Daily Archives: June 18, 2022

There Is Freedom in Not Having a Script: A Conversation with Uzma Aslam Khan – lareviewofbooks

Posted: June 18, 2022 at 1:50 am

UZMA ASLAM KHANS latest novel, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali (published by Westland India in 2019 and now available in the US from Deep Vellum) is a fictional account of the Andaman Islands under British and Japanese occupation, before and during World War II. With piercingly lucid attention, Uzma has drawn an intricate spiders web that is both a record and a refuge. (Nestled in the book is the story of the spider who saved the lives of Muhammad and his loyal companion by spinning a web over the mouth of the cave in which they hid.) Uzmas novel is an attempt to record the catastrophic consequences of imperial regimes while also honoring collaboratively made moments of safety and sanctuary among the colonized, including banished and incarcerated people, children, and the more-than-human world. Perhaps such possibilities are refuges unto themselves simultaneously invisible and glinting in plain sight.

Born in Pakistan, Uzma is the author of five novels that have been translated worldwide to critical acclaim. These include Trespassing, recipient of a Commonwealth Prize nomination in 2003; The Geometry of God, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2009; Thinner Than Skin, nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize and DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and winner of the French Embassy Prize for Best Fiction at the Karachi Literature Festival 2014. The daughter of Partition refugees, Uzma has lived in the Philippines, Japan, and England. She currently lives in Western Massachusetts. Our conversation unfolded across a series of documents emailed between us as March turned into April.

ARACELIS GIRMAY: In the books acknowledgments, you write of chancing upon a quote by a British politician who described a group of islands to which Indian prisoners were banished as a paradise. What arose in you when you read that British politicians word?

UZMA ASLAM KHAN: My first thought: I know almost nothing about these islands. I was a graduate student in Arizona, looking for another book in the library. It bothered me that Id been taught little of my history at my convent school in Karachi, where history arrived in a syllabus from Cambridge University. All I knew was the Urdu/Hindi name for the islands, Kala Pani. It means Black Water, indicating a place of absolute exile. Thats where the British sent anticolonial revolutionaries, whom they called terrorists. But the actual name of the islands, Andaman, meant little to me. So, when I found that quote, I felt Id been banished to an island without memory.

I went looking for a globe and found a spattering of freckles in a corner of the Indian Ocean. I had to know what had happened there. There was a single library stamp on the last page. I had a soulmate. I didnt find the book I was looking for, but I found the one I had to write. It took a long time almost 27 years. It involved learning and especially unlearning. A question loomed very large: how do I write into a void? Perhaps that single library stamp allowed me to jump.

In this work, everyones desires, strategies, and needs are thoroughly entangled. Entanglement is axiomatic a fact of our existence in the worlds inside and outside of your books pages. I am also thinking about the prison as a process by which members of the imperial regime exacted an ongoing humiliation and trauma upon those who were incarcerated. Can you talk about your relationship to these conditions of entanglement and isolation in your book?

I appreciate how you connect entanglement and isolation. Its where my research led me, even if, along the way, I had to shed the research to arrive at the writing. Let me explain. After I found that quote about the island paradise, I looked for true histories of the penal colony, but found hardly any. What I did find, unsurprisingly, was told from a male gaze. Though women were also exiled, because their removal carried a particular social and sexual stigma, in these sources not a single woman prisoner was named.

The first character that I wrote in The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali was the woman prisoner. In my earliest drafts, she had a name. Later, I called her Prisoner 218 D. But her story was taking forever to complete. I couldnt find the material needed to incorporate factual truth with the truth of my imaginings. I had her essence. I didnt have her words. They didnt sound accurate or feel true. I was becoming entangled in her world and isolated from its language.

The language was failing me because the research was failing me. Because of the colonial project itself, the selective erasure that its built upon, the isolation and trauma that comes with this erasure all of which are of course also alive in me. I needed to see that much of what I know comes through sources that omit people like me brown, Muslim women from the Global South. Though I continued to collect every article and image I could find, ultimately not finding all the facts grew to excite me. It forced me to imagine from scratch. There is freedom in not having a script.

To me, the tenderness with which you write is a kind of intervention of knowing that is in opposition to the colonial one. For instance, the roles that surveillance and record-keeping play in the brutalities of the imperial project, versus the knowing of the Mayakangne, Kwalakangne, and Dare winds. There is the intimate knowing between Priya, the chicken, and Nomi, the human. The third-person omniscient narration suggests, again, a different kind of knowing. How do you think about the memories and interiors of others within this much larger context of layered surveillance?

I love what you say about interventions of knowing. It reminds me of Edward Said on knowledge: Facts get their importance from interpretation [which] depend[s] on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment. When historical data privileges its own systems of knowledge, its hard to trust the archives. It wasnt till about 15 years into the book that I began finding alternative sources, inspiring my own interventions. A way perhaps to make fiction and an alternative record that I could trust.

Ill give examples. The titular character, Nomi, is made up. Her brother Zee is based on a historical figure. The first shot fired on South Andaman Island during the war was by a boy trying to save a chicken from Japanese soldiers. This actual event frames the opening chapter. Zee is based on the boy, Priya on the chicken. I took the liberty of giving Zee and Priya a loving sister.

The jailer, Cillian, is also based on a historical figure. I found reference to him in male prisoner testimonials. He is particularly feared by Prisoner 218 D. After the surrender of the Japanese, when the British reoccupied the islands, part of their strategy involved enlisting the help of former jailers. Cillian returns, with all the horrors that he took part in buried, along with my prisoners name, beneath an official narrative of white savior.

Too, the knowledge that you speak of between human and nonhuman. Its essential in all my books. For me, the physical world tells the emotional truth. One thats displaced when human and nonhuman reciprocity is displaced. So, for instance, the cost of war on indigenous fishermen because of underwater mines that removed them from their oldest food source and ally, the sea.

