Category Archives: Big Tech

One of the biggest threats to U.S. national security and economic well-being is coming not from antagonistic nations such as Russia, China, or Iran. Instead, the source of this danger is the U.S. Senate, specifically, the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The committee recently voted out a bill, the American Innovation and Choice Act (AICA), that threatens not only to weaken this countrys advanced technology sector but also adversely impact Americas supply chains in a time of crisis. If passed into law, AICA will give both state and non-state actors new opportunities to do considerable damage to U.S. national security. It also fundamentally changes the regulatory standard for pursuing antitrust actions and sends a chilling message to firms seeking to compete for a leading place in the online economy. The bill is irrevocably flawed, and the full Senate must reject it.

The bill addresses large companies that run covered online platforms, which it defines as a website, online or mobile application, operating system, digital assistant, or online service. It would prohibit these firms from using their online platforms in a manner favoring their own products or services, disadvantaging rivals, or discriminating among businesses that use their platforms in a manner that would materially harm competition on the platform.

Another violation of the act would be for these platform providers to unfairly limit the ability of another business users products, services, or lines of business to compete on the covered platform relative to the covered platform operators own products, services, or lines of business in a manner that would materially harm competition on the covered platform. These companies would be forbidden from preventing interoperability with the services of other companies and from exploiting the other companys information to compete against them.

The approach taken by AICA to improving online competition is misguided. First, it applies only to a handful of big tech firms rather than all operators of online platforms. These are companies with at least 50 million active monthly users or with 100,000 active business users or with net annual sales or a market capitalization of no less than $550 billion. This means that AICA would apply to at most five big tech firms: Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Microsoft. Major retailers such as Walmart and Target could acquire an online platform and discriminate against competitors but be exempt from the law because they currently fall below the market cap threshold. Conversely, if Tesla or Berkshire Hathaway, both of which have market caps in excess of the standard, entered the online platform business, they would immediately become subject to AICA should it become law.

Second, it upends decades of antitrust law and regulation by making a negative impact on competitors, not consumers, the standard for a violation. This threatens to make the government the arbiter of what constitutes fair competition, a role for which it is unsuited. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that clearly presaged the economic and legal harm the bill would cause. It partly read:

The outcome of such radical change to antitrust would drive inflation, hamper innovation, undermine job creation, and damage Americans [sic] global competitiveness. This legislation represents a gateway to supporting a larger and radical antitrust agenda that seeks to divorce economic analysis from the law with the aim of applying these same concepts to a much wider swath of our economy.

Possibly even more dangerous for the nation are the potentially deleterious effects of AICA on the security of major online platforms. Several of the affected companies not only provide major covered platform services to consumers but also the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community (IC).

Government organizations look to reduce the costs for implementing cloud computing while enhancing innovation by acquiring commercial cloud services, albeit with enhanced security. The IC selected both Amazon Web Services and Microsoft to provide specialized classified cloud services, based in part on their ability to guarantee the security of the applications and information used. DoD recently announced that it would sign contracts with at least four major cloud platform providersAmazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oraclethrough its Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability program to provide enterprise-wide computing and storage capability, including for highly classified information, down to the tactical edge.

The source of the danger is in the portion of the bill that specifies unlawful conduct. Section 2(b)(1) creates an opening for competing third-party service providers and potential bad actors to gain access to the platform providers back-end infrastructure. This section makes it unlawful for the platform provider to materially restrict or impede the capacity of a business user to access or interoperate with the same platform, operating system, hardware or software features that are available to the covered platform operators own products, services, or lines of business. . .

This section potentially opens the door for commercial users of so-called covered platforms to access critical hardware and software, some of which will inevitably be the same as the systems supporting critical government departments and agencies. While the bill does allow subject companies to protect IP and undertake measures necessary for security, it creates opportunities for malign actors to go exploring through providers hardware and software looking for vulnerabilities.

