Daily Archives: April 18, 2024

WASHINGTON U.S. House members tasked with addressing what happens to loads of user data collected by big tech companies see a long overdue opportunity for a national privacy standard, particularly for children and teens.

Lawmakers on a subpanel of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce met Wednesday to hear from advocates and online safety experts on a series of data privacy bills that are drawing rare bipartisan and bicameral support.

The 10 bills discussed by six witnesses and members of the Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce would regulate how data is collected and stored, allow users to opt out of algorithms, and ensure safeguards for minors on the internet.

The hearing came on the heels of widespread bipartisan support for a bill that would force the popular video platform TikTok to split from its Chinese parent company ByteDance. The legislation passed the House in March in a 352-65 vote.

Today we find ourselves at a crossroads, said Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers. We can either continue down the dangerous path were on, letting companies and bad actors continue to collect massive amounts of data unchecked, or we can give people the right to control their information online.

The Washington Republicans discussion draft of the American Privacy Rights Act was a focus of the Wednesday hearing.

The bipartisan, bicameral proposal, introduced alongside Senate Committee on Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, would shrink the amount of data companies can collect, regulate data brokers, allow users to access their own data and request deletion, and empower the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to enforce the policies.

Placing the burden on consumers to read notice and consent privacy agreements simply does not work, said Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

By contrast, data minimization limits the amount of personal information entities collect, process, retain and transfer to only what is necessary to provide the products and services being requested by the consumer, Pallone said, praising provisions in the American Privacy Rights Act.

Rodgers said the foundational legislation would protect minors and establish a national standard to quash a modern form of digital tyranny where a handful of companies and bad actors are exploiting our personal information, monetizing it and using it to manipulate how we think and act.

One national standard would preempt the patchwork of state laws, so when consumers and businesses cross state lines, there are consistent rights, protections and obligations, GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida, the subcommittees chair, said during his opening remarks.

Seventeen states have enacted their own privacy laws and regulations with another 18 states actively pursuing various pieces of legislation, creating a complex landscape of state-specific privacy laws, testified Katherine Kuehn, chief information security officer-in-residence for the National Technology Security Coalition, a cybersecurity advocacy organization.

Among the other proposals the panel discussed was an update to the 1998 Children and Teens Online Privacy Act, co-sponsored by Michigan Republican Rep. Tim Walberg and Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat.

The bill aims to ban targeted advertising to children and teens, prohibit internet companies from collecting the data of 13-to-17-year-olds without consent, and require direct notice if data is being stored or transferred outside of the U.S.

Ava Smithing of Nashville, Tennessee, described for the committee her teen years spent on Instagram and the body image issues and eating disorder that ensued after repeated targeted content.

The companies abilities to track engagements, such as the duration of time I looked at a photo, revealed to them what would keep me engaged my own insecurity, she testified.

They stored my insecurity as data and linked it to all my other accounts across the internet. They used my data to infer what other types of content I might like, leading me down a pipeline from bikini advertisements to exercise videos to dieting tips and finally to eating disorder content, Smithing, director of advocacy for the Young Peoples Alliance, said.

Bilirakis is a sponsor of the similarly named Kids Online Safety Act, along with fellow Reps. Erin Houchin, an Indiana Republican, Washington Democrat Kim Schrier and Castor.

We know that big tech has failed, ladies and gentlemen, to prioritize the health and safety of our children online, resulting in a significant increase in mental health conditions, suicide and drug overdose deaths. Weve heard stories over and over and over again in our respective districts, Bilirakis said.

Bilirakis bill would outline a set of harms to children under 17 and require big tech and video game companies to mitigate those harms. The bill also aims to increase parental protections on platforms and commission a study of age verification options.

A companion bill in the U.S. Senate has been introduced by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn.

Samir C. Jain, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, told the House panel that some proposals, including the Kids Online Safety Act, while well-intentioned and pursuing an important goal, do raise some concerns.

Legislation that restricts access to content because government officials deem it harmful can harm youth and present significant constitutional issues, said Jain, vice president of policy for the civil liberties advocacy organization.

Further, requirements or strong incentives to require age verification systems to identify children often require further data collection from children and adults alike, and thereby can undermine privacy and present their own constitutional issues, Jain testified.