I cant say how I accessed these interiors. Love. Listening. A willingness to stay a long time, for instance, with the knowing of the winds that you mention. Interventions of knowing require immersion, empathy these are acts of faith. Theres a scene in the book in which an old man bemoans that the British never took their shoes off before entering a temple. I took my shoes off many times, yet I wasnt given permission to truly enter till I found Nomi.

Beloved Nomi Ali. Can you say more about your relationship with her? How she first came to you or you to her? How you carry her now that the book is complete?

I mentioned earlier that the woman prisoner was the first character I wrote, and she took a long time. In contrast, Nomi appeared years after I began, and didnt take as long. With her, the book found its momentum. The prisoner started the journey. Nomi completed it.

Theres a scene early on in which Nomi recites the names of as many bodies of water as drops in the bowl that shes carrying, while catching raindrops from a leaky ceiling. It was an image that stayed with me as I wrote her. Nomi collecting the Arabian Sea, Andaman Sea, Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean. Nomi as the keeper of seas, pooling in a bowl. Later, shes also the soils keeper. I feel this has been my task, too, as a storyteller and collector of histories familial, regional, global. At some point in the book, I touch upon the Partition of India into India and Pakistan, when refugees come to the islands. Like the prisoners and their children, the refugees ask what is left of the living with the death of the past. I was turning the question inward.

My fathers family are Partition refugees. He never spoke of the violence, but my paternal grandmother told me of the killing of her parents during the Partition riots. When I wrote this novel, what happened to Nomis father, Haider Ali, turned into an inversion of sorts of my great-grandparents Partition story. And there are other unexpected intersections between Nomis life and mine, those that touch me more directly, that Im only just beginning to see which is funny, given how long Ive been with the book. I wont risk spoilers, so will share only that Im also the youngest of two children, in a nuclear family of four that was broken by the grief of losing one child. Grief can make those closest to you cruel. The survivor child never stops carrying the grief her own and her familys and can recognize this particular kind of carrying in others, who are then lifted and given a home, as I do for Nomi, and she even more for me.

Yes, the brevity with which you explicitly refer to the Partition is devastating for the enormity of what is marked but unsaid. I wanted to hear from you about the moment in your book when Prisoner 218 D is in conversation with a beloved anticolonial comrade of her youth. This friend, Kaajal, refuses Gandhis summation that the female sex is not the weaker sex but the nobler, for her suffering. Kaajal rejects silent suffering. She says: I like anger. [] It wakes me up as a friend should. I am thinking of Audre Lordes 1981 essay The Uses of Anger. What are some of the uses of anger in this book and in the writing of this book?

I love this question. Earlier in that scene, Kaajal recalls her father saying, Anger isnt ladylike. And she asks the prisoner, Like which lady? I dont know any ladies who arent angry. After I wrote it, I made a list of words for unladylike women (later used for the prisoner). Virago. Harridan. Banshee. Minx. Shrew. Crone. Termagant, from the French termagaunt, an imaginary and violent Muslim deity.

The words become more loaded when the woman is of color. Then shes the angry Black or brown woman, a trope that functions like a panoptic gaze. So, I loved writing that scene between Kaajal and the prisoner. Later in the book, I loved writing the prisoner in an even wider range of emotions, and through her discovering the uses of anger in the book: expression, action, wholeness, art, visibility, triumph, opposition, allyship. Im thankful that you mentioned Audre Lorde. Who has more brilliantly drawn our attention to intersectional struggle? That scene between Kaajal and the prisoner has for me possible layers of attraction, though no reader has mentioned it yet. Lastly, do you know that Lorde, like Toni Morrison, was born on 2/18? I discovered it only now. My prisoners sole identification, on the wooden tag around her neck, is 218 D and the letter stands for dangerous.

Theres a scene in the book when the Japanese dentist-spy is surveying the Andaman, and readers see it as a small island between two island giants, the Empire of Japan and the British Isles. Each character has their own relationship with the concept island as a site of imprisonment and colonial expansion, or of escape and personal growth. For instance, Shakuntala, the Indian woman who runs her own farm. Could you speak of your relationship to islands?

As a child, I lived in Japan and the British Isles. Like many South Asians, Japan for me was haute Asia art, ceramics, fine cuisine. And the story Id learned of Japans alliance with Indian freedom fighters during World War II was a heroic one, of Japan helping India to fight the British.

As an adult, I lived on Oahu, in Hawaii. Though I was far from Pearl Harbor, being there helped me to recall my time in Tokyo, where Id apparently spoken a little Japanese (since forgotten). I had happy memories of Tokyo and troubled ones of London, though it was in London where I first recorded history I loved dogs and kept a secret journal of all the ones I met. In Hawaii, some childhood experiences found new homes through writing. For instance, Nomis teacher has a King Charles Spaniel. The headmaster of my school did too. Like Nomi, I was considered too dirty to play with the dog. The Japanese dentist-spy, who came to me in a flash, riding a bicycle, was perhaps a reincarnation of the kind man who helped me to steal a rose for my mother from the school garden in Tokyo.

It was in Oahu that I first learned of atrocities committed by the Japanese on the Andaman. I knew then that the book Id been writing was about a dual occupation. Being on the island also shifted how I measure time, distance, and proximity. Some images came very close, not only of my early childhood but also of my family resettling in Pakistan after leaving Japan and England. This was during the Cold War when the US fought the Soviets in Afghanistan through Pakistan. The Karachi that I grew up in was a battlefield between empires, though at one time it had been a fishing village. And now, in Hawaii, I seemed to fly to an in-betweenness from another time, one where borders are mapped by water. Possibly, this allowed me to find a language for characters who exist between empires and seas.

Aracelis Girmay is the author of three books of poems, most recentlythe black maria(BOA Editions, 2016), for which she was a finalist for the Neustadt Prize. An essayist, picture book maker, and teacher, she is also the current editor-at-large for the Blessing the Boats Selections and is on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund.

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Fort Monroes role as ‘Freedoms Fortress’ remembered ahead of Juneteenth – News 3 WTKR Norfolk

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HAMPTON, Va. Americas grim chapter of slavery began in 1619 in Hampton, where more than 20 enslaved Africans were traded to settlers in exchange for supplies.

