Category Archives: Big Tech

The Kyle Rittenhouse trial centered around self-defense and gun rights was one of the most discussed cases in the USA. But dont move on yet, it is very relevant to India as it is the biggest expose yet of how a global nexus of big tech, fact checkers, activists and media will go to ANY extent to further the liberal political agenda. First let us see what the case was about.

Just before US elections, cities after cities were burning in riots in America over the issue of racism, mainly alleged police brutality towards black people. A similar incident took place in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which led to calls of protests, which as a rule turned violent. Some local people took to the streets in counter protests to save local businesses by dousing fires. They were legally armed. 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse was one among them.

To cut the long story short, he got separated from the main group, got into a confrontation with rioters and ended up shooting three people, two fatally. He was quickly termed a white supremacist terrorist and arrested. He was subsequently cleared of any criminal acts by a Court in Wisconsin last week and is now a free man.

Now let us see how a case of self-defense was turned into a case of racism, white supremacy, illegal weapons, gun control, domestic terrorism and everything else. This is what Americans have been hearing about Kyle nonstop from liberal US media.

It is only a short clip but the same talking points, now proven false, were repeated over and over again by liberal US media. This was then amplified by American versions of Dhruv Rathees, Vir Das type comedians, Swara Bhaskers, Islamists, professional feminists, professional LGBT activists, propped up student leaders, you name it.

Here are six demonstrably false claims that liberal US media peddled but turned out to be false:

Rittenhouse crossed state boundary with a weaponTruth: He did not, the gun was kept in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Rittenhouse hadno right to possess the weaponTruth: It was perfectly legal under Wisconsin law, the charge was dismissed by the Judge.

Rittenhouse went to a city he had no business withTruth: His father lives in Kenosha and Kyle worked and occasionally stayed there.

Rittenhouse shot BLM protesters out of racist motivesTruth: Every person he shot was white and had a criminal record. One of them was a convicted pedophile.

Rittenhouse shot to killTruth: He shot in self-defense and he was acquitted by court. All of this is on video.

As per toolkit, fact checkers, who fact-check memes often, only spread more lies in defense of the riots. As per toolkit, social media censored news and blocked anyone who dared to disagree with the liberal ecosystem, even if it meant more riots and bloodshed. People were censored on Twitter for merely saying Rittenhouse did nothing wrong.

GoFundMe had banned Rittenhouse from holding fundraisers to fund his defense in Court. While the platform claimed that it was because the teenager was accused of a violent crime, the excuse does not ring true as multiple Antifa rioters have successfully raised funds through the platform.

Facebook manipulated its search engine so that people could not even find relevant search results when they looked for Kyle Rittenhouse on the platform. In the aftermath of the incident, Facebook had said, Weve designated the shooting in Kenosha a mass murder and are removing posts in support of the shooter. One can see how dangerous this is. Facebook labeled a teenager a mass murderer before he was even tried in Court and without any evidence at all.

You can see the parallels of all of this in India, be it Shaheen Bagh, Delhi Riots, Hathras, Farmers protest etc. How facts and truth can be totally twisted to influence and instigate sections of population with the explicit objective of furthering liberal political goals.

How fact checkers act as enablers of fake news and create facts as needed. How random individuals are propped up as heroes and anyone speaking the truth is vilified and suppressed. How an entire global ecosystem starts a tune in chorus as if it is part of a fine tuned orchestra. Why we need courts that work, work on actual cases and not moralizing and in a timely manner.

More importantly, this tells us what is in store for 2024 general elections in India and that we should prepare mentally and materially to defeat subversion of our democracy by global leftist neo-liberal imperialists.

The rest is here:

The Big Tech propaganda on the Kyle Rittenhouse trial: Why India should be wary of social media giants furthering liberal agenda - OpIndia

When the EUs digital chief Margrethe Vestager meets Googles Sundar Pichai on Wednesday, you could forgive her for feeling smug.

Last week, a top EU court upheld her 2.4 billion fine against the U.S. search giant for boosting its own shopping comparison service over competitors in a ringing endorsement of her crackdown on tech power.

Secretly, Pichai may be smug too.

Its been almost a year since Vestager approved his companys acquisition of wearables company Fitbit and its troves of sensitive health data despite fierce pushback from privacy campaigners and concerns raised by Europes network of privacyregulators.

It wouldnt be the first time that her office has waved through a big data deal that causes privacy headaches later on, after Facebook reneged on promises it made when buying WhatsApp not to combine customer data across the platforms.

Now, Irelands data protection commission,which regulates the vast majority of Americantech companies under the EU data-protection rulebook,the GDPR,is being asked to weigh in on the Facebook/WhatsApp data sharing.

