops and desktops are pretty much considered to be the best in their respective product categories. The service business, it's just strengthening their ecosystem so much over the past few years and still has a ton of room to grow. With almost $200 billion in cash and investments, Apple has a ton of money to either innovate or acquire as it sees fit. Their numbers are just staggering, over $100 billion of revenue in the last quarter. So Apple and everybody else is really how I would categorize most consumer electronics companies.

Chokkavelu:Right on. Jason, you've got Amazon.

Jason Hall: Amazon, I think it's hard to not describe it as just a really interesting company, because we think of them as this massive e-commerce brand, which they are. They're one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world. The data looks like they recently became America's largest clothing retailer, which for a lot of us came out of nowhere. They're one of America's largest supermarket chains when they bought Whole Foods, and they've continued to expand their offerings there. They're one of America's largest Cloud services providers. But I think one of the interesting things about Amazon's secrets to success and to growth is the company's found that by being its own first best customer, it can unlock lots of other things. You think about Fulfilled by Amazon. This is a service that works well for its third-parties and also works well for Amazon, because it's its first best customer and its fulfillment centers. Then you think about Amazon Web Services, it's the same thing. Amazon was its best customer for cloud services, and now we have AWS. I think when you look at Amazon's future and you think about its potential, things like telehealth. If telehealth is going to work out for Amazon as a big commercial bet, it's going to be because Amazon becomes its own first best customer for its internal needs, and then is able to leverage that for meaningful profit. I think to me that's the big thing that really sums up Amazon.

Chokkavelu:Matt with Microsoft.

Frankel: Without Microsoft, you probably wouldn't be seeing me right now. I'm doing this on a Windows PC, and I'm reading my notes off of a Word document. So this wouldn't be going on right now if it weren't for Microsoft. They're famous, like I said, for their Windows operating system and its Office productivity tools, both of which are dominant in their markets and are really almost insulated from competition risk at this point. Microsoft, they also have the LinkedIn social network, they have the Azure Cloud platform, which is gaining market share on Amazon. Anyone who gains market share on Amazon is pretty impressive in my book. Also a large presence in the gaming industry with their Xbox consoles, a lot of other computing hardware they offer such as their tablets. Very profitable company. Currently has over $130 billion of cash. Like Apple, really deep-pocketed company to grow through acquisitions or innovation as they see fit, and expecting over $160 billion of revenue. What can you really say about Microsoft? Out of all the viewers, I'm willing to bet that over half of them are watching this using Microsoft products.

Chokkavelu:Right on. The last one before we get to the really fun stuff, Jason with Alphabet.

Hall: Most people know what is Google. Do you guys believe it's been over five years ago now since the company changed its name to Alphabet? But that's still the core business, it remains really important, generated over $100 billion in revenue last year. But you also have YouTube, which interestingly enough, a lot of people might not remember back, YouTube was an acquisition that originally Google made, but you combine it, and that's $124 billion in revenue between Google and YouTube, and its ad revenues that continue to drive this business. You also have Google Cloud. It's been surprising how late to the party Google has been, Alphabet has been, in terms of Cloud services, because this is a company that was built in the Cloud. This was maybe the first Cloud company in terms of the kind of scale that we think about, but they've really seemed to have turned on the engines there to be a real player in the Cloud. Google Cloud and YouTube are really fast-growing. They have a lot of ground to make up to make them as relevant as Google search is. But the end of the day, you think about Google, you're thinking about "other bets," you're thinking about its ability to find something that's going to be the something next. Do we think it's going to happen? We hope so. I know management hopes so, because that's where the company is trying to find its new big winners. Honestly, it's been a long time since they came out with the next big winner.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

See the original post:

Which of the 5 Biggest Tech Companies Is the Best Buy Now? - The Motley Fool

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is once again at the center of a major political debate, with momentum building for an overhaul of the statute that many view as having served a critical role in the rise of big tech and social media. On March 25, the heads of the big tech trio Facebook, Google and Twitter testified before the House Commerce Committee, defending their Internet platforms against fierce attacks from lawmakers on both sides on the companies content moderation policies and practices. While the Democrats and Republicans may differ on the nature of the shortcomings of Section 230, there appears to be a growing consensus among lawmakers that Congress should take action to make big tech accountable for conduct taking place on their platforms.

Section 230, which was passed in 1996 when the Internet was still in its infancy, provides online platforms, such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, immunity1 against a range of laws for third-party user-generated content (UGC) hosted or published on their platforms. It was the intent of Congress to promote the free exchange of information and ideas over the Internet and to encourage voluntary monitoring for offensive or obscene material. Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., 339 F.3d 1119, 1122 (9th Cir. 2003). Congress recognized that online platforms did not serve the function of a publisher itself, but were merely the conduit for such information. Congress was concerned that tort-based lawsuits could chill speech and innovation in the new and burgeoning Internet medium and that imposing tort liability on intermediaries was simply another form of intrusive government regulation of speech. Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997).