They were taken, kidnapped and stolen for profit, said Tesha Vincent, a visitor engagement manager at the Fort Monroe Visitor and Education Center. I can only imagine the fear that was going through their minds as they were being walked on to shore.

The same shore and surrounding land would become Fort Monroe, a military installation that remained under the Union armys control when Virginia seceded and joined the Confederacy in 1861. In the spring of that year, three enslaved men in Hampton Roads Frank Baker, James Townsend and Shephard Mallory escaped their slave owners control and made the dangerous journey to Fort Monroe for a chance at freedom.

You can imagine the trepidation that theyre feeling, Vincent said. [They must have thought] 'If I could just get to Fort Monroe, then I can have my freedom.'"

At the end of their perilous journey to Fort Monroe, they faced Union General Benjamin Butler, who allowed the men to stay as contraband of war.

While Butlers decision was a political move to cripple the Confederacy by not returning enslaved people, it signaled to others enduring slavery that Fort Monroe was Freedoms Fortress.

The idea of freedom, just the fact that they can get close enough that they can even attempt to touch it, was enough for them to make this journey, Vincent said.

Thousands of enslaved people faced peril for the possibility of freedom at Fort Monroe. They built contraband camps near its borders. By 1863, President Lincoln created the Bureau of Colored Troops, allowing contrabands of war to enlist in the Union army.

On June 19, 1865 or Juneteenth as it is known today enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were the last to learn of their freedom months after the end of the Civil War.

[Slavery] was a horrific, very bleak, dark chapter in history, Vincent said. But they survived.

Fort Monroe offers self-guided walking tours and an interactive account of the sites history at the Fort Monroe Visitor and Education Center.

To mark Juneteenth, the Fort Monroe Theater is hosting the Wave of Freedom with Juneteenth Jazz Concert on Saturday, June 18 at 6 p.m. Admission is free.

On Sunday, June 19, Fort Monroe will be part of a virtual program hosted by the 400 Year African American History Commission at 3 p.m.

You can find a list of more Juneteenth celebrations across Hampton Roads here.

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Big Tech Clashes with Brick and Mortar Group over Liability in Privacy Hearing – Nextgov

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Big companies providing technology services shouldnt be able to hide behind their consumer-facing customers when seeking compliance with bipartisan federal privacy legislation, according to a witness who spoke in favor of provisions being considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

We think there are some innovations in this bill that are extremely helpful, that is, it spells out in statute what the various responsibilities are, for various entities in the internet ecosystem, said Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores. Some previous bills have left those things to contract. And that's just a prescription for saying the bigger company with more market power will decide who's liable and how these responsibilities get doled out.

Kantor testified before the committee Tuesday on a draft of the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, which has the support of leading House Democrats and Republicans as well as Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Kantor and fellow witness John Miller, senior vice president of policy and general counsel for the Information Technology Industry Council, both acknowledged the significance and credibility of the legislative effort given the span of partisan stalemate that precedes it over issues like the preemption of state privacy laws.

The compromise bill preempts all but a few specific state laws, including one that governs biometric information in Illinois. It describes responsibilities for covered entities, including the implementation of data protection measures deemed reasonable by the Federal Trade Commission. And covered entities are described as any entity that collects, processes or transfers the dataincluding personally identifiable informationto be protected.

But those functions are pretty broad, and one prominent policy measure that fits the dynamic Kantor described is Europe and the United Kingdoms General Data Protection Regulation.

The [draft American Privacy and Data Protection Act] does not carefully distinguish between the different types of entities that use data or their obligations, Miller said. In particular, the draft does not clearly differentiate the responsibilities of covered entities, or data controllers, and service providers, or data processors. This so-called controller-processor distinction is made clear not only in the GDPR, but in all five state laws. Given the complex and variable relationships between entities using data, it is essential to clearly delineate between the roles and responsibilities of controllers and processors for privacy law to function effectively, including to apportion potential liabilities, and the draft should be modified to more clearly define these entities rather than lumping them in their obligations together.

While GDPR distinguishes between data controllersentities making decisions about how the data is usedand data processors, which have fewer responsibilities under the law, it does describe situations in which multiple entities act as joint controllers. That should sound familiar to customers of cloud service providers struggling to implement a shared responsibility model with their vendors for ensuring cybersecurity.

Kantor said, while the bill takes a significant step in preventing big tech companies from negotiating away their responsibilities in the contracting process for joint control of data, with what are often boring old brick and mortar businesses, it should be further improved.

We appreciate that you've avoided that pitfall, he said. We do think that there's more that can be done in this bill to spell out those responsibilities, so that it's clear everybody needs to comply with each part of the bill There are ways in which some of these big technology companies, as service providers, will not need to fulfill those responsibilities. And that responsibility may fall on the brick and mortar business or other consumer facing business. And that liability we don't think is right. And frankly, we don't thinkfor consumersthat they should be put in the position of not getting the rights that it looks like they should have in the bill because those service providers can hide behind the customer facing business.

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Why Big Tech wants to be in your car so badly – The Hustle

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Last week, Apple unveiled updates to its CarPlay software available on 98% of new cars that expand its reach to the furthest ends of a cars instrument panel.

Amazon and Buick are streaming commercials showing a dad confusing his familys car for an Alexa (which is built in). The YouTube comments are harsh.

Google, too, is working on software the Android Automotive operating system (AAOS) which research firm Gartner predicts will power 70% of cars by 2028.

Whats the deal with these tech companies jumping in?

Consider this: The first time youre driven by an autonomous car something that could become normal in 20-30 years youre bewildered. The 10th time? Old news.

And, after the novelty wears off, youll check your phone and, who knows, eat a sandwich? Have sex in your automated car? Studies seem to think you will.

Mostly, of course, well likely engage in the dynamic duo of human activity: work and TV! Unlocking this time will lead to enormous economic potential for tech companies and will most directly impact:

Are cars the next battleground for data?

Where Big Tech sees huge potential in being deeply embedded in the automotive experience, others see alarms going off.