In addition, the providers of cloud services must meet an impossibly high bar with respect to the imposition of security measures. Companies can restrict access for security purposes only so long as doing so does not come at the expense of interoperability and access and requires a company to show that the security measures could not be achieved through less discriminatory means. This turns the demand for secure cloud infrastructure on its head, giving preference to users demands for equal access over protecting systems and critical software. In a world where foreign actors are constantly trying to attack U.S. companies, do we want the strongest online security or the least discriminatory environment?

This bill is ill-conceived and poorly written. The Senate Judiciary Committee held no hearings on the proposed legislation. Consequently, it failed to uncover the unintended but highly negative consequences of its efforts to promote competition in online markets. In particular, by promoting accessibility at the expense of security, the proposed act could seriously hamper the ability of the Defense Department and intelligence community to acquire innovative commercial cloud technologies and place users at peril, particularly members of the Armed Forces in combat.

Dan Gour, Ph.D., is a vice president at the public-policy research think tank Lexington Institute. Gour has a background in the public sector and U.S. federal government, most recently serving as a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. You can follow him on Twitter at @dgoure and the Lexington Institute @LexNextDC.

Image: Reuters.

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Senate Attack on Big Tech Will Harm U.S. Economic And National Security - The National Interest

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. EXCLUSIVE: Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., dove into numerous foreign policy matters involving the U.S., from heightening tensions between Russia and Ukraine, which has the Florida National Guard caught in the middle, to Big Tech and the Biden administration's handling of China and the controversial Beijing Olympics.

During an interview with Fox News Digital in Tallahassee, Florida, on Monday, the governor said that it is a "mistake" that American athletes are competing in the 2020 Winter Olympic Games, underway in Beijing, China. The Biden administration and its international allies are enacting a diplomatic boycott of the games over the genocide of Uyghur Muslims by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But DeSantis said it does not go far enough to stand up to America's "number-one geopolitical foe."

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"I've said previously that I would boycott [the Beijing Olympics]. I mean, I think it's a mistake. I mean, China is our number-one geopolitical foe. If you look at what they're doing, they're amassing huge amounts of power. And it's not just that they're building up their military, they are, they command huge influence within the United States," DeSantis told Fox News Digital.

Ron DeSantis sat down with Fox News Digital in Tallahassee.

DeSantis noted the role of NBC, the news outlet carrying the games in the U.S., saying it is "whitewashing" what he calls the "genocide Olympics." NBC's broadcast of the opening ceremonies last week saw a historic low and was down 43% from previous Games.

"This is a genocide Olympics. And the thing is you see these, the broadcast on NBC, where they're whitewashing this stuff. You look at these corporate sponsors that are signing up on that. You know, they will blow, these corporations in America, and they'll blow a gasket, you know, for these small issues in the United States. But yet they're willing to underwrite games of the country that's committing genocide. I think it's a disgrace what's going on."

Corporate sponsors of the Games, including Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble, have been silent on the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs in China but extremely vocal about their opposition to Republican states' election laws and other human rights issues in the U.S.

In addition to China, the U.S. is facing aggression from Russia. Tensions between Russia and America's partner Ukraine have increased to the point of near-war, and the Department of Defense confirmed last week it is moving approximately 3,000 troops to Germany, Poland and Romania.

Florida is uniquely positioned in this crisis due to the fact that there are about 150 Florida National Guard inside of Western Ukraine on a previously scheduled training rotation.

DeSantis slammed President Biden for keeping Floridians stationed in the middle of the Ukraine crisis on a federal deployment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the opening of a monoclonal antibody site, Aug. 18, 2021, in Pembroke Pines, Florida. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

"That would have been Joe Bidens doing, not ours. You know my view is I dont want to see American troops in Ukraine. I think that we have a lot of problems here in the United States. Weve given Ukraine a lot of support over the years under the Trump administration we provided huge amounts of lethal aid, and so I think that theyve been equipped to defend themselves, but to put American troops in the midst of that is not something that I want to see, particularly with Floridians."

The governor recently announced that he will be re-establishing the Florida State Guard, for which he has garnered pushback from state Democrats who are calling him a "wannabe dictator." DeSantis responded that the reason he is planning to reinstate the State Guard is because Florida doesn't have enough National Guardsmen, and the new guard would be free from the "whims of the federal government."