In particular, the Section 230 debate centers on two substantive provisions:

(1) Section 230(c)(1) states that a provider or user of an interactive computer service (e.g., an online platform or, Internet service provider) is not deemed to be the publisher or speaker of UGC. In essence, this removes the legal responsibilities that would ordinarily fall on publishers shoulders with regard to third-party content, such as claims of defamation, invasion of privacy, negligence, false advertising and unfair competition. See Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1122 (Internet publishers are treated differently from corresponding publishers in print, television and radio).

To put this into present context, in instances where UGC is published online touting fake COVID-19 vaccines or dangerous Tide Pod challenges, or promoting violence and hate speech, the online publishers essentially bear no civil responsibility for publishing such content. And, indeed, this lack of accountability is giving lawmakers heartburn. Your platforms are my biggest fear as a parent, noted Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) during the March 25 hearing.

(2) Section 230(c)(2) states that a provider or user of an interactive computer service shall not be held liable where it voluntarily takes action in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that it considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.

While this seems straightforward at first glance, both the phrases otherwise objectionable and good faith are undefined in the statute and have drawn the ire of many critics, with some arguing that online platforms interpret the statute broadly to justify their politically motivated actions.

The Department of Justice conducted a review of Section 230 in 2020 and recommended, among other things, to (i) replace vague terminology for the catch-all otherwise objectionable language and (ii) clarify the meaning of good faith as it should encourage platforms to be more transparent and accountable to their users, rather than hide behind blanket Section 230 protections.2 In September 2020, the Justice Department submitted draft legislation to Congress on behalf of the Trump administration based on such recommendation.

Courts have grappled with statutory interpretation as well. The Ninth Circuit in Enigma Software Group USA, LLC v. Malwarebytes, Inc. held that providers do not have unfettered discretion to declare online content objectionable and that blocking and filtering decisions that are driven by anticompetitive animus are not entitled to immunity under section 230(c)(2). 946 F.3d 1040, 1049 (9th Cir. 2019).

In contrast, in February, the Second Circuit in Domen v. Vimeo unanimously sided with the defendant for unilaterally removing videos that it deemed to be in violation of the platforms own policy of posting videos that harass, incite hatred or include discriminatory or defamatory speech. Plaintiffs sued under a number of state laws for censorship, and Vimeo obtained dismissal of the claims under CDA immunity grounds. The Second Circuit affirmed the district courts decision, noting that 230(c)(2) is a broad provision that bars liability where online providers restrict access to content that they consider objectionable (emphasis in the original) 2021 WL 922749 (2d Cir. March 11, 2021).

While the recent debate on Section 230 has generally been focused on big techs lack of adequate content moderation or overly aggressive content moderation, brands have a major stake in any Section 230 reforms due to the brands increasing reliance on social media platforms and UGC on their own digital channels to communicate with their customers and promote their products.

First, Section 230 impacts brand safety and awareness. Online platforms earn billions of dollars annually displaying brand advertisements on their sites. Those premium ads may be placed on pages or forums touting fake news, inciting violence or promoting illicit conduct. These practices can harm trusted brands, which consumers may associate with the harmful content. Society takes a hit as well, with consumers believing the content is valid simply because a trusted brand appears to endorse it. Accordingly, changes in Section 230 may impact how brands advertise on online platforms in the future.

Second, brands may be entitled to qualified immunity under Section 230 as a provider of an interactive computer service. When a brand allows its customers to post product reviews on its website or participate in any UGC promotion hosted by the brand, the brand could arguably be deemed to be a provider of an interactive computer service to the extent that it is merely acting as a platform without adopting any content posted by the customers. In fact, in a famous case involving a UGC promotion conducted by Quiznos in 2010, Quiznos claimed Section 230 immunity to combat Subways false advertising claims relating to an online contest hosted on Quiznos website where contestants posted UGC videos comparing the two chains sandwiches. Doctors Associates, Inc. v. QIP Holders LLC, 2010 WL 669870 (D. Conn. Feb. 19, 2010). Subway did not challenge Quiznos claim that it was a provider of an interactive computer service; instead, the dispute centered on whether Quiznos was actively responsible for the creation and development of disparaging representations about Subway in the UGC, which the court said was a question for the jury. The case settled out of court without answering this question.

Section 230 is arguably one of the most important pieces of Internet legislation that has hastened the exponential growth of the Internet and digital advertising. Brands and the advertising industry have both benefited and suffered from the broad immunity available under Section 230. However, with the rising chorus of politicians and consumer advocacy groups demanding Section 230 reforms after a tumultuous year of disinformation and misinformation mayhem online, the future of Section 230 in its current form is uncertain. Any amendments to Section 230 could have a significant impact on how both big tech and brands conduct business as they re-evaluate such risks.

Special thanks to Manatt transactional associate Kendrick Coq for contributing valuable time and research assistance to this article.