Big Techs already conquered the home and office. Its clear the car is likely next.

Business and tech news in 5 minutes or less

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Beware the FCC’s New Big Tech Enrichment Plan | Opinion – Newsweek

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Is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considering taking action to undermine conservative talk radio in a way that would make Facebook and Google's digital monopolies grow even bigger?

Former Trump adviser Andrew Surabianin a piece recently promoted on social media by a who's who list of conservative influencersindicated that it is.

The concern arises from a decade-old proposal, called zonecasting, which has sat on the FCC's desk since the Obama administration. The Democrat-led FCC now appears ready to formally decide on it later this year, and free speech advocates should pray the commission rejects this misguided proposal.

So, what is zonecasting?

It's a proposal that would, at least in the short term, give one company a complete monopoly over operational technology allowing radio advertisers to cut up radio media markets into smaller parts. With zonecasting, businesses, for example, could air different ads in Brooklyn than they would in the Bronx despite both currently being in the same media market.

Zonecasting is one of those proposals that may sound good from a soundbite perspective. Those who often get too caught up in theory (such as the unpragmatic "free trade at all costs" extremists who repeatedly struck President Donald Trump's ire) may think it is a great idea. But the side effects of zonecasting would be catastrophic, especially for the First Amendment.

When have monopolies ever worked out for conservatives or the public at large? Talk radio is the medium that first allowed conservatives to break into the Left's domination of the media landscape, so we should look at any government plan that would create a monopoly in this transformative industry with healthy and prudential skepticism.

Sean Hannity is doing just that. According to a post on his website, zonecasting would "potentially eliminat[e] certain types of programsand perspectivescompletely."

It's not hard to figure out why. The technology permits corporations to become increasingly selective about what parts of town their advertisements run in. That would inevitably drain radio station revenues. By taking less desirable areas directly out of their advertising plans, companies would suck millions of dollars out of the radio industry and put their savings right into their Facebook and Google advertising budgets.

What we have here is a proposal to create an artificial, government-sanctioned monopoly that would empower Big Tech to conservatives' detriment, limiting the sustainability of the talk radio programs that we hold dear. That doesn't sound conservative at all, but zonecasting's supporters aren't afraid to pretend it is. They claim the proposal will be great for stations that house conservative talk radio because the opportunity to tailor and customize commercials across town will permit broadcasters to, for the first time, compete with the "geotargeting" that rival advertisers Facebook and Twitter provide in the digital space.

This is simply not true. Advertisers flock to Facebook and Google not because they geotarget their ads, but because they allow for a one-to-one connection with users, and the advertiser can immediately see how the consumer respondswhere they click, what they buy, and how they react. Zonecasting wouldn't resemble anything close to that. If it did, then most of the broadcast industry wouldn't have already lined up in opposition to the FCC proposal.

There is nothing "free market" about zonecasting. It would create a government-sanctioned monopoly that would make it impossible for most radio stations to continue making a profit. Its supporters deny this point because the technology is voluntarybroadcasters could simply choose not to use it. But the broadcast industry has told the FCC zonecasting is voluntary in name only. Once one broadcaster adopts the technology, it will lower the rates others in the market can charge for ads.

Talk radio is the lifeblood of the conservative movement. We can't allow anti-free market policies to kill it.

Before the advent of the center-right blogosphere and cable news circuit, talk radio (aside from a handful of conservative print magazines, such as The American Spectator, Human Events, and National Review) was the only platform Republicans had to get their voices heard. And even now, with new blogs and TV networks like Fox News and Newsmax, talk radio remains one of the most popular and trusted platforms out there.

Some are already working to rid the airwaves of conservative programming after the death of Rush Limbaugh. Taking action that would weaken this medium while enriching Big Tech platformsthe new wave of conservative media suppressorswould make things even worse. Those who know and value free speech and alternative perspectives cannot and must not allow this to happen.

Chris Salcedo is a veteran television and radio broadcaster who hosts the Chris Salcedo Show on Newsmax TV. The Chris Salcedo radio show can also be heard across the country on the AM 700 KSEV APP.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Random D.C. Lobbying Campaign of the Week: The Big Tech Bills – The American Prospect

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If youve ever visited Washington, the moment you touch down in an airport, ride the Metro, turn on local TV, or look at the sides of buses, you will find yourself bombarded by messages that you may not understand, from organizations youve never heard of, talking about legislation or some other initiative you dont know. These messages, confined to either downtown D.C. or the insider political tip sheets and newsletters, arent for the ordinary American or even the ordinary Washingtonian. They are intended for members of Congress, regulatory staff, and policymakers, as part of a targeted campaign, usually from big business, to win special favors or block anything that would affect their profits.

In a new series, the Prospect will pick one of these only-in-D.C. campaigns and untangle it, so you are aware of what Americas giant lobbying engine has been doing while you were going about your life.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will note that the Prospect runs on the Google suite of tools. There arent a whole lot of other options if you want to run a business remotely, particularly one that involves sharing of documents and spreadsheets and other media.

This explains why we keep getting messages from Google, encouraging us to speak out about new legislation that could disrupt your ability to reach customers and run your business. Last week, we received another one of these messages, warning us that organizations representing the interests of American businesses have voiced concerns about this bill.

The three organizations cited were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Progressive Policy Institute, and Springboard, a publication of the Computer & Communications Industry Association. All three of these organizations receive funding from Google. So Googles letter was referring businesses to outside validators who were, in effect, Google.

The Google letter is part of a very robust campaign from the dominant tech platforms, which are attempting to stop two bills: the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, and the Open App Markets Act. The first bill would end self-preferencing, where tech platforms offer up their own products ahead of their competition in search results or other ways. The second would prevent mobile phone giants Google and Apple from forcing app developers to essentially pay them a large toll for access to their users.

Both bills have broad bipartisan support in Congress and both could get votes on the Senate floor as soon as this month. Thats what Big Tech is attempting to prevent, out of concern that the platforms would lose their iron grip over the online (and increasingly offline) economy.