However, Jain praised provisions in the American Privacy Rights Act that would increase transparency into the algorithms employed by large data companies and prohibit using data in a way that perpetuates or exacerbates discrimination based on protected characteristics such as race, sex, religion, or disability status whether a Black person looking for a job, a woman seeking a loan to start a business, or a veteran with a disability trying to find housing.

During questioning, Bilirakis asked each panelist: Yes or no, do you think this is the best chance we have to getting something done on comprehensive data privacy?

All witnesses answered yes.

Meta, which owns Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment.

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National privacy standard eyed by Congress for data harvested by big tech companies Nebraska Examiner - Nebraska Examiner

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Betting on US Big Tech? Top Earnings Reports to Watch in the Coming Week - FX Empire

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Google fires 28 workers in aftermath of protests over big tech deal with Israeli government - The Bakersfield Californian

Managing artificial intelligences impact on society isnt the responsibility of private companies, noted the founder of a nonprofit AI research lab. Instead, its elected governments that should regulate the sector adequately to keep people safe.

Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm AI London conference on Monday, Connor Leahy, cofounder of EleutherAI, said the onus of how transformational technologies will impact the public shouldnt be placed on the tech industry.

Companies shouldnt even have to answer society-wide questions about AI, Leahy told Fortunes Ellie Austin.

He explained: This might be controversial but its not the responsibility of oil companies to solve climate change. Instead, he said, it is the role of governments to stop oil companies from causing climate change or at least make them pay to clean it up after theyve caused the mess.

Rather than guardrails coming from within the industry, they should cascade down from the government levelat least when it comes to society-wide issues, he added.

The boss of EleutherAIwhich launched in 2020 and operates primarily through an open Discord serversaid responsibility does lie with businesses, however, when it comes to expectations of how much AI can do.

At present the tech is super unreliable he continued, adding it does not have a human level [of] reliability.

Some of the most prominent voices in the tech industry agree with Leahy, with even disrupters in the sector imploring the government for some safety nets.

Sam Altman, boss of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, tolda Senate Judiciary subcommittee in May of last year that the regulation of AI is essential.

He came out in favor of appropriate safety requirements, including internal and external testing prior to release for AI software and also urged some kind of licensing and registration regime for AI systems beyond a certain capability.

However, the fired-and-rehired billionaire CEO also called for a governance framework that is flexible enough to adapt to new technological developments and said that regulation should balance incentivizing safety while ensuring that people are able to access the technologys benefits.

Likewise Tesla CEO Elon Muskwho is utilizing AI for everything from large language model Grok to humanoid robot Optimus and autonomous drivingsaid that regulation will be annoying but necessary.

During a conversation with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during the U.K. AI Safety Summit, Musk said: I think weve learned over the years that having a referee is a good thing.

CEOs pining after some regulation that will be suitable for multiple markets may have had their wishes granted in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, the U.S. and U.K. governments signed a memorandum of understanding pledging to a shared approach for AI safety testing and guidance.

The governments will work closely with each other and seek other nations to join their approach.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said at the time: Our partnership makes clear that we arent running away from these concernswere running at them.

By working together, we are furthering the long-lasting special relationship between the U.S. and U.K. and laying the groundwork to ensure that were keeping AI safe both now and in the future.

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Asking Big Tech to police AI is like turning to 'oil companies to solve climate change,' AI researcher says - Fortune

An empty office Photo: Justin Sullivan ( Getty Images )

Alongside layoffs that have roiled tech companies in the last few months, the office market is also feeling the effects of a right-sizing in the wake of massive expansions that happened at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

What's wrong (and right) with Neuralink?

The Wall Street Journal reports that so-called Big Tech firmsa cohort that includes the likes of Google, Amazon, Meta, and Salesforcehave been shrinking their real estate presences. Sometimes that means putting office space up for sublease. Sometimes it means pausing construction on new offices. When it presented its latest annual report in January, Google parent company Alphabet noted that it had paid $1.8 billion in exit charges on leases last year as part of efforts to optimize its global office footprint.

Even after years of work-from-home culture slowly yielding to a return-to-office orientation, commercial real estate vacancies are still highly elevated. Tech companies, which in many cities had come to rival the footprints of industries like finance, are a big contributor to that supply glut.

Still, SL Green Realty Corp CEO Marc Holliday thinks there might be some hope that the booming artificial intelligence sector might help spur a broader tech real estate recovery.