1. Section 230(e) expressly provides that its immunity provisions will not apply to (1) federal criminal laws, (2) intellectual property laws, (3) any state law that is consistent with Section 230, (4) the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, and (5) certain civil actions or state prosecutions where the underlying conduct violates specified federal laws prohibiting sex trafficking.

2. Section 230Nurturing Innovation or Fostering Unaccountability? U.S. Department of Justice, June 2020 (available at https://www.justice.gov/file/1286331/download).

More:

Section 230 Under Assault: Its Not Just a Big Tech Problem - JD Supra

NEW YORK (GZERO MEDIA) - Should wealthy individuals and nations concentrate on the Earth instead of space?

Pulitzer Prize-winning climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert says that technology leaders like Mr Jeff Bezos and Mr Elon Musk should shift more of their focus to fighting for our own planet's survival, instead of space exploration.

"We're doing as much as we can to make life difficult on planet Earth for ourselves. But there's virtually nothing we could do to make it as difficult as life on Mars, where there's, among other things, no oxygen," said Ms Kolbert.

The two tech tycoons have stepped up space exploration efforts at a time when calls for further investments to protect the environment are going up.

According to The Guardian, Mr Bezos has to sell US$1 billion (S$1.33 billion) of Amazon stock annually to fund his space exploration company, Blue Origin, while Mr Musk's SpaceX was this week awarded with a US$2.9 billion contract to put humans on the moon.

Speaking toAmerican political scientist Ian Bremmer about the impact of the developing world on climate change, Ms Kolbert said that equity is an enormous issue and one of the great challenges of trying to imagine a way through to 2100.

She added that the United States must lead the way in countering climate change alongside developing countries.

"If we want to meet, for example, the target set by the UN, the changes need to happen in those parts of the world that are the big emitters... The US is the single biggest emitter in a historical sense... And we (America) have to show that there are different ways of developing," she said.

The conversation comes just days ahead of US President Joe Biden's live-streamed virtual Leaders Summit on Climate on April 22 and 23, involving nearly 40 world leaders.

This GZERO media video is being shown here as part of a media partnership agreement with The Straits Times.

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GZERO VIDEO: The climate cost of big tech's space obsession - The Straits Times

from the all-over-the-map dept

It's become quite clear over the past few years that the Republicans' platform these days is "punish those who disagree with us," or, in the shorter vernacular: "cry moar, libs." This becomes blatantly clear as you look at the newly released "Big Tech Accountability Platform" that the Republicans in the House have released (coming from the ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers). The platform actually starts out making some amount of sense, but note that it will ignore all of that within a single page. The principles laid out are actually good ones -- if the plan actually followed them (which it does not):

1. We will protect free speech: Republicans worked hard to repeal the FederalCommunications Commissions Fairness Doctrine and we will not advocate for a newone.

2. We will be mindful of small businesses and entrepreneurship: Any policy we pursuewill balance these essential interests to preserve competition.

3. We will promote American tech leadership and innovation: We will continue topromote American global leadership while working to address issues here at home.

You could build a good platform around those pointers. But, this is not that. On the very next page, it lists out its legislative "concepts" for Section 230 reform, which quickly show how things go off the rails.

Legislative Concept 1: Limit the Right of Exclusion

a. Define Big Tech companies as places of public accommodation and prohibitdiscrimination based on political affiliation and/or viewpoint.

b. Alternatively, define Big Tech companies as places of public accommodation andlimit liability protections to content moderation processes that provide a measureof due process to users.

So, uh, remember that whole thing about respecting free speech and not bringing back the fairness doctrine? This legislative concept is literally bringing back the fairness doctrine. It's also unconstitutional as it attacks the 1st Amendment rights of companies not to be compelled to host speech they don't want to host.

Perhaps even more incredible is that while the first legislative concept is basically "moderate less," the second legislative concept is "moderate more"!

Legislative Concept 2: Require Reasonable Moderation Practices

a. Require Big Tech companies to implement and maintain reasonable moderationpractices to address illegal drug sales; child exploitation, including childpornography and trafficking; targeted harassment or bullying of users under theage of 18; terrorism; counterfeit products and materials sales; and all other illegalcontent on their platforms.

b. Failure to implement and maintain such reasonable moderation practices is aviolation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act.

c. Such companies may be liable for content decisions related to content includedabove but may assert liability protections if they implement and maintainreasonable moderation practices.

This shows how totally unprincipled and ignorant the Republicans are on this topic. It's kind of the standard response of those who don't even understand the basics of content moderation. The assumption is always that there's some perfect level of moderation -- less moderation of speech we like, and more moderation of speech we dislike. But that assumes everyone agrees on which speech is liked and which speech is not. And that's not how any of this works.

This isn't a Goldilocks fairy tale, in which some moderation is too much, and some moderation is too little, and you can just turn the dials and find the kind of moderation that is "just right." And legislative proposals that pretend otherwise only show their complete disconnect from reality.