A whopping $36.4 million has been spent on advertising against the Big Tech bills since the beginning of 2021, compared to less than $200,000 in favor. $13.7 million of that has been spent just since May 1. Most of these ads have been targeted at the home states and districts of members of Congress that the tech industry wants to flip to its side.

As the Prospect has reported, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised that the bills will get a vote this summer. But he hasnt committed to a date, and other senators are trying to get that vote delayed, so they dont have to show their hand in public and can do the tech industrys bidding in darkness. If the bills actually get a vote, its expected that they will pass.

Thats why the industry is working so hard to stop the bills and defeat the broad coalition supporting them, from progressive anti-monopoly groups to the Center for American Progress to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to conservative organizations to dozens of competitors to the giant tech companies. The industry campaign has floated a number of different arguments, from saying that the bill will boost Chinese tech companies over U.S. counterparts to saying it will force an end to Amazon Prime and other services. But the latest tactic has been to claim that Americans care more about inflation than the tech industry, and therefore nothing should be done to break Big Techs power.

The D.C. tip sheet Punchbowl News obligingly featured this message last week in its newsletter, in an ad (which looked like editorial copy) promoting a poll from the American Edge Project with the heading Voters Focused on InflationNot Breaking Up Big Tech. The American Edge Project, boasting a staff including former New Mexico governor Susana Martinez (R) and former congressman Chris Carney (D), is a dark-money project launched by Facebook.

The poll is made up of a series of leading statements, asking respondents to agree with lines like there are other, bigger problems facing the United States, we should not be focused on breaking up U.S. tech companies right now. Other poll topics include whether U.S. tech companies could fall behind China, the idea that tech regulation could harm national security, and the impact of regulation on small business.

None of these ostensibly more desirable options actually are being held up by these two bills. Its not like Democrats have some sparkling anti-inflation legislation ready to go with bipartisan support. In the realm of the plausible, creating actual competition online, as the two bills would do, is one way to potentially bring down prices.

The national-security-mongering is similarly a distraction. But as with all of Big Techs lobbying campaigns, the American Edge poll and even the talking points very obviously only exist because of Big Tech. Several of the national-security officials who have been speaking out against the legislation are on Big Techs payroll.

Anytime Big Tech tries to generate some genuine organic pushback against the bills, it has blown up in their faces. On June 2, Amazon vice president Dharmesh Mehta placed a note on their Seller Central message board, urging third-party sellers to speak to their senators against the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. Virtually all the responses from sellers took the side of the legislation, while condemning Amazon for spreading propaganda.

In another blunder, Amazon mistakenly forwarded an email to Politico in which a spokeswoman told a consultant to claim that the bills would hurt communities of color. Would it be possible for you all to push this with some of the newslettersPolitico tech, Politico Health, etc., the spokeswoman wrote. Google was caught doing something similar earlier this year.

Thats whats behind Googles little note to us at the Prospect. They are hoping to get an actual human being who isnt as clearly dependent on Google for their livelihood to mobilize against the bills. In the message, Google cited Ryan Berry of Berry Digital Solutions in Ohio, who recently met with his Senator (they dont say which one) to express concerns about the unintended consequences of anti-tech bills.

Some of the small-business testimonials that Big Tech and its allies have put forward have not panned out. A Politico investigation in March found that thousands of small businesses were listed on a directory of the Connected Commerce Council, an astroturf group opposing the bills, but 61 of the 70 businesses the reporters contacted said they were not members of the group.

Google openly states that businesses are often an influential voice in policy discussions, which of course we all know. But the ham-fisted way in which Google and its Big Tech counterparts have been fighting the legislation that means to rein in their practices has sapped some of that influence. Their targeted effort in home-district ads and policy newsletters may yet succeed. But for companies with this much money to fight regulations, they really shouldnt be as bad at this.

And just to wrap up, we have not asked our senators to oppose these bills. But thanks for the update, Google!

Are you in D.C. and have you seen a particularly odd lobbying campaign? Let us know at info[at]prospect.org.

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Big Tech targets to be named at start of Japan antitrust probes – Nikkei Asia

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TOKYO -- The Japan Fair Trade Commission will publicizeinformation on antitrust cases against big technology companies earlierin the process, looking to gather evidencequicklyand react more effectively to a fast-changing market.

The antitrust watchdog will announce the names of investigation targets and the allegations against them toward the start of the probe when deemed necessary. The change is included in a document released Thursday on the commission's policies for an increasingly digital economy.

"We need to improve our systems and capabilities for gathering information, especially for dealing with concerns in the fast-changing digital market," Chairman Kazuyuki Furuya told reporters.

Antitrust investigation details typically are not made public until the JFTC has closed the case or penalized the company, as doing so could affect the target's business or provide an opportunityto destroy evidence.

The agency will resolve detailssuch as how and under what circumstances to make the announcements. Companies to be named under the new policy will be notified in advance.

Making this information widely available offers advantages under some circumstances, such as in recent cases involving tech giants abusing their dominant bargaining position to force vendors on e-commerce platforms to accept unfavorable terms. Publicizing such investigations could help gather information from others harmed by such conduct.

Given how swiftlybusiness models change in the tech industry, the agency also worries that the usual time-consuming process of collecting evidence behind the scenes may not be fast enough to address illegal conduct.

And unlike in cases of collusion, for example, the practices of tech companies are usually widely known, so the JFTC expects early disclosure ofinvestigations to have little effect on their operations.

Antitrust authorities in markets includingthe European Union, the U.K. and Germany already announce the names of probe targets. But the risk to companies' reputations makes it essential to have clear standards for doing so.

Announcing which companies are under investigation "would have a major impact on their activity, since the public would see it as a sign that they are likely guilty," said Yasuo Daito, a Japanese attorney and expert on antitrust law. "We should be extremely careful in choosing which cases to make public."

The commission also will seekexternal input on merger and acquisition cases, especially in the tech sector, at an earlier stage when necessary. Tech-related companies make up an increasing portion of the roughly 300 such cases screened by the JFTC yearly. The agency wants a better picture of the industry by hearing a wide range of opinions.