Data protection authorities are often left mopping up after other regulatory regimes have failed to act, said Daragh OBrien, a privacy consultant at Castlebridge.

The Irish privacyregulator whose chief, Helen Dixon, will be meeting with EU justice chief Didier Reynders on Wednesday a few doors down from Vestagers session with Pichai is no stranger to criticism.

Some of the sharpest criticism came after the Irish privacy regulator in Octobersaid it didnt have the authority to assess Facebooks contract with users to provide them with a personalized, advertising-funded platform.

In a draft decision that faced fierce opposition from privacy campaigners and even some fellow regulators (one said it would entail the end of data protection as we know it), the Dublin regulator said that while Facebook had failed to be sufficiently transparent with users about its privacy policy proposing a fine of up to 36 million it was ultimately up to consumer and competition authorities to determine whether that contract was fair.

When contacted by POLITICO, the competition authority said it hadnt received a copy of the draft decision,which had been published by the privacy campaigners behind the complaint.Besides,the Irish trustbusterdidnt have the authority to weigh in on the privacy regulators decision, it said.

The case highlights how even some of the most widespread practices by tech companies can fall between the cracks in Europes digital regulatory frameworks.

It's an issue that threatens to derail the 27-member bloc's fight against Big Tech and one it should bear in mind as it drafts sprawling new rulebooks meant to police online content and digital competition.

The Irish privacy regulator may have been wise to stick to its lane. In other cases where regulators have tried to bridge the divide between regulatory regimes, they have been shot down. In 2019, the German competition authority working in close tandem with privacy regulators ruled that Facebooks data collecting and combining were an abuse of market power.

But the German competition decision faces legal challenges and currently sits with the EUs top court, which has been asked to decide whether the authority went beyond its remit in using data-protection law to enforce trustbusting measures.

Other attempts to join up different digital regimes are proceeding more cautiously.

The EUs in-house privacy regulator, the European Data Protection Supervisor, began discussing increased cooperation between digital regulators back in 2013, forming the Digital Clearinghousein 2016 to bring together agencies from the areas of competition, consumer and data protection willing to share information and discuss how best to enforce rules in the interests of the individual.

But the Digital Clearinghouse quickly became ensnared in legal issues around how much regulators across different disciplines and countries could actually cooperate, and now operates mainly as an academic-led think tank.

Experiences across the Channel may point the way forward.

In 2020, the U.K. data protection, competition and media regulators formed the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forumto tighten cooperation on online regulation. Despite the cumbersome name, the body has gotten off to a promising start, announcing a detailed work program in March 2021, and bringing in the financial regulator shortly thereafter. The forum also has full-time staff, and it poached a Google executive earlier this month to become its chief executive.

The British regulators now work hand-in-hand on various topics, including a sprawling investigation into Googles online advertising empire.But it's not foolproof, as the country's regulatorrecently approved Facebooks deal to buy Kustomer, a software company sitting on troves of personal data, without any input from the data protection authority.

Arrangements like this could become more commonplace. In October, the Dutch privacy, competition and media regulators announced a similar arrangement. Across the Atlantic, the powerful U.S. Federal Trade Commission under new boss Lina Khan is looking to marry different strands of its large remit in a bid to strike at the heart of Big Techs business models.

Brussels' proposed new digital rules also hint at bridging the divide.

The European Commissions draft Digital Markets Act introduces prohibitions on combining personal data from several sources without seeking the users consent as well as obligations to "refrain from using, in competition with business users, any data not publicly available, which is generated through activities by those business users.

There is a hope that such joined-up thinking could avoid cases like Irelands Facebook decision, that seemingly fall into a legal no mans land.

Regulation of data needs the intervention of different authorities, and what we miss in Europe is a coordination mechanism among authorities, said Alexandre de Streel, academic co-director at the CERRE think tank.

As the EU's in-house privacy regulator Wojciech Wiewirowski puts it: "We need a common framework."

Want more analysis from POLITICO? POLITICO Pro is our premium intelligence service for professionals. From financial services to trade, technology, cybersecurity and more, Pro delivers real time intelligence, deep insight and breaking scoops you need to keep one step ahead. Email [emailprotected] to request a complimentary trial.

See original here:

Europes fractured approach to digital regulation stymies fight against Big Tech - POLITICO.eu

WASHINGTON The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Jonathan Kanter, a corporate lawyer and Big Tech critic, to the top antitrust role in the nation, the latest action in efforts to curb the power of Silicon Valley giants.

In a 68-to-29 vote, the approval of Mr. Kanter to lead the Justice Departments antitrust division filled a key position in the Biden administration. The White House has made clear that it wants to rein in consolidation in American business, especially among powerful tech companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.