And they're not done yet.

Legislative Concept 3: Limit Liability to Protected Speech

a. Modify Section 230 to only provide liability protection for moderation of speechthat is not protected by the First Amendment or specifically listed in the statute.

Uh, yikes? This might depend on what's "listed in the statute," but already listing types of speech that get immunity and that do not would raise serious 1st Amendment issues. But beyond that, it's not even clear what this means? If it means that 1st Amendment protected speech no longer gets 230 protections then, um, won't sites be much, much quicker to pull down all sorts of content? This would mean no 230 protections over abuse, harassment, hate speech, etc. Under such a proposal, you'd think that Republicans spreading disinformation would be at serious risk of having all their accounts banned. I know that the Democrats might like this, but it seems like a bizarre thing for Republicans to suggest.

Legislative Concept 4: Remove Liability Protections

a. Remove liability protection under Section 230 for content moderation decisionsmade by Big Tech companies that discriminate based on political affiliation or

viewpoint.

We've been over this before. It would violate the 1st Amendment and create compelled speech. Why do no politicians seem to understand this?

Legislative Concept 5: Require Appeals Processes

a. Require Big Tech companies to implement and maintain reasonable and userfriendly appeals processes for users to challenge content moderation decisions onconstitutionally protected speech as well as decisions about suspending ordeplatforming users. The appeals process must clearly explain the companyscontent moderation policies and identify the specific provision(s) the content oruser violated and why.

Why? Why is Congress interfering in the ways that private companies run their business? Most companies (and all large companies) do have an appeals process already. But mostly all these kinds of proposals do is serve to make it a lot more costly for websites to suspend bad actors. It's like an "all trolls get to troll" act, and often is used to test the boundaries of what people can get away with. It's a perfect tool for bad actors.

Legislative Concept 6: Carve Out Big Tech Companies from Section 230

a. Carve out Big Tech companies and/or only those that are specifically engaged incertain activities, such as hosting social media platforms and app stores, fromSection 230 liability protections while retaining current liability protections for allnew entrants and small companies.

b. Repeal Section 230 protections for companies engaged in targeted behavioraladvertising.

It's unclear how either of these ideas does anything even remotely useful. I mean, you could carve big companies out of 230 and they'd survive, but all it would likely do is lead to a lot of wasteful litigation. It would also almost certainly lead the companies to be a lot more aggressive in taking down content, and would then rely on the 1st Amendment to protect those decisions. As for connecting 230 to advertising practices, we've seen a few bills that try to do that and no one has ever explained what useful thing that does -- other than basically attack one particular business model.

Nearly every one of these proposals doesn't seem to have any principled argument behind it. There's no policy rationale at all. It's entirely "big tech is bad, big tech likes 230, let's take 230 away from big tech." That's not leading. That's regulating based on perceived grievances.

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Filed Under: big tech, cathy mcmorris rodgers, content moderation, fairness doctrine, free speech, republicans, section 230

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Republican's 'Big Tech Accountability' Platform Calls For Both More And Less Moderation, And A 'Not Fairness Doctrine' Fairness Doctrine - Techdirt

The House Judiciary committee has approved astaff report alleging that Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google abused their tremendous power by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extractingvaluable data from the people and businesses that rely on them.

The report's approval, which passed by a vote of 24-17, is seen as likely to spur new antitrust legislation.

The450-page report, released last October by the House antitrust subcommittee, alleges that the four techcompanies maintained their market dominance by copying or acquiring competitive rivals, and engaged in self-preferencing, predatory pricing, or exclusionary conduct.

Companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons, thereport stated.

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Among other accusations, the report said Facebook used its data advantage to create superior market intelligence to identify nascent competitive threats and then acquire,copy, or kill these firms.

Google allegedly used its search monopoly to misappropriate content from third parties and to boost Googles own inferior vertical offerings,while imposing search penalties to demote third-party vertical providers, the report stated.

Shortly after the report was released, the U.S. government and various states broughtantitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook.

The report's recommendations included forced break-ups, as well as new legislation that would make it more difficult for large companies toacquire other businesses.

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House Committee Approves Antitrust Report Recommending Curbs On Big Tech 04/16/2021 - MediaPost Communications

Its no secret that America spends on health care. In 2019, that spending reached $3.8T ($11.6k per person). By 2028, its projected to hit $6.2T.

To the folks in Big Tech, any number with a T means one thing: opportunity.

The company announced the $19.7B acquisition of Nuance Communications, known for its AI transcription tools for health care professionals.

Nuance has a healthy following among

Doctors can use Nuance tech which is already integrated with Microsoft Teams to record conversations and automatically transcribe notes.

Cook, Pichai, and Bezos want in, too:

Bezos has also gone one step further, debuting the Amazon Halo thats capable of calculating body fat (of which Bezos has none).