As part of this shift, the JFTC has begun seeking outside opinions on proposed acquisitions by Microsoft and Google.

The JFTC also will use information gained from surveys on antitrust issues in case reviews, with approval from their sources.

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From Great Resignation to Forced Resignation: Tech companies are shifting to layoffs after a huge ramp up in hiring – MarketWatch

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The Great Resignation is pivoting to a Forced Resignation.

Thousands of layoffs in the tech sector, compounded by hiring freezes and a slowdown in hiring, highlight the abrupt shift in fortunes over the past several months as a result of rampant inflation, fear of stagflation and recession, supply-chain interruptions, the war in Ukraine, an ailing stock market and other red-alert economic factors.

The latest blows came Tuesday, when Coinbase Global Inc. COIN, +0.33% announced an 18% layoff of about 1,100 people and real-estate brokerage Redfin Corp. RDFN, +7.60% said it would reduce head count by about 470 people, or 6% of its workforce.

Read more: Redfin to cut 470 jobs, stock sinks toward record low

Everybody needs to batten down the hatches. We are in stormy, stormy seas with choppy weather on the horizon, media titan Jeffrey Katzenberg, a board member and investor in cybersecurity startup Aura, told MarketWatch.

In recent weeks, a broad cross-section of companies across all sectors have announced layoffs or plans to limit hiring amid the economic crucible. In addition to Coinbase and Redfin, Peloton Interactive Inc. PTON, +3.07%, PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL, +2.34%, Tesla Inc. TSLA, +1.72%, Carvana Co. CVNA, +13.41% and others said they intend to slash staff. At the same time, some of techs biggest players Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. META, +1.78%, Intel Corp.s INTC, -0.99% client-computing group, Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +1.09%, Uber Technologies Inc. UBER, +6.55% and Lyft Inc. LYFT, +7.28% are slowing down or freezing hires.

All told, at least 15,000 tech-related jobs have been or will be eliminated, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts at startups.

The market cap aggregate of about 300 publicly traded tech companies with operations in San Francisco and the valley is at its lowest now, $9.98 trillion, since 2013 after peaking at nearly $15 trillion in November 2021.

Downturns in spending on PCs, tablets and advertising have only added to the tumult, and there are whispers that even cloud-computing which led a wave of internet expansion the past decade could be flattening. Its all contributed to a convulsive shift from hiring binge to belt-tightening, especially among startups.

Its been a challenging last three years with the pandemic, and another two coming with secular [economic] headwinds, Starz Chief Executive Jeffrey Hirsch told MarketWatch.

The effect has been most pronounced among Silicon Valley startups, say local economists. With the uncertainty of recession, a slowdown in short-term demand and possibly more rate hikes, understandably there will be a pause for startups and, for in the short term, for the really big players, Stephen Levy, director and senioreconomistof the Center for Continuing Study of the CaliforniaEconomy, told MarketWatch.

Diminished prospects and a balky market have already delayed the IPO dreams of startups and prompted others to scale back hiring plans. Max Cohen, co-founder and CEO of Sprinter Health, a startup in Menlo Park, Calif., initially planned to double headcount to 60 this year but has since reduced it to 48.

The questions now are, Are you hiring and how much? Cohen, a former employee at Google and Meta, told MarketWatch.

For larger companies, the impact is more subtle. Major expansion is still on for Google in Mountain View, Calif., and San Jose, and for Meta in Menlo Park, Calif., and nearby Moffett Park, but it remains to be seen if they will fill those facilities with people as quickly as originally planned. It may take them longer, perhaps 12 months, before things pick up again for big tech, Levy said.

Representatives from techs largest companies are mostly mum on their hiring plans, though Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +2.47% said it is aggressively adding staff. With tens of thousands of corporate and tech roles currently available, we continue to look for talented individuals to help us build the future of retail, robotics, health care, devices, cloud computing, and more,Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told MarketWatch.

For now, Big Tech is taking a beating in market valuation. The market cap aggregate of about 300 publicly traded tech companies with operations in San Francisco and the valley is at its lowest now, $9.98 trillion, since late 2020 after peaking at nearly $15 trillion in November 2021, says Rachel Massaro, vice president of research at the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies.

There is certainly a confluence of things that are making everyday life difficult, Massaro told MarketWatch. That is a huge impact trickling down to companies, management, and the hiring level. [The unemployment rate in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, in the heart of the valley, is at a 22-year low of 1.8%, though that could change if layoffs pick up and hiring clamps down.]

Like nearly everyone else, cybersecurity startup Aura is closely monitoring costs and bracing for a challenging macro-climate for years between inflation, war, supply-chain issues and a post-COVID climate, Aura CEO Hari Ravichandran told MarketWatch. This is impacting the entirety of the business ecosystem, he said.

Adding to the economic uncertainty: Demand for PCs and tablets are headed for their worst decline in several years, according to a new forecast from International Data Corp. Global shipments of traditional PCs will fall 8% year-over-year to 321.2 million units in 2022 the steepest drop since 10% in 2015. Meanwhile, worldwide tablet shipment forecasts were lowered to 158 million, down 6% from 2021 its worse percentage decline since 10% in 2018.

We feel very confident that the commercial PC market will remain stronger than the consumer and education markets, IDC analyst Ryan Reith told MarketWatch. But it will not match the growth surge during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The challenge remains inflation, the war in Ukraine, a lockdown in China, and some lingering supply-chain issues.

Global cloud sales, meanwhile, are expected to grow at a relatively modest 20% to $494.65 billion in 2022 from $410.9 billion a year ago, according to market researcher Gartner. The forecast is for sales to grow 21% to $599.84 billion in 2023, and 20% to $720.99 billion in 2024.

Another dynamic is the whip-saw-like impact of COVID on job security at companies that greatly benefited from the hyper-growth days of the pandemic, when homebound Americans splurged on streaming, gaming and social media.