AI is something that I think is going to awaken the slumbering tech market, Holliday said at a recent Citi real estate conference. Tech has not been a big contributor to incremental demand after about a decade of rapid growth. And I sort of am looking forward to and await their return.

AI companies havemore than doubled their footprint in San Francisos tech-heavy office market, up to 4.8 million square feet this year from just 1.9 million square feet in 2019. But per the Journal, the brokerage firm CBRE says the office-vacancy rate jumped to a record 36.7% this year from just 3.6% in early 2019.

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Big Tech offices are getting smaller and that spells trouble for landlords - Quartz

When you go through Spur, you go through uh East Texas and these sort of places, you'll often find that there have been companies out there, but they've come and gone. And I think that's the concern with Bitcoin. Like, are you going to stay over the next 1520 plus years and be a part of this community? And I think from Galaxy Side, they are and they've built out 100 50 or so megawatts of the facility, they have another 650 to build out. So there's a lot of growth there. But I think for the entire industry, the question is like, are you going to uphold your promise? Will you be here in 1520 years? Are you going to help us get to the next place? Are you going to help our kids go to college ahead of the upcoming Bitcoin? Having we've been talking a lot on the show about Bitcoin miners and their business models and the readiness for mining rewards being cut in half. But there's a human impact to mining that we haven't covered yet. Large mines are often set up in rural areas where the people living there have very little knowledge about the impacts of mining on their environment and society. Reports have outlined how miners in small towns have driven up the price of power provided few jobs and created tensions between locals and the mining companies themselves. A new film tells a different story. The big empty goes to the town of Spur Texas, a town with a pop of 863 people in a total land area of 1.6 square miles. The film focuses on the people of the small town and their positive views of their new neighbor Helios Galaxy Digital holdings. 800 megawatt Bitcoin, mine, my good friend, former co-host of the HASH R IP, founder of Vox Space Media and the creator of this film Will Foxley joins first mover. Now it tell us all about it. Will, what's going on? Good morning. Good to see you again. I know. Good to see you again. It has been not that long, but long enough, it's been a few weeks and I was so excited to watch this film. I just, you know, love anything that has your name on it. So talk to me about the story. How did you find the story and why did you set up to tell it? Definitely. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Uh the story came up through a good friend, Amanda Fabiano. She was formerly the head of mining at Galaxy Digital. Uh She left last summer to start her own consulting business, uh which plug seems to be doing pretty well. Uh And so she created this, you know, helped make this, this mine possible. Argo Blockchain was the former owner of the Bitcoin mine. Galaxy Digital, bought the Bitcoin mine when Argo went through some financial troubles during last Bear Market. And then she went down there, she saw a story and she hit me up. I've done a few of these different mining films and we kind of worked together on scouting what a possible film could look like. We went down last June to talk with people basically did like 48 hours of random side interview with people just in street corners, people in gas stations, people on tractors and be like, hey, like, what do you think about Spur, what do you think about the Bitcoin mine? And we try to flush out there was a story there. Uh Before you knew it, we did find this story. It was a lot different than we thought when we first went down there, thought there was gonna be like more about Bitcoin and energy and maybe like politics like Texas politics. But we ended up finding a story about small town USA in the intersection with big tech. Well, 863 people live there, which was wild for me to read. Sitting in New York. Tell me a little bit about the town. What does it feel like being there. Yeah. No, it's small town. USA. And I have a lot of family who grew up in small town. Uh, so I've been to the small towns and I like highlighting those places because I do think there's an authenticity and sort of like an Americana that you can't get in other places. Uh, so with Spurs specifically, I mean, they have a lot of hometown pride. Uh, we were able to film over homecoming weekend and everybody shows out. So the population probably quadruples if not more during that period, it's in Dickens County and like the, the county around Spur and the entire county shows up for that homecoming game. You have people coming back from generations. There was the float parade that we got to film and there's people from the 19 fifties uh from their class, graduating classes in the 19 fifties who showed up just to go back to the small town. And there was even a few residents from Spur who have been there since the 19 fifties. You know, they graduated, maybe they're a farmer or maybe they worked in a store in town and they're still there and they're enjoying being a part of their community. Uh And just as like a filmmaker and as a storyteller, it's, it's hard to find those places. It's rare to find those places, but I do think it's central to not only the American story, but also what's going to happen with digital currency as it starts to seep into these different corners and pockets of the US. Well, tell me about those people, people who have been there since the fifties living in this small town, very small. Um, I guess area