Category Archives: Big Tech

Demonstrators protesting the military takeover of Myanmar flash the three-fingered symbol of resistance in Yangon, Myanmar, on April 4. Electoral disputes have led officials to shut off internet service, censor social media platforms and digital news outlets, and physically assault internet users. (Associated Press)

Around the world, governments are challenging the immense power of Big Tech, causing politically motivated showdowns between their officials and tech companies to become increasingly commonplace.

In mid-September, just as voting began in Russias parliamentary elections, Apple and Google capitulated to ongoing government demands to remove from their online stores a smartphone app created by allies of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. To channel support away from the Kremlins preferred candidate, the app improved strategic coordination among voters and advised them about which candidates were most likely to defeat those backed by the ruling party.

The companies alarming decision fits a larger, global pattern. Governments around the world are increasingly wielding their regulatory power to subdue free expression online and gain greater access to private information. To respond to the immense power of the tech industry without emboldening digital repression by the state, regulations must make human rights and democratic values a priority.

The use of regulation for political ends was on full display in Russia, as state authorities coerced the two California-based tech titans into censorship amid tightly controlled elections, limiting the ability of opponents of Vladimir Putins government to organize.

Set against the backdrop of an 11-year decline in global internet freedom and a 15-year decline in overall democratic rights worldwide as identified in Freedom Houses research the question of how much and what kind of regulatory power governments should have over technology companies is both urgent and delicate.

In a recently released Freedom House report on internet freedom, we found that 48 of 70 countries surveyed pursued at least one form of regulatory action on online content, personal data or competition against technology firms over the last year. More than a dozen new laws threaten the future of free expression online. More governments are pressuring companies to remove broad swaths of content, often under the pretext of protecting users from misinformation, incitement to hatred or material that is harmful to minors. Their true aim is to suppress anti-government speech, investigative reporting and expressions of LGBTQ+ identity and other posts that may be politically disfavored.

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Some government leaders have taken the opposite tack and attempted to ban platforms from moderating content, which could allow for the proliferation of false or hateful propaganda and threats of violence to drown out authentic discussion and debate. Only in a few cases do laws require companies to be more transparent over their content moderation, advertising practices and use of algorithms, and provide content producers with an avenue for appeal when their content is restricted.

Dozens of laws introduced to regulate corporate data management are also ripe for government exploitation. Many require companies to undermine end-to-end encryption a security method that prevents data from being accessed by anyone other than sender and recipient in their products, or mandate that user data be stored on servers located within the country. In practice, weakened encryption and domestic data storage expand government ability to access peoples most intimate information. Even laws that ostensibly enshrine the rights of users to control their data often contain vague surveillance exemptions for national security.

More positively, industry regulators around the globe have also displayed a zeal for cracking down on anti-competitive and abusive commercial practices, and for fining major tech firms for failing to protect data and exploiting their market power. A few countries, such as Germany, have introduced measures that would prohibit companies from denying interoperability and data portability.

But competition policy also can be crafted and used for political gain. For instance, Chinese regulators have been among the most aggressive in addressing monopolistic practices by the countrys tech giants. However, their interventions such as forced company restructurings and politicized pressure on business leaders have raised concerns that the government is more interested in reining in these companies autonomy and influence than in fair competition and consumer protection.

The global drive to control Big Tech is occurring in tandem with a historic crackdown on internet freedom. In 56 of the countries covered by our report, officials arrested or convicted people for their online speech over the last year.

Governments suspended internet access in at least 20 countries, and 21 others blocked access to social media platforms, most often during times of political turmoil such as protests and elections. Authorities in at least 45 countries are suspected of obtaining spyware or data-extraction technology from private vendors, giving themselves unprecedented, extrajudicial access to private communications.

Some of the most illustrative cases of digital repression in the last year occurred in Myanmar, Belarus and Uganda, where electoral disputes led officials to shut off internet service, censor social media platforms and independent digital news outlets, and physically assault internet users.

With so many aspects of our lives moving online, new internet regulations are likely to have a lasting impact on our ability to express ourselves freely, share information across borders and hold the powerful to account.