After spending the better part of two years ramping up on content and people while it amassed millions of new subscribers, Netflix Inc. NFLX, +1.25% has imposed layoffs in recent weeks. Last month, it internally said it was laying off about 150 employees, including some in the executive ranks and in the animation division, which account for about 1.3% of the companys 11,300-person workforce.

Read more: Netflix lays off 150 workers as executives look to cut costs

The jolting circumstances at Netflix and elsewhere represent a jarring turn of events for employees who were jumping from one high-paying gig to another sometimes, within a matter of months, say jobs experts.

It was certainly a candidates market the last couple of years, Marty Reaume, chief people officer at Sequoia Consulting Group, told MarketWatch. She said 459 business leaders representing mostly California-based tech companies disclosed in March 2022 that more than 20% of their workforce left their jobs in 2021. The national average, by comparison, is about 15%.

The curve couldnt go up forever of frenetic hiring and rising salaries, Reaume said. It was getting a little ridiculous scouring for talent. If there is any benefit to this crazy market, things will settle down a little bit.

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House Republican measure would block Big Tech companies from hosting CCP officials on platforms – Fox News

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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans are set to roll out a measure that would block Big Tech companies from hosting senior Chinese Communist Party officials on their social media platforms.

House Republican Study Committee member Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., is leading the initiative, along with committee Chairman Jim Banks, R-Ind., committee National Security and Foreign Affairs Chairman Joe Wilson, R-S.C., and co-sponsor Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., in an effort to "hold China and Big Tech accountable."

The "China Social Media Reciprocity Act" would impose sanctions prohibiting providers of social media platforms to provide accounts to any individuals involved in the Chinese Communist Party, unless the president can certify to Congress that the government of China and the CCP have "verifiably removed prohibitions on officials of the U.S. government from accessing, using, or participating in social media platforms in China."

The bill would "prohibit the provision of services by social media platforms to individuals and entities on the Specially Designated Nations List and certain officials and other individuals and entities of the Peoples Republic of China."

'NO SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS FOR TERRORISTS': HOUSE GOP PUSHES TO BLOCK SANCTIONED FOREIGN LEADERS FROM PLATFORMS

The bill covers all U.S.-owned social media companies.

Rep. Brian Mast speaks at a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center on Sept. 20, 2019. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

In order to gain access to U.S. social media platforms and accounts, the bill would require the Chinese government to remove all forms of censorship that prohibit persons in China from accessing social media platforms or viewing content generated by U.S. government officials and U.S. persons on Chinas social media platforms, a committee aide told Fox News.

The presidents ability to waive the bill would sunset in two years, according to the committee, and would give Congress "the final say on whether or not China has met the standard requirement to lift prohibition."

The bill would apply to members of Chinas State Council, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, National Defense, State Security, Justice, Public Security, and other ministries; as well as high ranking officials of other agencies.

"Freedom always wins over tyranny, and the Chinese Communist Party knows it. Thats why theyve taken drastic steps to keep American ideas off of their social platforms," Mast told Fox News. "This bill is about leveling the playing field."

Mast added: "Chinese officials should not be allowed to spew propaganda on U.S.-based social media sites while actively blocking the free flow of ideas on their own sites."

TWITTER EXPANDS LABELS TO G7 STATE-AFFILIATED ACCOUNTS, COUNTRIES ACCUSED OF UNDERMINING RULES

A committee aide told Fox News that Chinese government officials, and senior leaders of the CCP "have full freedom tase American social media platforms to further their propaganda," while those same social media platforms are "often banned in China."

"China bans its own citizens from using Twitter and Facebook, but Chinese Communist Party officials still use those platforms to push their propaganda abroad," Banks told Fox News, adding that Big Tech "has enthusiastically censored conservative politicians in America, but refused to lift a finger against Communist Party officials whove spread actual COVID disinformation and even genocide denial on their platforms."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Jim Banks hold a press conference on Capitol Hill, June 9, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

"Theres a staggering amount of hypocrisy from all involved," Banks told Fox News. "The Republican Study Committee and my colleague Brian Masts bill would force Big Tech to counter Chinas disinformation and put the US back on an equal footing by using sanctions law to prohibit all Communist officials from US social media until they lift their ban on US social media."

Tiffany, an original co-sponsor of the legislation, told Fox News that Big Tech companies have been a propaganda machine for the Chinese Communist Party and even the Taliban yet these same platforms routinely censor American conservatives, and even the investigative journalism of major newspapers."

"Something is very wrong with this picture," Tiffany said. "If a foreign despot refuses to allow free and unfettered access to American social media platforms, then that dictator and his cronies should be deplatformed, period."

The legislation comes after Republicans on the panel last year proposed legislation that would expand U.S. sanctions law to prohibit social media companies from allowing foreign individuals or entities sanctioned for terrorism from using their platforms.

CHINA PROPAGANDA SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN REACHES OTHER COUNTRIES, AGAIN BLAMES US FOR COVID

That bill, the "No Social Media Accounts for Terrorists or State Sponsors of Terrorism Act of 2021," first reported by Fox News, would clarify existing sanctions law by giving the president authority to sanction the "provision of services," including the provision and maintenance of accounts, by social media platforms to foreign individuals or entities sanctioned for terrorism, and senior officials of state sponsors of terrorism.

Icons of WhatsApp, Messenger, YouTube, Instagram and other apps. (Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images, File)

The social media platforms also included Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

A congressional aide explained to Fox News that banks and U.S. insurance companies are not allowed to provide accounts to sanctioned individuals or entities, but due to the current loophole in sanctions law, social media companies are allowed to provide the accounts because it is related to information.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The aide said the legislation seeks to "require the president to implement regulation that will treat social media platforms just like the bank and insurance companiesthey cannot provide a service to a sanctioned individual or entity."

An aide told Fox News that bill received 47 co-sponsors, but has not yet been brought to the floor of the House of Representatives for consideration.