in the, in the US. What was their perception of the Bitcoin Mine? What was their more broad perception of crypto in general? Yeah, it's a great question. And even just as a filmmaker, you still scratching my head being like, is everyone giving me like their honest opinion about this? Could you put a camera? I was wondering when I was watching that? Yeah, when you put a camera in front of someone and you don't always know what you're gonna say. Some people are very honest. Some people maybe not so much because they're not sure. I do think we did capture probably like 90 95% of what's actually going on down there. And that's as much as you probably can hope for. Uh a lot of people are pretty scared about it. They don't know what it means. Uh There's a really great line at the beginning of the film where we talk with someone just walked up to them at a pig roast. So like, what do you think about Bitcoin mining? And they said, you know, where are all these coins going? How do you get them? How do you get paid? I don't understand it. And I think that's a perception of a lot of people down there. Now, on the other hand, people who interact with Galaxy, the Bitcoin mine down there either have like friends and family working there, work there themselves or get like paid as contractors through Galaxy. They're much more open to Bitcoin. They're much more open to Bitcoin mining and they're starting to trust a little bit more because they're interacting with it, which I think is a threat. We're gonna start pulling on a little bit more in the Bitcoin mining industry next few years is that these rural communities that have Bitcoin present in the town are going to be places for adoption versus, you know, the San Francisco and New York of the world where oftentimes we think of those places as being like the bleeding edge tech areas of the world. I know you mentioned uh just a few minutes ago that the story came to you from a former Galaxy employee. What was Galaxy's involvement in the film? Definitely. Yeah. So Galaxy was the investor for this piece. So I set up a contract for, you know, they gave me a lump sum to go make a documentary and then uh they worked with me a little bit at the end of the film and basically it was done to like Polish some lines. So uh nothing looked too bad if it went out the door. They're a publicly traded company uh for media. This might even be just like an interesting side angle, you don't see a lot of films made in Bitcoin or in crypto in general. And when you generally see them, they're paid for by the industry. And so we sort of have like these two sides, right, where it's like we have the antithesis with mainstream media or with people who don't like crypto and they're paying for film projects or media projects and the way people within the industry, they're also doing that and trying to find a way between it is increasingly difficult. I would like to find a way to do it. Uh I think you have to do something like a coin desk or something else where you're doing it as an independent company. Uh But until we see that we have to work with the providers and partners out there, I think Galaxy did a really good job of allowing me to go down there in the first place. Like they opened up the facility, there wasn't even anyone from the corporate side of Galaxy down there. It was just like people at the Bitcoin mine and they give us full access to film for two weekends and then also a stint in New York. Uh So I think overall yes, it would be great to have like a truly independent film, but the industry is not quite there yet where that's able to happen. And I think this is the best we could get. Uh as, as far as money comes comes to it. I mean, you know, this, but I've gone through the same process and trying to get, uh films or projects made that are about the industry. Why do you think it's so hard? Hey, money, I mean, film projects are expensive. A good camera person costs a lot. A good director costs a lot and they're time intensive. I mean, the amount of weekends I spent just shuffling through different music selections for, you know, a 32nd piece. Uh It's worth it in the end. And I, at least, I think it is because you get a little pat on the back from friends. You're like, ok, maybe that wasn't worth it. But I do think when it all comes together, you can kind of see like a whole narrative unfold. We get a story of people who oftentimes don't have the voice to tell other people and it's worth it for film directly. I think it's going to happen more. Uh I'm working on a few different film projects at the moment and if you're interested in doing more films, let me know. Yeah, totally, you know, rare audience member out there. But there's a lot of Bitcoin mining stories to be told because they're about people and people can, we can always tell more stories about people. You can always tell so many stories about digital currency and what the next Bitcoin is, but you can always tell more stories about people. Well, OK, let's get back to those people and talk about it. Um I watched the film last night. There are a bunch of positive impacts that are mentioned in the film that the people of Spur are experiencing now that this Bitcoin mining facility is there in their town. Talk to me about some of the ones that stood out for you. Yeah. Uh The easiest one to point to from the numbers perspective is just the standard of living rising because Galaxy showed up. So Galaxy pays about 30% over the average minimum wage in town for basic jobs. And that kind of creeps up between like all the other different positions in town. So if you work at Galaxy, like you're getting paid 30% more than your next door neighbor and that money can flow back into the community. So why is that? Well, because you're basically just buying things from the town store right there, from the grocery store, things like