If history is any indication, Big Techs success in health care is hardly a given:

Regardless, the digitization of health care is a huge market, and Big Tech is gearing up for battle.

See original here:

Health care is the latest Big Tech battleground - The Hustle

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has put what he called woke mega-corporations on notice, particularly tech platform giants including Facebook and Google.

However, new antitrust legislation he proposed could place drastic new restrictions on all sorts of big businesses.

Despite some similarities to a recent antitrust reform bill from Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, bipartisan momentum behind Hawleys bill is likely to be tepid at best considering his polarizing push to contest the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6 certifying Joseph Biden as president. Still, the legislation could step up congressional dialogue around updating the governments approach to defining what anti-competitive behavior looks like in a tech-ruled era.

Hawleys bill is bold and could start a more vibrant discussion around antitrust reform in the Senate, suggestedBarry Pupkin, a senior partner focused on antitrust at law firm Squire Patton Boggs.Itseems sort of, I guess, radical, he said. I think you straitjacket a lot of possibly decent transactions, Pupkin continued, adding, I think though, it starts a dialogue.

So, whats so radical about it? Heres whatHawleysTrust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act,introducedon April 12, proposes:

The Democratic bill

On the other side of the aisle, anantitrust reform bill introducedin February by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, gives both the FTC and the Justice Department, the federal governments other trust-busting agency,more penalty power against companies, more resources and more money for hiring additional personnel. Heres whats important:

What the bills have in common

There is a key similarity between the two bills.Notably, said Pupkin, both Klobuchars and Hawleys proposals seek to shift the burden of proof away from the federal government to the defendant. Hawleys bill requires the party making the acquisition, rather than government regulators, to establish evidence that an acquisitions pro-competitive effects outweigh any anti-competitive impact. Klobuchars bill also would require corporations making acquisitions that are extremely large or could significantly increase market concentration to prove that snapping up other companies wouldnt harm competition.

Youre changing the burden of proof, said Pupkin. Right now, he said, The government has the burden of proving illegality.

Other big tech antitrust lawsuits are underway

Efforts related to anti-competitive practices among the big digital platforms are already underway at both the FTC and the DOJ.The FTC in December launched itsinvestigation into Facebook, alleging the company has maintained its monopoly on the social media industry by acquiring emerging rival Instagram in 2012 and mobile messaging appWhatsApp in 2014.The DOJ, several states and even a publisher group have filedantitrust lawsuits against Google, arguing that aspects of its search, digital ad business and decisions about third-party cookies are anti-competitive.

Hawleys history of fighting big techWhile Hawleys bill would affect all sorts of large companies beyond the tech industry, he has taken special interest in fighting tech platforms, arguing they have too much power and make biased decisions that stifle conservative voices.

A small group of woke mega-corporations control the products Americans can buy, the information Americans can receive and the speech Americans can engage in, said Hawley in a press statement introducing his bill.

Hawley has been a vocal critic of Facebook and Twitter for their decisions to ban prominent conservatives from their platforms for posting false or misleading information. These monopoly powers control our speech, our economy, our country and their control has only grown because Washington has aided and abetted their quest for endless power, he continued in the statement.

In addition to filing antitrust suits against Google and Facebook while attorney general of Missouri, in the last Congress he introducedreforms to Section 230, which protects websites from liabilities associated with information posted by others on their sites. His proposalwould stop large tech firms from discrimination when enforcing terms of service and allow users to sue them for breaching their contractual duty of good faith. And hesent a letter last year to TwitterCEO Jack Dorsey arguing the company did not deserve immunity under the Section 230 law after Twitter labeled as incorrect or misleading former President Donald Trumps tweets making false claims about the legitimacy of President Joseph Bidens presidential win.

Hawleys bill is unlikely to garner support from the left, butSome elements of Hawleys bill that would drastically limit business growth and advantage through acquisition might appeal to Democrats or progressives, suggested Pupkin. However, considering the senators reputation as a staunch Trump backer who led the push to block acceptance of the 2020 Electoral College results, Pupkin said the political optics would likely deter any bipartisan support or even real momentum behind the legislation.

Given Hawleys history in the last three months, particularly around Jan. 6, I think hes going to have tough time getting much of anything through, said Pupkin. A lot of Democrats might be willing to go along with legislation that prevents giant companies from growing, he suggested, but they wouldnt be able to go along with Hawley.

https://digiday.com/?p=410846

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Cheat Sheet: What a radical GOP antitrust bill that would kill big tech acquisitions has in common with the Democrats push for reform - Digiday

A few months after its beta version went live in March last year, social audio app Clubhouse had around 1.5k users. Fast track to January this year, and it hit 2m. A month later it had reached 10m and, across the same time period, its valuation has risen from $100m to $1bn.

Clubhouse is the most famous platform, but its not the only one. Its part of a growing cohort of new social media trying to capitalise off an increasing interest in audio content.