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

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The Digital Republic by Jamie Susskind review how to tame big tech – The Guardian

Posted: at 1:49 am

There was a moment when Facebook was a democracy. Blink and you would have missed it, but in December 2012, as part of an initiative announced three years earlier by Mark Zuckerberg, the company unveiled new terms and conditions that it wanted to impose on users. They were invited to vote on whether they should be enacted, yes or no. The voters were pretty clear: 88% said no, the new terms werent acceptable. It was a triumph of people power.

Except that Zuckerberg had imposed a precondition: the decision would only be binding if at least 30% of all users took part. That would have required votes from about 300 million of the roughly 1 billion users the platform then had (its since roughly tripled). But just over 650,000 participated. King Zuckerberg declared that the time for democracy was over, and in future, Facebook which in reality means Zuckerberg, for he owns the majority of the voting shares would decide what would happen, without reference to user opinion.

Since then, the company has been accused of aiding the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar, the spreading of misinformation in 2016 in the Philippines and US elections and the Brexit referendum, of bringing together violent rightwing extremists who went on to kill in the US, of failing to douse the QAnon conspiracy theory, and most recently of helping foment the January 2021 US insurrection.

Sure, the 2012 terms and conditions probably didnt lead to those outcomes. Equally, leaving Facebook to its own devices didnt help prevent them. In 2016 an internal memo by one of its executives, Andrew Bosworth, suggested that such collateral damage was tolerable: We connect people. That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools [but] anything that allows us to connect more people more often is de facto good.

Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on your tools, but overall what we do is good? Even if Zuckerberg distanced himself and Facebook from the remarks, its not the sort of language youd expect to hear from, say, an executive of a nuclear power plant. So why should we accept it from senior people in companies with proven adverse track records? No surprise, then, that the clamour is growing for more regulation of big tech companies such as Facebook, Google (particularly YouTube), Twitter, Instagram and the fast-rising TikTok, which already has more than 1 billion users worldwide.

Into this tumult comes Jamie Susskind, a British barrister who argues that we need a digital republic to protect society from the harms indifferently caused by these companies, and provide a framework legal, ethical, moral for how we should oversee them now and in the future.

Susskind argues that our present emphasis on market individualism where individuals pick and choose the platforms they interact with, and thus shape which ones succeed or fail has allowed these companies to create fiefdoms. What we need, he says, is more accountability, which means that we should have more oversight into what the companies do. This would be a proper citizens republic; rather than relying on the inchoate mass of individuals, a collective focus on responsibility would force accountability and strip away unearned powers.

Big tech seems like a space where it should be easy to find solutions. Do the companies sell data without permission? (The big tech ones dont, but theres a thriving advertising ecosystem that does.) Do their algorithms unfairly discriminate on the basis of race, gender, locale? Do they throw people off their platforms without reason? Do they moderate content unfairly? Then we have casus belli to litigate and correct.

OK, but how? The problem facing Susskind, and us, is that there are three choices for dealing with these companies. Leave them alone? That hasnt worked. Pass laws to control them? But our political systems struggle to frame sensible laws in a timely fashion. Create technocratic regulators to oversee them and bring them into line when they stray? But those are liable to regulatory capture, where they get too cosy with their charges. None is completely satisfactory. And we are wrestling a hydra; as fast as policy in one area seems to get nailed down (say, vaccine misinformation), two more pop up (say, facial recognition and machine learning).

Susskind suggests we instead try mini-publics most often seen in the form of citizen assemblies, where you bring a small but representative group of the population together and give them expert briefings about a difficult choice to be made, after which they create policy options. Taiwan and Austria use them, and in Ireland they helped frame the questions in the referendums about same-sex marriage and abortion.

What he doesnt acknowledge is that this just delays the problem. After the mini-publics deliberate, you are back at the original choices: do nothing, legislate or regulate.

Deciding between those approaches would require a very detailed examination of how these companies work, and what effects the approaches could have. We dont get that here. A big surprise about the book is the chapters length, or lack of it. There are 41 (including an introduction and conclusion) across 301 pages, and between each of the books 10 parts is a blank page. Each chapter is thus only a few pages, the literary equivalent of those mini Mars bars infuriatingly described as fun size.

But a lot of these topics deserve more than a couple of bites; they are far meatier and more complicated. How exactly do you define bot accounts, and are they always bad? Should an outside organisation be able to overrule a companys decision to remove an account for what it sees as undesirable behaviour? If a company relies on an algorithm for its revenues , how far should the state (or republic) be able to interfere in its operation, if it doesnt break discrimination laws? Bear in mind that Facebooks algorithms in Myanmar, the Philippines and the US before the 2021 insurrection did nothing illegal. (The Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said recently that only about 200 people in the whole world understand how its News Feed algorithm chooses what to show you.) So what is it we want Facebook to stop, or start, doing? The correct answer, as it happens, is start moderating content more aggressively; in each case, too few humans were tasked with preventing inflammatory falsehoods running out of control. Defining how many moderators is the correct number is then a tricky problem in itself.

These are all far from fun-sized dilemmas, and even if we had clear answers there would still be structural barriers to implementation which often means us, the users. The truth is that individuals still click away too many of their protections, writes Susskind, noting how easily we dismissively select I agree, yielding up our rights. Fine, but whats the alternative? The EUs data protection regime means we have to give informed consent, and while the ideal would be uninformed dissent (so nobody gets our data), theres too much money ranged against us to make that the default. So we tick boxes. It would have been good too to hear from experts in the field such as Haugen, or anyone with direct experience who could point towards solutions for some of the problems. (They too tend to struggle to find them, which doesnt make one hopeful.) Difficult questions are left open; nothing is actually solved. This is a deliberately broad formulation, Susskind says of his recommendation for how algorithms should be regulated.

One is left with the sneaking suspicion that these problems might just be insoluble. The one option that hasnt really been tried is the one rejected back in 2012: let users decide. It wouldnt be hard for sites to make voting compulsory, and allow our decisions to be public. Zuckerberg might not be happy about it. But hed get a vote: just one, like everyone else. That really might create a digital republic for us all.

Charles Arthur is the author of Social Warming: How Social Media Polarises Us All. The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century by Jamie Susskind is published by Bloomsbury (25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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