that. So Galaxy coming in had an immediate economic impact that you can actually measure. The second thing that, you know, the film really zeroes in on is this concept of the town pool. And I like kind of like to think of the town pool in this story as like the promise of Big tech. We, we get these promises from Big Tech, whether it be like, make your life faster, make your life easier, connect you with more people for the people of Spur Texas. And often these small towns where big tech is moving into, the promise is very physical and it comes down to infrastructure or helping kids get uh loans to go to college or grants. And for Spur Texas, they have a swimming pool that was out of commission for about 15 years. Uh The previous Bitcoin mining company had tried to fix it but have financial problems. So they weren't able to galaxy, came in, had to set up and fix the Bitcoin mine before they could fix the pool. Uh And so it became sort of like this uh conflict between the town and Galaxy. When is this pool gonna be finished? Is it going to be finished? And at the end, we see spoiler that the, the pool is, is finished and fixed and I think that represents like a promise that big tech and especially Bitcoin companies that uh uphold their promises can be good neighbors and can uplift these rural communities that haven't had anything in 6050 plus years. They haven't had anything to hang their hats on. Uh with Bitcoin moving in these large data centers, uh There's promise of rejuvenation and more people being able to have higher standards of living. I mean, you've been in the mining industry for a little bit now. I know you're very knowledgeable about it. You talk about it on your podcast that's also on the Quin desk, uh podcast network. What challenges do you anticipate firms like galaxy experiencing in the years to come. Like it sounds all really positive now. But what challenges do you think that they will experience in the next two or three years? Yeah, definitely. I think we didn't gloss over some of the expectations and fears that townspeople have about Bitcoin mining. So let's focus on those. Again. The film, we talked with uh the editorial staff, the Texas Spur and I have a soft spot for media. So we made sure to go and talk to them just as like the eyes and ears of the town and they definitely have concerns. Uh I think the pool was the biggest thing. They want the pool to be done. They wanted that promise to be kept. But even past that, like saying that there's jobs now doesn't mean there's always going to be jobs and especially in such a volatile market like Bitcoin, I think the concern is big company comes to town prices go down, big company leaves and the town is kind of back in square one. It might even be a worse off position because as all this old infrastructure can't really sell it, sort of an eyesore. So when you go through Spur, you go through uh East Texas and these sort of places, you'll often find that there have been companies out there, but they've come and gone. And I think that's the concern with Bitcoin. Like, are you going to stay over the next 1520 plus years and be a part of this community. And I think from Galaxy Side, they are, they've built out 100 50 or so megawatts of the facility, they have another 650 to build out. So there's a lot of growth there. But I think for the entire industry, the question is like, are you going to uphold your promise? Will you be here in 1520 years? Are you going to help us get to the next place? Are you gonna help our kids go to college, those sort of things and just to round this up, I know the having is happening on Friday or Saturday. We don't know exactly when uh yet, but from a mining company perspective, what do you expect to see after the having is done in terms of consolidation? You just mentioned, you know, do we know if this company is going to be around in 15 or 20 years? What do you expect to see? Yeah, I mean, I think probably see about 10% of network cash rate go offline. Uh Just you can think of that in terms of numbers, like that's gonna be like 10% of facilities or 10% of Bitcoin miners won't be able to operate profitably. And so they might turn off for a little bit in order to like not have to pay for the price of electricity. Uh Maybe they'll come back online in a little bit typically. Do you see Bitcoin price go up after Bitcoin happening, whether it be three months later to nine months later, it's typically the trend we see. So I do think a lot of people in the Bitcoin mining industry are sort of banking on number go up theory. But even past that, there is a lot of exciting stuff with like Bitcoin and FTS or ordinals, which I'm sure you guys talk a lot about on this show and there's a lot of speculation around those fees moving into miners pockets and enabling them to stick around. The last thing I'll say is a lobby of miners has spent the last four years making their entire fleets more efficient. So I think we'll see less hash Ray come offline than in the previous happenings. Colin Harper over Alexir Tech had a great piece in this. I think in a coin desk article you guys published yesterday talking about how we'll probably have the least amount of hash ray come offline this having compared to all the other ones. So generally bullish. Hash ray definitely going to be a pain point for a few miners. But I think a number goes up across all metrics and will just to wrap us up here. I don't let anyone do this on the show, but you are a special case. How can people watch the film? Love it. Thanks for your uh plug there. Yeah, you can go to block space dot media and go over to our film section. You can watch it there, uh, or just go to the Big empty.xyz and you'll find the film there as well. We'll do a few screenings, I think, maybe down in Texas and then fingers crossed one in New York in May. So few places to watch it.