His confirmation will go to President Biden for final approval.

Mr. Kanter has fought Google and other tech giants for years mostly as a lawyer representing rivals such as Microsoft, Uber, Yelp and News Corp. He joins other prominent critics of Silicon Valley in government roles, including Lina Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, who gained notoriety after writing a paper in law school arguing an antitrust theory against Amazon.

Together, the two antitrust enforcers will lead landmark cases against Google and Facebook.

It is unclear if Mr. Kanter will be asked to recuse himself from the Google lawsuit and other investigations that may present a conflict of interest given his history representing rival corporations. Amazon and Facebook have asked Ms. Khan, who has never worked for a company, to recuse herself from matters involving them given her public criticisms about the tech giants. The agency has said she would not recuse herself from actions related to the companies.

Read this article:

Senate Approves Jonathan Kanter, a Big Tech Critic, As Top U.S. Antitrust Official - The New York Times

Antitrust hawks who favor tougher regulations on big technology companies are looking beyond the Beltway to aid state lawmakers who have similar aims but fewer resources.

The D.C.-based American Economic Liberties Project a nonpartisan organization that advocates for new antitrust laws to take on the power of companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google last week released a toolkit that state officials could use to push policies similar to those that have been proposed,but not yet passed,at the federal level.

"There's something really important about state lawmakers setting the terms for their constituents and their local economies and not waiting for Washington to deliver something that may never actually come along,"Pat Garofalo, the organization's director of state and local policy, told CQ Roll Call.

The so-called techlashthat has gripped Washington in recent years and resulted in increased scrutiny of major firms like Google and Facebook, which are both facing federal antitrust suits aided by bipartisan groups of state attorneys general, has yet to result in Congress sending new antitrust legislation to President Joe Biden's desk.

The bill that has come the closest, an uncontroversial measure that would update Federal Trade Commission fees charged to merging companies and direct the proceeds to antitrust enforcement, passed the Senate last summer as part of a larger legislative package but is now in danger of floundering because of the packed end-of-year legislative calendar.

See original here:

Antitrust hawks offer states a toolbox for regulating Big Tech - Roll Call

Our nation finds itself at a major crossroads. The anti-democratic forces that have sought to delegitimize the 2020 presidential election continue their movement to attack free and fair elections, aided and abetted by companies like Google and Facebook.

Meanwhile, Big Tech monopolies like Amazon abuse their employees and customers alike, showing little regard for anything other than profit. If we have learned anything from the behavior of Big Tech the last two years it is that they will not regulate themselves, even when lives and our democracy are at stake.

From stolen wages to no bathroom breaks, the Amazon juggernaut continues to stoop to new lows in order to expand its monopoly.

This summer, the House Judiciary Committee finally passed six vital antitrust bills that will regulate and reign in Big Tech. These bills a rare bipartisan package have been years in the making, but finally we find ourselves at a point where Democrats and Republicans alike know we cannot continue the way we have. Big Tech monopolies simply must be regulated.

Throughout the pandemic, our local has heard countless stories about the abuse workers have experienced at the hands of Amazon. Their non-stop pursuit of profits has not only forced local businesses to close, but also put their employees lives at risk.

From stolen wages to no bathroom breaks, the Amazon juggernaut continues to stoop to new lows in order to expand its monopoly. Keep in mind, this is a business that willingly took $2.8. billion in losses in its first seven years so that it could accumulate detailed data on its customers.

Like many businesses, Amazon relies on essential workers such as warehouse employees and delivery drivers to pack and ship goods at breakneck speed. Amazon kept its employees in dangerous and unhealthy working environments, refused to pay the employees it sent home sick, and neglected to inform warehouse workers about possible COVID-19 exposure in a timely manner.

The company also provided grossly insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) for employees; during the harrowing early days of the pandemic, Amazon delivery drivers here in California received a single disinfectant wipe each to clean their vehicles throughout the day. Amazon even fired whistleblowers who called attention to the companys poor safety practices and tried to discredit an employee who led a protest against unsafe working conditions by publicly deriding him as not smart or articulate.

YouTube allowed Stop the Steal videos that intentionally bred mistrust in the election results,

Nearly 20,000 Amazon employees contracted COVID-19 in the first six months of the global health crisis alone. Meanwhile, the pandemic put $86 billion in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos coffers, making him the first person in world history with a net worth over $200 billion. This, of course, was all before he stepped down as CEO to fly to space in a rocket ship.

Google similarly proved its irresponsibility during past year and a half. The company is willing and able to turn a blind eye to violent and hateful content on its video platform, YouTube, because the company faces no competition that would hold them accountable for enabling such content. The more views YouTube accumulates, the more data Google can use to sell ads, so the platform continues to allow online fear-mongers to post incendiary videos.