"And so this will give us more people to be able to do things like respond if there's disorder, like respond to disasters and all those other things. It also gives us the ability to have people who are not subject to federal requirements. So, for example, [the federal government] wouldn't be able to mobilize and deploy people who are in the State Guard," DeSantis told Fox News Digital. "They also wouldn't be able to impose mandates on people in the State Guard. They are trying to do that with the federal guard. And so I think it will help us complete our mission and will also allow us to do in a way which is not subject to the whims of the federal government."

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DeSantis also dove into criticism of America's Big Tech companies, who he says "bend the knee" to the CCP, along with Biden, who he says has worked to "empower Beijing."

"A lot of these corporations, the Apples of the world, the Facebooks, they will not buck the Communist Party of China. I mean, they will bend the knee. Hollywood bends the knee to these people. Our financial institutions bend the knee. So they have an inordinate amount of influence over our domestic situation, which is much different than, say, the Soviet Union back during the Cold War. So they are a very formidable adversary. They do not have our best interests at heart."

DeSantis praised former President Trump for being the first leader to call out the tight ties between American businesses and China.

"And I think President Trump was really the first one to really call that out. A lot of administrations have really helped to elevate and empower Beijing, including Biden. And I think the best policy for America is to understand that they're an adversary, and we should want to weaken their grip over our economy and over our political system."

The Florida governor went further in his criticism of Big Tech, saying that these companies are controlling so much political speech in the U.S. that they are trying to "impose an orthodoxy." He pointed specifically to the censorship of online speech on COVID, as many online platforms have censored or blocked speech that is not in line with statements put out by White House chief medical adviser Dr. Antony Fauci.

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"I think at the end of the day, you can't have a situation in which a handful of companies control so much of the political speech in this country, and they are censoring, and they are and trying to impose an orthodoxy," said DeSantis.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

"If you put something out on COVID that Fauci disagrees with, they will censor you, even though Fauci has been wrong on a lot. If you dissent from the CDC, they will censor you well. When you're acting as an arm of the government, then the First Amendment does apply."

The governor also mentioned the ongoing controversy with GoFundMe, an online fundraising platform that came under fire recently for attempting to divert funds intended for Canadian truckers protesting the governments COVID vaccine mandate. DeSantis has pledged to investigate the matter further.

"But I think Big Tech, I mean, it's almost like they're cutting off the nose to spite their face. They're so ideological, they're in this bubble, and they take these actions that alienate so many of their potential customers that they're going to end up, I think, really hurting what they're trying to accomplish."

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DeSantis slams Big Tech and media for 'whitewashing' the 'genocide Olympics,' says Biden is weak on China - Fox News

Amid drama at Spotify, Joe Rogan reportedly declined Rumbles $100 million offer to host his podcast this week. Yet its remarkable that Rumble, a much-needed competitor to YouTube, was in a position to even make the pitch. The platform is growing fast, serving like Parler as a critical test of our free market system and its resilience against monopoly power.

That experiment, however, raises a major challenge for Big Techs competitors, who offer alternatives almost entirely on the basis of their approach to free expression, but havent yet distinguished themselves from their counterparts unhealthy business models.

In moderation, YouTube is great. I trust the public to moderate their use of it more than I trust the government to moderate for us. This is basically the debate conservatives made against Michael Bloombergs mayoral effort to ban Big Gulps.

Indeed, the Chinese government is taking an increasingly active role in moderating individuals time on social media. Hoping to stay in the governments good graces, ByteDance makes Douyin users take a five-second pause when theyve been on the app for too long. Childrens daily use is capped and confined to certain hours.

The Chinese government is using a cost-benefit-analysis that posits the social costs of excess Douyin use are not worth the heightened financial benefits to the company and the country. Its the basic cost-benefit-analysis lawmakers here apply to questions of regulatory oversight, from tobacco to seatbelts, but with a high-tech twist.

Of course, China wants its companies to be successful. The more Coca-Cola we drink, the more profitable an American company is. The same goes for the more time people spend on Douyin or, in Americas case, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Again, I trust the public to make these personal health decisions more than the government. When youre in the throes of mass addiction and dependence, however, that project becomes more difficult.