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Big Tech Comes to Small Town: A Bitcoin Mining Story in Spur - CoinDesk

Alphabets Google trimmed an unspecified number of employees from its workforce, a move it stated is part of a wider restructuring intended to simplify operations and increase efficiency.

In a statement seen by Mobile World Live, a Google spokesperson explained the layoffs were intended to remove layers so it can maximise its resources to work on its most innovative and important advances, though the technology giant did not disclose the departments or numbers of jobs affected.

The restructuring was described by the company as a normal course of business to ensure its workforce allocates its energy to work on priorities, and impacted staff will be able to apply for other internal roles while receiving a severance package.

Reutersnoted the cuts are not company-wide and that a small percentage of impacted jobs will move to locations Google are currently investing in, including its operations in India and Ireland. The outlet added some employees across Googles finance and real estate arms have already been affected by these changes.

The news first came to light due to leaked internal memo seen by Business Insider, in which Google CFO Ruth Porat told staff the cuts were part of a restructuring strategy to better align its ecosystem with AI-related changes in the technology sector.

Porat reportedly noted in the memo the restructuring will involve an expansion to Mexico and the Indian city of Bangalore.

Google axed hundreds of staff in January in a drive to prioritise its spending on AI innovations, and at the time CEO Sundar Pichai warned of more staff cuts this year.

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Google restructure leads to job cuts - Mobile World Live

Jon Stewart was asked by Apple Inc. to not have Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan on his podcast. Nonetheless, amid several ongoing investigations by the FTC, he brought her onto The Daily Show to discuss recent antitrust legal action against tech giants and to explore corporate accountability concerns on April 1.

Regarding Apple, Stewart asked Khan, What is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?

Khan replied, Going back all the way to the founding, there was a recognition that in the same way that you need the Constitution to create checks and balances in our political sphere, you also needed the antitrust and anti-monopoly laws to safeguard against concentration of economic power because you dont want an autocrat of trade in the same way that you dont want a monarch.

During the 20-minute interview, Khan discussed how companies get away with monopolistic activity, including how to identify it through company behavior. With Stewart bridging the concept to oligopolies, Khan addressed how companies becoming less competitive harms Americans.

While monopolistic activity can be spotted through assessing the boundary of the market or the market share, Khan said the most direct way is looking at how the company behaves.

She presented Amazon.com Inc. as an example, which the FTC filed a lawsuit against in September 2023, alleging it prevented sellers from offering their products at reduced prices on alternative platforms. This included steadily hiking the fees small businesses had to pay to sell through Amazon, eventually paying one out of every two dollars to the company creating a 50% monopoly tax, Khan said.

When holding these companies accountable, the FTC, which employs about 1,200 employees, is outnumbered 10 to 1 in terms of legal staff. Khan says it leaves them outgunned, but not outmatched.

So this isnt just about getting a fine, Stewart interjected. They [SEC] go after groups and then they cant really prove it in court, so then theyre like, How about this? You give us a cut of your profit and well all be done here.

Khan said the FTC deters illegal behavior by, for instance, naming individual executives in some of the lawsuits. However, despite not having criminal authority, the FTC succeeded with Baruch alumnus Martin Shkreli, who hiked up the price of Daraprim by 5,000%, by banning him from doing business in the pharmaceutical industry.

Stewart then shifted focus to tech companies, which have faced recent antitrust lawsuits for stifling competition, citing Apple as an example. In March, the DOJ and 17 states sued Apple, alleging it maintains an illegal monopoly through practices fostering customer dependence on its devices.

Regarding oligopolies, which refers to a market structure where few firms influence the market, Stewart asked if companies are colluding together to corner the market.