News reports reveal that YouTube has repeatedly ignored warnings that the platform is spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation with deadly consequences. In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, YouTube allowed Stop the Steal videos that intentionally bred mistrust in the election results, ultimately inciting thousands of Trump supporters to lead an attack on our nations capital.

Facebooks track record has been even more awful.

Over the last several weeks, multiple whistleblowers have said the company prioritizes profits over combating hate speech, misinformation and other threats to the public. An affidavit submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges Facebook officials routinely undermined efforts to fight misinformation, hate speech and other problematic content out of fear of angering then-President Donald Trump and his allies, or out of concern about potentially dampening the user growth key to Facebooks multi-billion-dollar profits.

Enough is enough. Big Tech cannot continue to exploit ongoing national chaos for profit. Congress must pass the antitrust package advanced by the House Judiciary Committee and force these Big Tech monopolies to finally face the music.Editors Note: John M. Grant is the president of UFCW 770, and vice president of the California Labor Federation.

Want to see more stories like this? Sign up for The Roundup, the free daily newsletter about California politics from the editors of Capitol Weekly. Stay up to date on the news you need to know.

Sign up below, then look for a confirmation email in your inbox.

Read the rest here:

Big Techs assault on workers and democracy must be stopped - Capitol Weekly

Its that time of the year when our inboxes are flooded with discounts galore for Black Friday, Cyber Week and all the sales promotions that follow.

But this year, were in a unique situation. Were living in an era of scarcity driven by a global chip shortage, widespread unemployment and the effects of government-imposed lockdowns that were meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. That has disrupted global supply chains, made manufacturing difficult and snarled the shipping of items around the world.

Thats now affecting the types of tech products we can obtain for our loved ones this holiday season. Gaming devices like the PlayStation and Xbox consoles, which have been in a perpetual shortage for the last year, will continue to be a challenge to find. And the list of hard-to-get items has grown even longer, encompassing Wi-Fi routers, cheap laptops and audio gear.

Shoppers looking to buy consumer electronics will have to change their game plan. The biggest takeaway? Dont wait until Black Friday.

Buy early, said Patrick Moorhead, chief executive of Moor Insights, a tech research firm. Make the decision between saving a little money or not getting the product at all.

Heres a guide to the consumer electronics that will be difficult to find this year.

Lets start with some of the most desirable and hardest-to-buy tech products: Sonys PlayStation 5, Microsofts Xbox Series X and Nintendos new Switch, which have been virtually impossible to find on store shelves in the last year.

Historically, some console makers have limited the production of the machines to help build excitement for the products, gaming analysts said. But the chip shortage and the heightened demand for gaming devices as many people were stuck at home in the pandemic has exacerbated the dearth.

Many big-box retailers sell the new consoles exclusively online, and when new PlayStation, Xbox and Switch consoles appear, they sell out within minutes. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have warned that the chip shortage could lead to supply constraints through 2022.

The chip shortage and overwhelming demand for gaming products have also led to perpetual scarcity of high-end graphics cards, which people use to upgrade their computers to run more powerful games, Mr. Moorhead said.

The game plan? Consider automation. Millions are following Twitter accounts that scan retail sites and tweet as soon as game consoles and graphics cards are back in stock. You can set up your Twitter apps to send a notification to your phone as soon as those accounts post. I recommend following @mattswider, the editor in chief of the blog TechRadar, who relies on sources at retailers to post inventory updates on game consoles and graphics cards.

On Black Friday, new Wi-Fi routers usually get deep discounts. But we should expect fewer of these deals this year.

Thats because of a domino effect related to shortages of so-called legacy nodes, a miniature chip used to create wireless sensors in networking equipment, said William Crockett, a vice president of Tanaka Precious Metals, a component manufacturer. Because that component is not readily available, companies may make fewer routers. That then means retailers are less likely to slash the prices of routers to avoid running out of them, he said.

Case in point: Last year, one of Amazons hottest Black Friday deals was a big discount for the Eero, its popular Wi-Fi router. This year, the Eero is conspicuously absent from Amazons list of top deals for Black Friday.

An Amazon spokeswoman said the company had promotions planned for Eero throughout the holiday season. So far, only the high-end Eero Pro models have received substantial discounts.

So if you or friends and family want an internet router, buy it now. In the unlikely event that the product goes on sale this Black Friday, you can ask the retailer for a retroactive price adjustment or return the item and buy it for the lower price.

Retailers typically unleash a plethora of low-cost laptops on Black Friday priced under $400, including Chromebooks and notebooks from manufacturers like Acer, Dell and HP.