Jeremiah Owyang, a tech analyst and investor, describes audio as the Goldilocks medium: its not as impersonal as text but also not as invasive as video something particularly important for the Zoom-fatigued user.

For Leni Andronicos, the founder of new social audio app Logcast which went live on the App Store in Sweden this week the move to audio is all about users desires for a more authentic media.

Its almost like weve done a full 360 on the media evolution, she says. I believe the reason audio has become so popular is because, ultimately, language makes us human and language is the oldest form of building community and social relationships. Its through language that we get to know each other.

But things arent all rosy in audio app land. There are reports that, after the initial flux of new joiners to Clubhouse, retention is falling and so are app downloads.

Theres also a growing number of Clubhouse sceptics, including Twitters head of product Shaan Puri who, in this thread, laid out why he thinks the app will fail.

Puri said that the app has an interesting-ness problem: apps like TikTok and YouTube have millions of pieces of content to show their users, and an algorithm to select the right stuff. Clubhouse doesnt have that, because the content shown to the user has to be live.

Users need to be shown good content within seven seconds of opening an app, Puri said, and thats hard when you only have live (and therefore less) content to choose from. There are also those who say that the app just did well initially because the world was in lockdown and people wanted someone to chat to.

So, if this new cohort of audio apps can compete with Clubhouse, can they overcome the problems levelled at it too?

Andronicos says shes grateful for what Clubhouse has done for audio content. She started building Logcast in September 2019, six months before Clubhouses team started and back then, she says, investors didnt see why they should fund social audio.

Im thankful for Clubhouse because it accelerated the social audio space by at least three to five years, and made audio one of the hottest industries for investors.

Still, she maintains, Logcast is very different from Clubhouse. The central idea is to create a more informal version of podcasting, and to make the form social.

Users record logs of up to 10 minutes and upload them onto the app. Other users can follow their favourite creators and like their content or direct message them.

In an attempt to encourage authentic content, the app doesnt allow pre-recorded uploads; instead, users have one shot at pressing the record button, recording the content and publishing.

We want Gen Z teenagers in a couple of years to say oh whats a podcast, I only log!

We see ourselves in the sweet spot between Spotify who look after full length podcasts and Clubhouse, which is about live talks and jump-ins. Logcast is in the middle, for people who dont feel comfortable recording a longform podcast, but also dont feel confident jumping into a live conversation.Logcast doesnt rely on live content so perhaps could overcome the problem that Puri suggested Clubhouse is encountering; but it would still need to curate a lot of content before it was able to offer users the same instant gratification that apps like TikTok and YouTube achieve through their algorithms.

Although Logcast is building a mobile app, the companys really building it for the Airpods generation, says Andronicos.

I really believe that the next major computing interface will be Airpods and we wont be walking around holding phones anymore, well be using Airpods to communicate, build community and share social updates, she says.

We want Gen Z teenagers in a couple of years to say oh whats a podcast, I only log!

At present, Logcasts early users include comedians, entrepreneurs, influencers, parents and wellness experts.

There are a number of other companies building social audio apps, a lot of which are based in the US.

American entrepreneur Mark Cuban is developing an app, Fireside Chat, which is described as a next-gen podcast app where users can record live conversations then record and broadcast them. The app will also have built-in analytics so creators can work out which content performs best and monetise it.

In the US, theres also Discord, which runs audio hangout rooms for groups and Chalk, which does a similar thing providing secure voice hangout rooms.

In Europe, alongside Logcast, theres Soapbox, built by a Swiss and German team.

Soapbox differs from Logcast and Clubhouse in that it wants to create serendipitous conversations between people, rather than being about semi-professionalised content creation.

Clubhouse is your conference. Soapbox is your living room, says Dean Eigenmann, the apps founder. The app places you into a conversation with strangers and provides mini games for users to play together. The next iteration of the app will match users together based on their interests.

Our mission is to provide a space for people to have naturally flowing conversations in a way that builds upon and enhances the real life experience of hanging out with friends and meeting new people, says Eigenmann.

Theres also Anyone, which, like Logcast, is based in Sweden (the country tends to do well on audio, following in Spotifys footsteps). Anyone allows people to schedule five minute conversations with people offering advice, from financial guidance to relationship support.

As well as new companies popping up to produce social audio apps, big tech companies like Twitter, Spotify and Facebook are also looking to capitalise off the interest in voice content.

In March, Spotify acquired Locker Room, a live audio app where, at present, users talk specifically about sports.

Spotify has said itll expand the areas Locker Room covers to include music and culture too, and use it to give professional athletes, writers, musicians, songwriters and podcasters opportunity to host real-time discussions with their fans.

The acquisition forms part of the companys future of formats of audio manifesto, set out in February this year, which highlighted the need for podcasting to move beyond being a one-way street from creators to listeners with little opportunity for feedback.

Twitter, meanwhile, has been working on Twitter Spaces, which is in test mode but is expected to be rolled out to more users very soon. The idea is that a host could start a room where followers can join and discuss a topic.