One trend that were especially concerned about is the way that algorithms may be facilitating price fixing, Khan said. If you have a whole bunch of competitors in a market, be it hotels, be it casinos, and they all decide theyre going to outsource their pricing decision to the same algorithm, they may be in effect fixing their prices even if theyre not getting in a back room and making secret deals.

Concluding the interview on AI consolidation, Stewart mentioned how companies like Apple, Googles parent company Alphabet Inc. or Microsoft Corp. acquire AI startups and restrict access, leading to an arms race to see who will establish a monopoly or if this will become a new oligopoly.

The first thing we need to do is be clear-eyed that theres no AI exemption from the laws on the books, Khan said.

When asked by Stewart on what will follow if something catastrophic happens through AI, Khan said theres no inevitable outcome.

We are the decision makers. Khan said. We need to use the policy tools and levers that we have to make sure that these technologies are proceeding on a trajectory that benefits Americans, and were not subjected to all of the risks and harms.

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FTC's Lina Khan talks big tech monopolies on The Daily Show - The Ticker

Facebook (now Meta) raised international eyebrows in 2016 when it sought to dismiss a lawsuit by a 14-year-old girl from Northern Ireland whose nude image was uploaded without her consent to a so-called “shame page.” It was a curious move by an organization that claims to take these issues seriously.  

Since then, advancements in technology have opened dangerous new doors for predators determined to weaponize social media by committing online acts of sexual violence. Yet Meta and other online platforms haven’t changed their posture; in fact, they’ve lobbied Congress to escape accountability for the behavior of bad actors on their networks.  

That 2016 case is ever-relevant today as social media companies enjoy blanket protection over the growing problem of AI “deepfakes” — images of real people transformed into lifelike pictures and videos depicting them saying and doing things that never happened.  

There was a time, not long ago, when an altered picture — “photoshopped” was the common term — could be spotted a mile away. AI’s evolution has made detecting a real image from a doctored one nearly impossible.  

Concern over AI deepfakes has largely focused on their use in perpetrating election interference in this year’s U.S. presidential race. But they raise a more depraved problem that should scare all of us: deepfake pornography, where software programs accessible by a simple online search can turn an innocent image of an unwitting individual into a sexualized scene or video that can be posted online without consent.  

Taylor Swift, along with thousands of other celebrities, was the target of one. Innocent children are being victimized by it, too. 

Not long ago a 14-year-old boy notified the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children that someone had threatened to post a deepfake pornographic image of him if he didn’t pay the perpetrator ransom.  

Another 14-year-old girl from New Jersey told the New York Times she was “summoned” to her school’s assistant principal’s office, where she was told some of her male classmates had used an AI program to turn a clothed picture of her into a naked image that was posted online.  

She recalled the shame she felt when boys started laughing at her in the hallway. Images of other girls at the school were altered and shared as well.  

One of the victims has filed a lawsuit against a male classmate allegedly involved. It’s unclear if anyone was disciplined, but it’s safe to say the boys at the school aren’t laughing anymore. 

Local, state and U.S. officials are behind the curve in addressing this problem. 

“All school districts are grappling with the challenges and impact of artificial intelligence,” read the uninspired statement of Superintendent Raymond González in response to the New Jersey incident. A recently introduced state bill spurred “dozens” of other deepfake victims to come forward.  

Social media companies can do something about it, but some simply choose not to. The New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof found that Google and Bing searches for deepfake pornographic content returned a high number of faked celebrity sex videos while Yahoo’s search engine returned none. Comparatively, a Google search on suicide returned no results on how to commit the act but rather offered listings where people can go to get help.  

“In other words,” Kristof posits, “Google is socially responsible when it wants to be, but it seems indifferent to women and girls being violated by pornographers.”   

Social media companies have proven they can’t police themselves, but Congress can. 

They can amend the Communications Decency Act to hold social media companies liable when deepfake pornographic images are published on their platforms. They can pass bills, such as the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act and the Shield Act, which would make the circulation of deepfake pornography a crime. They can pass the Defiance Act, which would enhance deepfake pornography victims’ rights.  

But Congress has gutlessly failed to act on any of these measures.  

Social media platforms could be part of the solution. They could ally with victims and show leadership and compassion by enacting tougher measures to censor deepfake content. They could set an example by pushing for stricter laws and regulations to prevent faked sexual images from being searchable or uploaded on the networks they host.  