Expect those deals to be scarcer this holiday. Computer makers are struggling with a shortage in USB controllers, the chip that allows a computer to talk to the USB port, Mr. Moorhead said. So manufacturers are prioritizing those parts for the production of more expensive laptops that generate higher profits, he said.

The upshot: You can expect deals on premium laptops, like MacBooks, but fewer discounts on the cheaper stuff.

There are a few rare deals online for low-cost notebooks you just have to be proactive. Last week, Walmart sold an HP laptop for about $280, according to Pete King, a producer at Slickdeals, a website that tracks discounts online.

If you havent started looking now, youre already late to the game, he said.

Finally, the chip shortage has affected analog chips, the circuits that gadgets rely on to manage power. The tech products most affected by this are audio accessories like speakers and earphones, which rely on analog chips to lower their power consumption and connect wirelessly to notebooks and smartphones.

The scarcity wont affect all audio accessories, however. Mr. Moorhead noted that Sony and Apple develop their own chips for audio gear, so people probably wont have trouble buying fancy earphones from the big tech companies this holiday.

Thats good news for fans of AirPods, but bad news for TikTokers and Gen Zers who are actively trying to make less popular earphones fashionable.

Read the original here:

The Tech Gifts That Are Hard to Buy This Holiday Season - The New York Times

16 November 2021

Alston & Bird

To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com.

A&B Abstract:

On September 30, 2021, the Senate confirmed Rohit Chopra to serve as director ofthe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in a 50-48 votealong party lines. He had been serving as a member of the FederalTrade Commission (FTC) where he had been a vocal critic of big techcompanies and advocated for increased restitution forconsumers. He previously served as the CFPB's private educationloan ombudsman under former CFPB Director Richard Cordray. Prior tothat, he had worked closely with Sen. Elizabeth Warren on theCFPB's establishment. Consistent with his past practices,Chopra's CFPB has now ordered six Big Tech companies to turn overinformation regarding their payment platforms.

Expectations for Chopra's CFPB

President-elect Biden announced Chopra as his choice to lead theCFPB before Inauguration Day, and the Biden Administrationsubsequently referred his nomination to the Senate inFebruary. Chopra succeeds Kathy Kraninger, who became Director inDecember 2018 after having served as a senior official at theOffice of Management and Budget. She led the CFPB for two yearsbefore the incoming Biden Administration demanded her resignationon January 20. It is expected that Chopra will aggressively leadthe CFPB and unleash an industry crack down. The October 21, 2021order issued to Big Tech regarding paymentproducts appears to be the first step in that plan. Additionally,credit reporting companies, small-dollar lenders, debt collectors,fintech companies, the student loan industry, and mortgageservicers are among the financial institutions expected to facescrutiny from Chopra's CFPB. Prior to the Big Tech inquiry, theCFPB, under interim leadership, had already taken initial steps toimplement pandemic-era regulations and to advance the Bidenadministration's priorities. It is also expected that theenforcement practices under former-Director Cordray will be revivedunder a Chopra-led CFPB.

After his confirmation, Chopra stated an intent to focus onsafeguarding household financial stability, echoing priorstatements regarding his commitment to ensuring those underforeclosure or eviction protections during the pandemic are able toregain housing security. He has also declared an intent to closelyscrutinize the ways that banks use online advertising, as well astake a hard look at data-collection practices at banks. In his remarks related to the market-monitoring orderissued to Big Tech, Chopra was critical of the way companies maycollect data and his concern that it may be used to "profitfrom behavioral targeting, particularly around advertising ande-commerce."

Just one week later, Chopra delivered remarks in his firstcongressional hearing as Consumer Financial Protection Bureaudirector. In his prepared statements before both the House Committee on Financial Services and theSenate Committee on Banking, Housing, andUrban Affairs, he cited mortgage and rent payments, small businesscontinuity, auto debt, and upcoming CARES Act forbearanceexpirations as problems he plans to address. He also stated anintent to closely monitor the mortgage market and scrutinizeforeclosure activity. And, echoing his action from a week earlier,Chopra reiterated an intent to closely look at Big Tech andemerging payment processing trends. Chopra also noted a lack ofcompetition in the mortgage refinance market and stated an intentto promote competition within the market.

Although appointed to a five year term, the CFPB director servesat the pleasure of the president after alandmark decisionlast year from theSupreme Court.

Takeaway

Industry participants, including credit reporting companies,small-dollar lenders, debt collectors, fintech companies, thestudent loan industry, and mortgage lenders and servicers cananticipate additional scrutiny in the coming months and years fromthe CFPB. As Chopra gets settled into his new role, we will bekeenly watching where he turns his attention to next.