This is the situation in which we find ourselves now. Big Tech is a public health emergency in the way some see Big Tobacco, but on an infinitely wider scaleweve transferred our personal and professional and political lives onto platforms designed to affect us like slot machines. There is absolutely no historical precedent for this.

Its why, in a sense, classical liberalism has to be the savior of classical liberalism. Our contemporary interpretation of it may need some post-postmodern modifications, to be sure. But without free markets to boost competitors and a free press to hold power accountable, the solution would be outsourcing more personal decisions to our broken and bloated federal government. That wont be better.

As conservatives join forces with heterodox centrists and liberals to build parallel institutions that compete with Big Tech, from Rumble to Parler to Gettr to all of the future platforms, theyre participating in an absolutely critical experiment. Its perhaps the single most important effort in the country today, the only thing that can loosen us from the control of poisonous platforms and their oligarchical executives. But the public health concerns are as important as those regarding free expression.

Yes, this requires Big Techs competitors to sacrifice user addiction in the hopes that people want to be less addicted and more free to speak openly. I think thats still a good bet.

Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young Americas Foundation. Shes interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including Fox News Sunday, Media Buzz, and The McLaughlin Group. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center and a visiting fellow at Independent Women's Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.

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Big Tech's Speech-Centric Competitors Need To Also Offer Healthier Use - The Federalist

(NEXSTAR) Like it or not, its time to embrace the metaverse.

On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed his company Facebook Inc. would be rebranding itself as Meta, to better reflect its focus on building the metaverse, described by Zuckerberg as an embodied internet where youre in the experience, not just looking at it.

The concept of the metaverse, meanwhile, has been around long before Facebook even existed. Often described as the successor to the internet, futurists and tech experts have envisioned the metaverse as a place where our physical realities converge with various virtual experiences in a shared virtual space. This idea has been explored in some way or another by science-fiction authors or Hollywood filmmakers over the past several decades, generally depicted as a virtual-reality platform where users can create an avatar to interact with fellow members of the digital population.

The concepts name the metaverse was even adopted from the 1992 novel Snow Crash, in which the plot plays out in both virtual and physical realities.

The term predates the internet we know today, explains Trond Undheim, PhD, a futurist and author whose podcasts explore technological innovation and artificial intelligence, among other topics. But it has now become the term for the gradual shift in digital communication whereby the internet is becoming a hybrid reality, meaning its becoming physical and digital at the same time.

The easiest way to envision this concept, perhaps, is to observe the gaming community which is the closest any group has come to entering the so-called metaverse, as far as Undheim is concerned. These gamers have established virtual avatars of themselves, which interact with other virtual avatars across persistent online worlds. Theyre working together in real time, arranging meet-ups, even spending in-game currencies all while communicating via headsets or chat.

There have even been reports of people hosting their wedding inside the cutesy virtual world of Nintendos Animal Crossing and inviting their friends digital avatars to attend after the pandemic canceled their real-world receptions. More recently, Fortnite reimagined Washington D.C. circa 1963 to teleport players back to the Capitol to watch Martin Luther King, Jr. give his iconic I Have a Dream speech.

But the future of open-world gaming is just one of the many ways the metaverse will take hold of our lives. Big Tech, of course, is ready to take things a step further.

As Zuckerberg described in a video released Thursday, Meta is trying to build a part of the metaverse that would let users do almost anything you can imagine or at least be a place where they can interact, work, shop, play games, gather for social events or create content. He also claims Metas efforts will create millions of job opportunities, much like the internet eventually created jobs that were previously unheard of.

I expect that the metaverse is going to open up lots of opportunities for people in the exact same way, Zuckerberg said. But the reality is that no one knows exactly which models are going to work and make this sustainable.

In addition to Facebook, which had previously boasted its virtual playgrounds and boardrooms, Microsoft has also been discussing its own metaverse apps for creating, and connecting to, all-new shared digital spaces.