It was also reported that Twitter tried to buy Clubhouse itself, with people close to the matter saying a figure of $4bn was discussed.

Facebooks also reported to be working on a feature to rival Clubhouse. Last year, the company launched Rooms, which allows users to video call in groups, and its rumoured to be working on an audio-only equivalent.

Sameer Singh is an investor who also advises startups on network effects. He used to work at App Annie, and is interested in new forms of social media.

Getting the network right is still a challenge for social audio; its easy to create something that goes viral then falls off a cliff, Singh says. Building something that people flock to for the novelty is relatively achievable, but its a lot harder to make something with a network that sticks around.

People are more likely to tap into Spaces to see whats going on. That behaviour isnt likely on Clubhouse.

The biggest challenge with audio is that if you want to do live conversations, you need an audience who you know will be there. Thats hard if your product isnt very here and now already.

That puts Twitter in a strong position, Singh says. If it can figure out the strategy for Spaces, he says, Twitter will have a huge advantage because it already has a high level of live engagement on its news feed.

People are more likely to tap into Spaces to see whats going on. That behaviour isnt likely on Clubhouse.

This means apps like Logcast, which are focused on asynchronous content and arent trying to compete with Twitter on a live engagement front, could do well.

Theres room for Clubhouse to do well too, Singh says, if it focuses on being a scheduled destination app, something its moving increasingly towards. But if Twitter can work out a way to hack scheduled conversations as well, it could come to dominate on both fronts.

Freya Pratty is Sifteds news reporter. She tweets from @FPratty

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Clubhouse, big tech or newcomers: who'll win the social audio race? - Sifted

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The outlook for the branch, the need for a much better digital onboarding experience, the future of relationships between financial institutions, fintechs and big techs are all hot topics in banking. But Jim Marous says making sure your financial institution has a future comes down to one word: Google.

Marous, Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand, CEO of the Digital Banking Report and host of the Banking Transformed Podcast, is one of the leading commentators on digital change in banking. He spent some time in banking and still remembers with pleasure the smell of fresh ink on product brochures. But thats nostalgia, he admits, and not the present, let alone the future.

The reality is that you have to realize that in the world were living in now, people start shopping for financial accounts on Google, says Marous during a debate with fellow industry analyst Ron Shevlin, Research Director at Cornerstone Advisors and author of the Forbes Fintech Snark Tank blog. If they dont find your bank or credit unions offerings through paid or organic search, they will find the likes of Chime or one of the big five banks, says Marous. And after that, any institution that offers a clunky or only partly digital onboarding experience risks losing the prospect after all.

During a pair of debates sponsored by MX Marous and Shevlin debated each other (as well as the status quo) concerning the future of banking and fintech.

For his part, Shevlin says people make too much about fintechs ability to score huge wins simply by the word of mouth of ecstatic fans.

You keep hearing how they do alternative marketing and that they dont do traditional TV or print advertising, says Shevlin. But he says the really successful fintech players spend buckets of money on marketing.

Chime spends $50, $60 million a year on TV alone, says Shevlin. This is a key part of what makes fintechs repeated funding rounds so important. Getting off the ground and staying airborne demands hunks of marketing spending.

But Marous believes that even with lots of marketing dollars or great word of mouth, the growing room for fintechs isnt as wide and as deep as some bank and credit union executives might think.

Im going to argue that its hard if youre not really something new and different, says Marous. Im not so sure there are many new and different fintechs out there. There are different flavors of the same themes.

In some ways the pairs discussion revealed that even fintechs, the wunderkinds of finance for a decade, have their own challenges, including from big techs like Google, Apple, Amazon and more.

Shevlin says that many fintechs, especially those coming from overseas, insist that what they bring to the market is a better customer experience, especially on mobile devices. However, he says he doesnt see the bank experience lacking, especially not among the largest U.S. banks.

And it is not as if every fintech or challenger bank steps up to the plate and smacks a home run. For every Chime or Dave there are others that have morphed into something else or disappeared.

I think a lot of those challengers that failed did so because they were not focused on solving the right problems, says Shevlin.

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The common wisdom is that banks sit on huge amounts of incredibly valuable data that can be turned into customer insights that will yield amazing results. The argument is that banks just dont know how to extract the value.

Shevlin offers this counterpoint: A good deal of the data isnt all that valuable in the first place. Often financial institutions completely delude themselves when they think, Oh, we have so much great data internally. They dont.

However, even what they do have could be useful. To a large extent, incumbent institutions just go to market with generic products and services and dont really bake their data into it, Shevlin points out.

Marous puts it another way: Its not that banks dont have data or dont utilize it. Theyve got to move from making great reports to making great experiences. Too often data doesnt get deployed outside of the IT department.