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

POPULAR ARTICLES ON: Consumer Protection from United States

More here:

New CFPB Chief Rohit Chopra Confirmed By Senate And Takes Immediate Action Against Big Tech Firms - Consumer Protection - United States - Mondaq News...

In the U.S., we need better internet. We need oversight over Big Tech, ISPs, and other large companies. We need the federal agencies with the powers to advance competition, protect privacy, and empower consumers to be fully staffed and working.New infrastructure legislation aimed at ending the digital dividegives new responsibilities to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and Congressrelies on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to reign in Big Tech and others. That means we need those agencies staffednow, more than ever.

The new infrastructure package gives the FCC and the NTIA a lot of new work to do, including deciding how to allocate a large amount of funds to update our lagging internet infrastructure. In the meantime, we are relying on the FTC to police bad acts on the part of technology companies of all levels. When the FCC under Ajit Pai repealed net neutrality protections, they and the ISPs claimed that the FTCcould police any abuseeven though the FTC already has big jobs,likesafeguarding user privacy and advancing tech sector competition.

However, none of these agencies can dotheir jobs unless they are fully staffed. And that means that the Senatemust confirm President Bidens nominees. The consequences of sitting back are significant. These agencies have been given once-in-a-generation responsibilities. Senate leadership should commit itself to fully staffing each of these agencies before they leave for the holidays this December, so that the work on behalf of the public can begin.

Congress must act on four criticalnominationsat these agencies, by the end of the year, or the agenda for better internet will fall by the wayside. Jessica Rosenworcel should beconfirmedto another term on the FCC, as its chair. Gigi Sohnshould be nominated to a term on the FCC, as well. At the FTC,the Senate shouldconfirm Prof. Alvaro Bedoya. And the NTIA's work should be supported by confirming Biden's nominee Alan Davidson.

In the middle of the pandemic, childrenpredominantly those from low-income neighborhoodswere forced onto overpriced and low-quality internet plans todo remote schoolingfrom home. To address this, schools were forced to give wireless ISPs millions of public dollars to rent out mobile hotspots. This provided a better than nothing alternative to kids camping out in fast-food parking lots to do homework on wifi. In many places in the United States, this is the product of intentionally discriminatory deployment choices that happened because these companies were unregulated. While too many in Washington DC were busy praising the ISPs during the pandemic, FCC then-CommissionerJessica Rosenworcel made clear we have to do better. The FCChas been given the power to address digital discrimination under the new infrastructure law. EFF and many others support an outright ban on digital redliningin order to prevent deployment practices that target 21st century access to high-income neighborhoods while forever excluding low-income areas.

However, both Chair Rosenworcel and President Bidens FCC nominee Gigi Sohn need to be confirmed by the Senateby the end of the year to provide the Chair a working majority at the commission. (Disclosure: Sohn is a member of the EFF Boardof Directors.) The FCC was inactive in 2021 due to its lack of a working majority, despite all the suffering happening in the public.It should be clear that not confirming both Rosenworcel and Sohnwould be akin to doing nothing, despite the new infrastructure law Congress passed.

The Chair of the FTC, Lina Khan,wants toimprovethe competitive landscape in the technology sector. She has written groundbreaking analysis on how antitrust and competition law should be updated. However, her goals remain at riskif the agencyisdeadlocked with four sitting commissioners, rather than five.

Professor Alvaro Bedoya, a major critic of Big Techs corporate surveillance practices, was nominated by the president to fully staff the FTC following the departure of Commissioner Rhohit Chopra. Long known as a privacy hawk, Professor Bedoya is generally inclined to side with Khan on the importance of regulating Big Tech, particularly when it comes to matters involving the corporate surveillance business model.That's why EFF and many civil rights and privacy organizations support his confirmation to the FTC. In essence, Professor Bedoyas confirmation as an FTC Commissioner will provide Chair Khan with a working majority needed to begin the needed reboot to our competition policies and address consumer privacy when dealing with Big Tech. Preventing or stalling his nomination serves only one purposeto block those efforts.

Bidens NTIA nominee Alan Davidson will be given one of the biggest jobs among the new nominees:spending $65 billion to build long-term infrastructure for all Americans. Thiswill be a multi-year effort witha range of complicated issues,guided by an agency that has neverhad a mission of this magnitude. The NTIA was in charge back in 2009, when Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, tasking theagency with implementing a much smaller $4 billion grant program.

All of this complicated work remains rudderless until the Senate confirmsDavidson as NTIA Administrator to do the job. The absence of an Administrator will greatly hamstring the Biden Administration and the states efforts to close the digital divide.

There is a lot of work to be done, all of it important and necessary. And it cant be done until the Senate confirms these four nominees.