The pandemic only accelerated the need for at least some types of metaverse-adjacent experiences, with more folks working from home and relying on technology in order to be places that they cant physically be. Theres also growing interest in making virtual events more accessible, allowing users to attend art galleries or concerts with other online friends, or patronize virtual businesses where they can spend their hard-earned currency (or cryptocurrency) on goods or services real or digital.

The metaverse is different and much more powerful than a complete virtual reality, Undheim says, because it is combining the two without merging them all the way.

It doesnt truly exist yet, he adds. But well know it when we see it.

Much of the technology needed to create the metaverse already exists, or is currently in development. But there are still several hurdles to cross before the concept can be put into use, including bandwidth requirements, and getting enough people on board. Undheim also fears that the metaverse may become too commercialized very early on, making users feel alienated or exploited before the concept has a chance to reach its full potential.

What Undheim does know, though, its that the metaverse is coming relatively fast, too.

We will see this wash over us in the next five to seven years, Undheim believes. [Its here] the moment a reasonable person would say, I dont really know if I would value my physical reality over interacting online. Maybe they dont even recognize the distinction between the two.

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What is the metaverse? A look at what Big Tech views as the next stage of the internet - FOX40

Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and even Lego participated in Safer Internet Day by unveiling new policies to protect users of all ages across platforms.

Most recently, Facebook, owned by Meta, announced a joint lawsuit Tuesday against two Nigerian-based scammers. An unnamed financial services company is joining the platform as a second plaintiff in the suit, which is reportedly the first of its kind.

"Between March 2020 and October 2021, the defendants engaged in phishing attacks intended to lure people using Facebook and Instagram to phishing websites with the goal of compromising their financial services accounts for profit," Meta alleged in a statement. "To conceal their activities, the defendants used a network of computers to control over 800 impersonating Facebook and Instagram accounts and evade technical enforcement measures."

DA'S YOUTH GROUP TO OFFER INTERNET SAFETY PROGRAM

The platform previously attempted to stop the alleged scammers by "disabling Facebook and Instagram accounts, blocking impersonating domains on its services and sending a cease and desist letter."

Twitter rolled out its new reporting policy Tuesday. Rather than flagging a tweet as "abusive" or "suspicious," users can explain their problem with a post with a fill-in-the-blank system. In December, the company announced it had begun testing the new process in the United States. Safer Internet Day marked the first day the platform implemented the system worldwide.

TikTok announced a new policy to protect its gay and transgender users. The ban includes the use of transgender individuals' old names or pronouns, engagement in misogyny, or promotion of pro-conversion therapy content. In addition, the short-form video platform donated $1,000 to 40 schools to further educate teenagers about internet safety.

Lego created a new animated miniseries all about internet safety. The toy company's goal is to "empower children to become positive digital citizens, who contribute to healthy digital communities." Characters include the Oversharer, Meanie, and the Big-Eyed Monster, who takes a break from screens.

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Safer Internet Day began as a European Union initiative in 2004.

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Big Tech unites to make internet safer with tutorials, grants, and lawsuits - Washington Examiner

Everyones paying up for loyalty some way more than others.

Why it matters: Anxious employers across all industries have been boosting salaries and benefits.

Driving the news: Bonus season is underway on Wall Street, with $10 million to $25 million payouts being some of the largest in about a decade.

It got us thinking who else has been bumping up bonuses?

What they're saying: These bonuses are idiosyncratic whereas wage gains [in other areas of the labor market] are a little bit more sustainable and worth highlighting as very positive for workers in the lower end of the income spectrum, Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, tells Axios.

The big picture: The size of these paystubs also speak to the way economic inequality has grown over the past two years.

What to watch: When employer generosity might wane.

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Wall street and tech reward big, rare bonuses - Axios

Even in his teens, Marijn van Vliet tinkered with computers and built websites for friends and family. After studying International Relations, he became professionally involved in the digitalization of society. From 2014 he worked for the Lower House party of D66 (Dutch liberal party) to bring about good digital laws and regulations. In 2021 he started as an independent political consultant and initiator of a partnership for digital rights organizations.

Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify this week because the company is spreading fake news about corona via Joe Rogans podcast. Spotify responded by creating a special COVID-19-Hub to direct people to accurate sources of information. By doing this, Spotify is following the irresponsible example of its Big Tech friends. After all, the damage has already been done and such a hub gives the company only the semblance of social responsibility without really having to take responsibility.

Meanwhile, we see more and more often and in ever more concrete terms the excesses of Big Techs irresponsibility. Although that particular torch-bearing extremist was by no means the first conspiracy theorist to threaten politicians, he was the straw that broke the camels back. The response from the government in the Hague is, unfortunately, very feeble. A committee has been set up that is supposed to investigate the effects of radicalization and polarization and formulate recommendations on how to better defend democracy against extremism, radicalization and polarization. As understandable as this Hague approach may be, the commission is diverting attention from the steps that need to be taken now to force social media the catalysts of polarization and radicalization to be accountable.

That radicalization and polarization can have disastrous effects on democracy should come as no surprise anymore. The storming of the US Capitol barely a year ago was the ultimate example of what can happen when power-hungry politicians take advantage of polarization and radicalization that is fuelled by social media. Twitter and Facebook may have thrown Trump off their platforms, but the fostering of extreme ideas is still going on under the radar.

Politicians in the Netherlands are also taking advantage of the social climate that Silicon Valley has created. With the low point being a political party that openly expresses conspiracy theories in the Dutch House of Representatives. Unfortunately, that is only the tip of the iceberg. Politicians who know how to make the most out of #ophef (#outcry) are soaring in the polls, while nuanced opinions are falling further and further by the wayside. Thanks to social media, and the talk show hosts who tailor their invitation policy accordingly, strong opinions count far more than achieving actual results. At the same time, more people are losing faith in politics when those results fail to materialize.

Thanks to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, we know that the algorithms of Facebook (Meta) are configured to favor extreme content. After all, that generates higher levels of engagement, which means people linger longer, see more ads and Facebook makes more money. Incidentally, the same holds true for Youtube, according to research by the Mozilla Foundation. The recommendations algorithm stimulates the spread of fake news and extreme content, leading to polarization and radicalization. Apparently Spotify now also goes for money over social responsibility.

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This discussion is not new. In fact, The European Commission already announced at the end of 2020 two laws to address exactly this problem: the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. This legislation tackles the disproportionate market power of Big Tech and enforces transparency about how their algorithms work and the effects they have on our democracy. Meanwhile, both laws are at an advanced stage and should be adopted sometime over the next six months after consultation between the European Parliament and the European Council.

Also interesting: The influence of Facebook on freedom of information

This does mean, however, that the government needs to work NOW to ensure that both laws contain effective safeguards to counter polarisation and radicalisation. The House of Representatives should not lose itself in creating new committees and investigations, but instead provide a robust mandate to the Secretary of State for Digitalization (who, of course, should not call herself a minister for no reason abroad). That is the only way to force Big Tech into shouldering their responsibility and to help Neil Young find a better alternative for his music than that other tech giant, i.e., Amazon.

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The time for committees and investigations is over - take on Big Tech - Innovation Origins

A woman holds smartphone with Facebook logo in front of a displayed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta in this illustration picture taken October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

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NEW YORK, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Uh oh. Big Tech was cut in two on Wednesday, divided between companies that have great data and those that don't, after Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O) posted disastrous quarterly results, blaming privacy safeguards from Apple (AAPL.O) that made it tougher for advertisers.

A day earlier, Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) posted a startlingly strong quarter, thanks to bumper sales of advertising that uses its Google's search data to target ads. read more

"It's two-tiered," said Gene Munster of investment firm Loup Ventures, who called Apple's devices and Google's search service foundations of the internet. "Facebook continues to see that impact of what it means to be built on top of Apple," he said, noting that Apple's privacy changes have had a bigger impact on Facebook than he expected.

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Meta's revenue and forecast misses sent the social media company's shares down 20% in after-hours trade on Wednesday, upending a sector-wide positive outlook on the results from Apple and Alphabet. read more

The after-hours slump in Meta shares vaporized $200 billion worth of its market value, and peers Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), Snap Inc (SNAP.N) and Pinterest Inc (PINS.N) saw $15 billion in lost value.