Data comes both from without and from within, of course. As an example of a fintech that makes great use of data, Shevlin cites Aspiration. The company offers banking services to consumers who place high value on their money supporting environmentally and socially conscious activities. Part of how it enforces that is a regimented system for scoring companies for their behavior and policies.

Separately, Shevlin says that there is a great deal of hype in the market concerning lending on the basis of alternative data. Different people define this different ways, ranging from increasingly accepted measures such as a record of making rent payments on a timely basis to more unusual methods.

Im still a little bit amazed that there are people who think they can make lending decisions based on who your social media contacts are, says Shevlin.

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The debaters looked at two masters of data analytics who have had strong interest in financial services: Amazon and Google.

Marous continues to be impressed by Amazon and its ability to pinpoint products for consumers based on data. He sees Amazons revenues as the ultimate funding vehicle for competing with banking institutions.

If Amazon put together a checking account tomorrow and offered me $250 to open one, Im there, says Marous. They could open millions of accounts.

He believes banking has found itself to be in a very narrow space, in terms of the activities it can pursue, while Amazon, true to its A to Z roots, can get into nearly anything. It has already done more than nibbling in some financial areas. In fact, he says Amazons success and size enables it to do things no banking institution could.

Case in point is product returns: To cut costs, Amazon sometimes will replace an item without asking the consumer to return it. Wrong color? Wrong size? Keep it. We got this, is Amazons attitude, he says. Theres not a financial institution out there that could say that.

Shevlin doesnt see anything like Amazon Bank happening. First, he says, the regulatory burdens of actually being a bank are unappealing. Why go there when you can partner? Amazon has done that, and Google, with its Google Plex partnerships, has as well.

Beyond this, Shevlin made a picks and shovels argument. Both Amazon and Google make huge amounts of money serving the cloud computing needs of financial institutions and can reap those profits without being regulated. So why, he asks, would they endanger that?

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Fintechs have long brought unbankerly speed to the table. People have even been willing to pay much higher interest rates on small business loans, for example, in exchange for the speed that online nonbank business lenders began providing.

Shevlin and Marous were asked if speed and reliability trump security today.

Admitting to being snarky, Shevlin says they clearly do. If you have a security breach, you can always blame it on someone else, he says. More seriously, he says that consumers have grown so used to hearing about data breaches that that alone wouldnt turn them off unless the app or other service already lacked speed and reliability.

Indeed, the issue of trust in fintechs came up in this context.

Marous points out that many apps break up the monolithic banking relationship into smaller parts that do one or two things really well. More recently the movement has been for the narrower fintechs to start broadening their offerings and approaches.

If these organizations scale to different areas of banking that theyre not currently in Im going to trust them because theyve proven their worth, says Marous.

For his part, Shevlin isnt sold on trust in fintechs. They do deliver on their promises, he says, but they part ways with traditional institutions in the area of risk management.

It is built into banks culture to be risk averse, says Shevlin, but the startups in this space, especially those that go after consumers, have less of that risk aversion.

( sponsored content )

Much of the discussion recounted above reflects very current thinking in financial services practices. The thing of it is, for every traditional institution that has been sweating to innovate, there are many more that havent done much to adapt to financial evolution.

Shevlin is pretty blunt about this: I dont think theres a single bank or credit union CEO out there who thinks that he or she and the rest of their management team has a legacy mindset. Even when they hear the word, legacy, they will tend to think of legacy computer processing.

Replacing old core systems is important, but what concerns Shevlin more is legacy thinking about financial services. Case in point: Having seen the dramatic shift to digital channels during the pandemic, many financial institutions are talking today about getting branches open again as if the last year hadnt happened.

People have to start thinking more about how technology can enable those person-to-person interactions that traditionally happened in branches, not necessarily to replace them, but to augment them, says Shevlin.

Marous says institutions have to hold onto legacy leaders experience while introducing new thinking. With their experience, the leaders have to pull the trigger to make change happen, he says.

The two experts differ markedly in their thinking of how to make change happen.

Marous portrays the typical employee base as full of scared people worried about becoming unemployed because of change. Banks and credit unions must train them for changing conditions and methods and for new roles. They still have a role, he says, because consumers want a humanized version of digital.

Such measures, and involving lower-level employees in transformation efforts, will help smooth the shifts. So will partnering up with providers who can help the institution and its people make the transition.

Shevlin believes that in recent years financial institution strategic planning has deteriorated into a budgeting exercise, with no real planning. Based on what he has seen so far, instead of taking a more serious look at all aspects of the future, post-Covid institutions seem to be focused on budgeting again.

So directors and managers need to focus harder on transformation. Shevlin says employees have a stake and ought to be involved in these discussions in some way, too, but that wont happen until leadership does its job.

Marous says the employee support will be critical once management and directors decide to get moving. A big catch-up challenge looms and he says institutions must get used to having five, six or even seven major transformation projects in motion at once.

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Digital Transformation Experts Debate Future of Banking, Big Tech & Fintech - The Financial Brand