Instead, they seek absolution of the problem. They fight to protect themselves from liability while victims are shamed on their platforms for something they never intended, and never authorized, that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.  

Facebook lost its attempt in 2016 to have the case dismissed and wound up settling with the 14-year-old girl from Belfast. It should be a message to every other victim of revenge and deepfake pornography on these platforms: Sue them and hit them where it hurts.  

As long as Congress remains impudent in standing up to them and as long as social media companies fight tooth and nail to evade responsibility, victims should drown them in litigation.  

Maybe then, and only then, they’ll get the message that the burden is on them to solve this crisis. 

Lyndon?Haviland, DrPH, MPH, is a distinguished scholar at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy.? 

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Deepfake victims must punish Big Tech because Congress wont - The Hill

The latest craze sweeping the United States legislation to protect kids data and overall online safety has its own snappy epithet. The Guardian reports on the so-called Kids Code bills popping up in multiple state legislatures, the latest of which recently passed in Maryland by unanimous vote. The full list of nine states reads like a fellowship of age-appropriate design: Maryland, plus Vermont, Minnesota, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico, South Carolina, New Mexico and Nevada.

But every fellowship has its Nazgl, and in this case the two sides warring for moral control of the internet involve some atypical partnerships. Social media companies are pushing back against the legal wave alongside porn distributors and civil rights advocates, who say age verification rules risk violating the constitutional rights of law-abiding adults. For the social media firms, however, it may be less a matter of ethics and more about not wanting to enforce age policies that would limit their massive user bases all of which have been established under relatively lax verification standards.

Making matters even more complicated is the assertion by critics that social media platforms should not have to verify users age with ID or biometric verification because they already know a users age, as proven by targeted advertising. The argument is summed up tidily by a representative from the Tech Oversight Project, quoted in the Guardian: Social media companies business models are based on knowing who their users are.

In a legal petition to the Supreme Court concerning what it alleges is an unconstitutional age-verification provision in Texass HB 1181, Vera Eidelman, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, argues that the legislative panic over kids accessing content adult content is an overreaction with historical precedent.

This isnt the first time that concerns about minors access have led legislators to pass unconstitutional laws, reads the statement from Eidelman. Weve gone through this time and again, with everything from drive-in movies to video games to websites, and courts have repeatedly struck down laws imposing requirements that burden adults access to non-obscene sexual content in the name of protecting children.

Tactics employed by social media firms have not done much to dial down the tone. Lobbyists have posed as concerned parents in court without disclosing their affiliations. State disclosure forms reveal that big tech companies spent more than $243,000 in lobbying fees in Maryland in 2023, with Google spending $93,076, Amazon $88,886 and Apple $133,449. NetChoice, the industry lobby group representing the firms, has its own set of proposed solutions that would eliminate the need for identity verification, most of which take the onus to protect kids off of them. The Tech Oversight Project has observed a clear and accelerating pattern of deception in anti-Kids Code lobbying.

It makes for what John Carr, Secretary of the UKs Childrens Charities Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS) and a noted authority on young peoples use of the internet, calls an exceptionally uneven playing field.

Speaking on the fifth and final day of the 2024 Global Age Assurance Standards Summit, Carr says NetChoice frames its mission as to defend free enterprise and free speech on the internet. Carr disagrees. The only thing that NetChoice actually does is take to court every single federal, state or city piece of legislation that tries to introduce any kind of regulation on anything connected with the Internet. And the reason for that is very straightforward they dont mind if they lose. But if they delay the process by five years, four years, six years, and the status quo is maintained, thats money in the bank.

While third-party vendors are the simplest and most accessible solution for age verification, they come with privacy risks a problem that Frances National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) aims to solve with its more private system.

In an interview with Scientific American, Olivier Blazy, a computer scientist and professor at the cole Polytechnique in France who worked on CNILs age verification scheme, says the regulators system creates something like a firewall between the content provider and the verification service. The only information the content provider gets is a yes or no about whether a user is aged 18 or older, Blazy says. The only information the age verifier gets is that someone has sent an age-verification request.

ACLU | age verification | biometrics | children | CNIL | legislation | regulation | social media

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The distress of Nigerians over repeated episodes of biometric capture for different identification purposes has been highlighted by local outlet

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Kids Code bills prompt epic showdown between regulators, activists and big tech firms - Biometric Update