"People may have enjoyed a false sense of security following Alphabet's/Google's very healthy and strong Q4 results," said Scott Kessler of Third Bridge. Apple's change to its operations system in the middle of last year, said, would hit much of the mobile advertising world in 2022.

Apple allowed users to block some tracking of their internet use, which has made it harder for brands to target and measure their ads on Facebook and Instagram, which is also owned by Meta. Meta CFO David Wehner said on a conference call with analysts that the impact from Apple's privacy changes could be "in the order of $10 billion" for 2022.

While Meta said macroeconomic issues like supply-chain disruptions and inflation contributed to the earnings miss, factors which could have far-reaching effects, analysts and investors focused their punishment on social media.

"It really depends on the company within tech right now," said analyst Ryan Reith of IDC, referring to high competition across services, hardware and advertising. "When you have such strong growth in a handful of tech sectors many will win and many will lose, and there will be continued volatility within."

Meta CFO Wehner suggested that Apple's relationship with Google was also an issue for Facebook. "Given that Apple continues to take billions of dollars a year from Google Search ads, the incentive clearly exists for this policy discrepancy to continue."

Meta is investing heavily in the metaverse, which merges the real world and virtual world for work and play, and the tech giant pointed to competition as a challenge for it in the last quarter.

Meta's results came after two weeks of positive outlooks from Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft (MSFT.O), and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.O), which instilled investor confidence in sector growth prospects.

"I dont think it turns around the current relief rally we are seeing in the tech space," said analyst Robert Pavlik of Dakota Wealth Management, after Meta's results. But there could be an impact on some advertising-supported companies, he said.

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Reporting by Danielle Kaye and Nivedita Balu; editing by Peter Henderson and Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Meta's miss creates Big Tech divide: who's got the data - Reuters

Big Tech should reimburse victims of online scams advertised on their platforms, Texas prepares its power grid for winter weather, and is there really a huge demand for metaverse features?

Thats all the tech news thats trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. Its Thursday, February 3, and Im your host, Tom Li.

Big Tech companies whose platforms host advertisements for scams should reimburse victims, said British lawmakers. This notion is all part of a wider effort to tackle the growing epidemic of online scams. Banks have signed up for a voluntary code to reimburse fraud victims who do enough to protect themselves but there is no sufficient regulation for social media platforms or websites where victims are first lured in. Last week, a report from the FTC revealed that more than 95,000 U.S. consumers had been duped by scams posted on social media.

Big Tech companies around the world are hopping into the metaverse, trying to stay competitive against each other, but is there even a huge demand for meta-related features? An article from Wired claims that the race is on to sell an amorphous concept that no one really wants them to build. Over the past few months virtually every tech company has incorporated the metaverse into their business in some way. Facebook, which rebranded to Meta, is working on a supercomputer to power its metaverse while also planning to implement NFT features to its social platforms. Twitter has also made similar moves and YouTube is in talks to also join in. However, the metaverse as a concept is fuzzy in general, the report says. While tech companies have disclosed that the metaverse is coming, no one really knows what it means or what it looks like.

As Texas preps for a batch of winter weather, questions arise wondering if the states power grid is ready to brave the storm. One year ago, Texas suffered a power outage to its independent power grid amidst one of the coldest Arctic freezes in decades. This week, it was announced that an Arctic front is moving towards Texas, bringing several days of cold weather. Two weeks ago, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), released its final winterization report to assess the states readiness for this winter. The councils interim chief executive said Texas electric grid is more prepared for winter operations than ever before. However, there are still some uncertainties. During a press conference, the state admitted some residents may lose power this week or weekend but it would not be due to grid issues rather ice on power lines.

Now for something a bit different. Over a year ago, an independent hacker who goes by the name P4x was hacked by North Korean spies. P4x was one victim of a hacking campaign that targeted Western security researchers with the apparent aim of stealing their hacking tools and details about software vulnerabilities. To get back at North Korea, P4x decided to take matters into their own hands, a Wired article reports. The hacker found several unpatched vulnerabilities in North Korean systems which allowed them to launch denial-of-service attacks on the routers and servers that the country uses for internet connection. According to the report, these hacking methods had immediate effects on the countrys system. Records from Pingdom show that at several points during P4xs hacking, almost every North Korean website was down.