Go here to see the original:

Federal Agencies Need to Be Staffed to Advance Broadband and Tech Competition - EFF

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

US lawmakers have been talking a big game about reining in the ballooning monopoly power of Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google. Were about to find out how serious they really are.

The White House has nominated public interest advocate Gigi Sohn to become the fifth commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and acting chair Jessica Rosenworcel to remain as the agencys permanent chair. The Senate is expected to hold confirmation hearings in the coming weeks, and the way lawmakers vote will reveal whether they really want to crack down on monopoly power and Big Tech abusesor whether thats just an empty slogan to stoke their fundraising efforts.

The FCC is primarily responsible for providing oversight of cable and phone companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon. With the rise of remote work and online classes, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the mission of ensuring equitable and affordable access to the internet is more urgent now than ever before. But getting the agency back up and running is also essential for addressing the tightening stranglehold that Silicon Valley giants maintain over our ability to communicate. Along with antitrust and privacy legislation, a functioning FCC is essential for ensuring we have alternatives to Big Tech.

Without net neutrality ruleswhich prevent Internet providers from blocking, throttling, discriminating or charging extra fees to access online contentand a functioning agency to enforce them, its only a matter of time before incumbent giants like Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon cut anti-competitive deals with internet service providers like Verizon and AT&T to prioritize their services, or exempt them from arbitrary (and unfair) data caps.

This would be disastrous for new platforms and services trying to compete with Silicon Valley giants. Why would anyone try a new, alternative social media app when it will cost them precious data, while Instagram is free? How could small businesses who host their own online stores compete in a world where Amazon can pay internet providers to make their site load twice as fast as the little guys? What happens to the livelihoods of independent musicians when you can stream all the music you want on Spotify and YouTube with no extra charge but have to pay a fee to access Bandcamp and Patreon?

These scenarios are not just theoretical. In 2017, Facebook negotiated monopolistic deals with internet providers in a number of developing countries as part of its controversial Free Basics scheme, which was eventually banned in India. When AT&T bought HBO, they made it so you could stream all the HBO video you wanted without it counting against your monthly data limit. When FaceTime first became available, AT&T blocked it unless users paid an extra fee. Verizon notoriously throttled the Internet connection of firefighters in California, telling them they needed to upgrade their plan. The list goes on.

Public anger at Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google has reached a boiling point. Both Democrats and Republicans have lambasted these corporate behemoths over everything from data harvesting and algorithmic manipulation to artificially amplifying harmful content and silencing political dissent. People desperately want alternatives on the menuservices with better privacy protections and more transparent content moderation practices. But if we dont restore the rules that prevent Big Tech monopolies from joining in unholy matrimony with Big Telecom monopolies, well be stuck eating whatever the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world decide to serve upforever.

Restoring net neutrality should be noncontroversial. More than 80 percent of voters, including Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, opposed former FCC chairman Ajit Pais reckless repeal of these basic internet protections. Heck, even 75% of self-identified Trump supporters were against it. The repeal of Title II sparked some of the largest online protests in human history, prompting millions people to speak out, and unprecedented opposition from civil rights groups, veterans, librarians, teachers, small business owners, and grassroots groups on both the left and right.

But there is far more at stake with these nominations than net neutrality protections. Deadlocked at 2-2, the FCC has been effectively kneecapped throughout the entire COVID-19 pandemic, unable to do much of anything to address the deepening digital divide even as millions of people were forced to work and attend school from home.

Both Gigi Sohn and Jessica Rosenworcel have long track records working on issues of internet access, like building out broadband networks into rural areas and underserved communities, and pushing for competition and affordability. Sohns nomination has also won support from across the political spectrum, with policies that have found a rare common ground by eschewing partisanship and defending free speech.

Some Republican Senators have already started saber rattling about the nominations. But their hypocrisy is showing through. If conservatives are concerned about social media platforms removing individual posts, surely they should want basic rules to prevent Internet providers blocking entire websites and apps? After all, Comcast owns MSNBC, and AT&T owns CNN.

If theres one thing that lawmakers from both parties should be able to agree on, its that kids shouldnt be sitting outside of Taco Bell to do their homework in the middle of a pandemic. And the companies that connect us to the internet shouldnt be able to dictate what we see and do once we get there.

Telecom companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying against the public interest. They were even caught red handed funding a massive flood of fraudulent comments to the FCC, attempting to create the illusion of public support for pro-monopoly policies.

But its not going to work. Three Republican Senators voted to restore net neutrality back in 2018, citing overwhelming support from constituents and small businesses in their district. Legislation attempting to restore net neutrality passed in both the House and Senate with bipartisan support. Even Republicans who disagree on the details of the policy should agree that its best not to kneecap the agency responsible for ensuring Americans access to the Internet in the middle of an ongoing pandemic.