Thats all the tech news thats trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, if you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, Im Tom Li.

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Hashtag Trending Feb. 3 - Big tech should pay back online scam victims; Is there a demand for the metaverse? Texas preps its power grid - IT World...

Big Tech has long felt free to help itself to the good ideas of smaller companies. It's bad enough that these giants fiercely contest the efforts of inventors to receive fair compensation -- a courtroom mismatch between small startup firms with a good idea but little money on one side versus behemoths valued into the trillion-plus dollars on the other.

Now, however, Big Tech is taking the process one step further by launching a subterranean counterattack on the little guys -- claiming to be the real victim here.

For years now, Big Tech has been promoting the myth of "patent trolls." This army of creatures of courtroom legend supposedly files bogus patent infringement lawsuits by the truckload in order to grab "please go away" cash settlements from the tech giants. Now, the latter have added the new wrinkle of claiming that the United States is facing a crisis of "bad patents" -- in other words, that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been failing on a mass scale by issuing patents that are too vague, too conventional, or so poorly written that it's impossible to know what invention or technology the patent encompasses.

Time and time again, when tech giants get called out for stealing intellectual property, they've made the same argument: they can't have committed theft because the smaller firms' patents were invalid in the first place.

"The claims of the Patent-in-Suit are invalid and unenforceable," pronounced Google in a recent lawsuit with smaller firm VideoShare LLC over video-streaming technology. Google huffed that VideoShare's patent was too abstract and "lacked novelty." Fortunately, the jury saw through the ruse, and the court ordered Google to pay $26 million for its infringement.

Likewise, when startup cybersecurity firm Centripetal accused Cisco of patent infringement, Cisco retaliated by trying to invalidate Centripetal's patents through a review process within the USPTO. In the end, though, a federal court in 2020 sided with Centripetal, ordering Cisco to pay nearly $2 billion in damages for infringement.

Now comes the High Tech Inventors Alliance -- an advocacy group formed to promote a "balanced patent system" by Google, Amazon, Cisco, and the like -- to allege that over a quarter of all patents granted in the United States are invalid.

If true, that would be shocking -- a damning indictment of the USPTO and its work. But a "balanced patent system" in this case means one in which Big Tech can help itself with impunity to the discoveries represented by 25 percent of all patents -- because if they are indeed invalid, there's nothing to infringe upon.

In fact, this claim is every bit as bogus and self-serving as the proposition that Big Tech is beset by patent trolls. As it turns out, the figure derives from a single, decade-old study that examined just 980 patents issued from 2000 to 2010. To put that in perspective, the PTO granted about 2 million patents in that period.

The truth is that, after many years of consistent and effective efforts to improve examination practices and tools at the USPTO, poor quality applications rarely get through the system. And 25% of U.S. patents certainly are not bad." Indeed, the United States is quite judicious in issuing patents. A 2019 study from the World Intellectual Property Organization found that USPTO grants patents in fewer than 35% of applications processed, one of the smallest percentages of leading patent offices worldwide.

In addition, the number of patent lawsuits and legal disputes in the United States has remained steady for decades. If a "patent crisis" did in fact exist, there would likely be far more than just two disputes per 1,000 patents issued -- a rate that has not budged in this country for nearly a century.

Ironically, our largest and most aggressive competitors dont think the U.S. is awash with bad patents. Indeed, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative continues to estimate that China is responsible for between $200-$600 billion in theft of American IP every year.

If Big Tech succeeds in its continued efforts to weaken intellectual property protection, the consequences will be dire, encouraging foreign theft and jeopardizing America's global economic standing.

Our policymakers shouldn't fall for Big Tech's "patent crisis" hoax. There's too much at stake.

Chris Israel is the executive director of the U.S. Alliance of Startups and Inventors for Jobs and a formerU.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator.

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Why Big Tech Wants You To Think There's A Patent Crisis - International Business Times