Telecom lobbyists can spin all the lies they want. Democrats and Republicans know that we need a functional FCC thats working to get every American, regardless of their income or political affiliation, connected to the Internet. And we need that agency to be able to prevent companies like Google and Instagram from cutting anti-competitive deals that solidify their monopoly power, leaving us stuck with their parasitic business models forever.

The Senate Commerce Committee will take up Rosenworcels nomination Wednesday, along with privacy champion and facial recognition expert Alvaro Bedoya, who has been nominated for the Federal Trade Commission. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the committees chair, should schedule Sohns nomination immediately. Its essential that both nominees move forward as quickly as possible, so that the FCC can get back to working for the public rather than telecom companies.

Any lawmaker who votes against confirming both of these FCC nominees should not be taken seriously when they go on TV and say they want to rein in Big Tech. Theyre full of it.

Evan Greer is an activist, writer, and musician based in Boston. Shes the director of digital rights group Fight for the Future and writes regularly for outlets like the Washington Post, The Guardian, Time, and NBC News. Follow her on Twitter @evan_greer

Read the original here:

Restore Net Neutrality, Or Facebook Will Dominate The Internet Forever - VICE

Python is the most trending programming language with increasing demand. It is also popular among developers since it is easier to code than other languages such as C++ or Java. But even though many companies are choosing Python and C++ for implementing their processes. And so many of the big tech companies are using it for improving their business. If you are looking for tech companies using Python, then here you go! Here is the list of the top 10 big tech companies that use Python.

What are the top companies using Python?

Google is the biggest supporter of Python from the beginning itself. This is one of the tech companies using Python and C++. Python is also enabled for ease of maintenance and relatively fast delivery. Even though scripts were written in Perl or Bash, Google always recorded them into Python. The only reason for this was to ease the deployment and how simple Python is to maintain. And when we look at it today, Google has made Python one of the official server-side languages along with C++ and Java. This is one of the big tech companies using Python for development.

Facebooks production engineers are keen on making Python its third most popular programming language at the social media giant. The ease of using Python libraries means that the production engineers do not need to write code as it allows them to focus on improvements. It also seems that the infrastructure of Facebook can scale effectively. Python is responsible for many services in infrastructure management. Facebook has also published many open-source Python projects.

In 2016, the Instagram engineers boasted that they were running the worlds largest deployment of the Django web framework that is written entirely in Python. Since then, Instagram has invested a lot of time and resources in keeping its Python deployment viable at a massive scale. This is one of the big tech companies using Python for growth.

Spotify is a music streaming giant that is a huge Python that uses the programming language primarily for data analysis and back-end services. The reason that the services are written in Python as the company likes how fast the development pipeline is when writing and coding in Python. In total, Spotify uses over nearly 6000 individual Python processes that work together over the nodes of the Hadoop cluster.

Quora is a huge crowd-sourced question and answer platform thought long and hard about what language they wanted to use to implement their idea. The company has narrowed down to Python, C++, Java, and Scala. Their biggest problem with proceeding with Python was the lack of type checking and its relative slowness. Quora took their lead from Google, choosing to use Python where they could because of its ease of both writing and readability, and implemented C++ for the performance-critical sections. This is one of the big tech companies using Python for development.

Netflix uses Python just as Spotify does. Netflix allows its software engineers to choose what languages to code in and has an upsurge in the number of Python applications. This is one of the big tech companies using Python. Python is so easy to develop, it has become a linchpin in many of Netflixs other services. Another area that Python is used at Netflix is with monkey apps used to track security changes and history.

This is a cloud-based system that uses Python in its desktop client. It is also good to note that while the client-side programs are coded in Python, they make use of various libraries on both Mac and Windows machines to allow a unified experience. This is due to Python not coming preinstalled on Windows and depending on your Mac, your Python version will vary.

Reddit is a website that has 542 million visitors every month across 2017, making it the fourth most visited website in the United States and seventh-most visited across the globe. The main reason for the change was that Python has a wider range of developmentally flexible code libraries. This is one of the big tech companies using Python for growth.

AstraZeneca is a pharmaceutical giant that uses Python to solve serious and real-world problems. In an effort to streamline the work of discovering new drug molecules that developed a piece of software that would help experimental chemists do their job. Python is the easiest language to understand for researchers who arent improving their experiments.

Exscientia is another leading Python company that leads the AI drug discovery market. The company uses Python as its main tool for AI drug discovery. This is one of the big tech companies using Python for its development and growth.

More:

10 Big Tech Companies Using Python to Streamline Processes - Analytics Insight