We need to ensure that regulation does not become a tool for governments around the world to exert greater control over the digital sphere. Advocates for a free and open internet including those from governments, civil society and the private sector should push for new laws that prevent power from accumulating in the hands of a few dominant players, whether in the private sector or the state. That means making free expression a priority in content moderation and requiring platforms to be far more transparent and accountable when they do remove speech.

Data privacy laws should provide users with control over their information, institute safeguards against government surveillance and protect encryption. And policies that govern competition should foster innovation to allow people to make informed decisions about their online experiences.

Regulation is not a panacea, but well-designed rules and incentives can ensure the internet retains its emancipatory power, with all its potential to drive personal and societal progress.

Adrian Shahbaz is director for technology and democracy at Freedom House. Allie Funk is senior research analyst for technology and democracy at Freedom House. They are co-authors of Freedom on the Net 2021: The Global Drive to Control Big Tech.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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Second Opinion: Governments are coming for big tech. Here's what it could mean for your rights online - Yahoo News

A majority of the worlds nations have signed a historic pact that could force multinational companies to pay their fair share of tax in markets where they operate and earn profits. One hundred and thirty-six countries, including India, agreed Friday to enforce a minimum corporate tax rate of 15%, and an equitable system of taxing profits of big companies in markets where they are earned. Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have not yet joined the deal.

The move is part of an evolving consensus that big multinationals are funnelling profits through low-tax jurisdictions to avoid paying taxes. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), comprising mostly developed economies, has led talks on a minimum corporate tax rate for a decade. A multilateral convention is to be signed next year.

The biggest impact is likely on Big Tech companies that have largely chosen low-tax jurisdictions to headquarter their operations.

What are the decisions taken?

The decisions effectively ratify the OECDs two-pillar package that aims to ensure that large multinational enterprises (MNEs) pay tax where they operate and earn profits.

The 15% floor under the corporate tax will come in from 2023, provided all countries move such legislation. This will cover firms with global sales above 20 billion Euros ($23 billion) and profit margins above 10%. A quarter of any profits above 10% is proposed to be reallocated to the countries where they were earned, and taxed there.

The move follows an earlier agreement among the G7 economies in London in June. The two-pillar solution will be delivered to the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Washington DC on October 13, and then to the subsequent G20 Leaders Summit in Rome.

The two-pillar solution, according to Sumit Singhania, Partner, Deloitte India, will result in a redistribution of $125 billion taxable profits annually, and ensure MNEs pay minimum 15% tax once this is implemented. A consensus on global minimum tax will practically make tax competition amongst nations rather unfeasible by narrowing down any such opportunities to rarest circumstances In the end, two-pillar solutions ought to be reckoned as enduring overhaul of a century old international tax regime, thats here to change the rule of the global profit allocation amongst taxing jurisdictions completely.

Why the minimum rate?

The new proposal is aimed at squeezing the opportunities for MNEs to indulge in profit shifting, ensuring they pay at least some of their taxes where they do business. According to Amit Singhania, Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co., the two-pillar solution will ensure that once again, the world will be global, at least in following the principles of taxation rather than following territorial laws.

In April this year, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had urged the worlds 20 advanced nations to move in the direction of adopting a minimum global corporate income tax. A global pact works well for the US government at this time. The same holds true for most other countries in western Europe, even as some low-tax European jurisdictions such as the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg and some in the Caribbean rely largely on tax rate arbitrage to attract MNCs.

The proposal also has some degree of support from the IMF. While China is not likely to have a serious objection with the US call, a concern for Beijing would be the impact on Hong Kong, the seventh largest tax haven in the world, according to a study published earlier this year by the advocacy body Tax Justice Network. Plus, Chinas frayed relationship with the US could be a deterrent in negotiations.

Who are the targets?

Apart from low-tax jurisdictions, the proposals are tailored to address the low effective rates of tax shelled out by some of the worlds biggest corporations, including Big Tech majors such as Apple, Alphabet and Facebook, as well as those such as Nike and Starbucks.These companies typically rely on complex webs of subsidiaries to hoover profits out of major markets into low-tax countries such as Ireland, the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, or Panama.

The US loses nearly $50 billion a year to tax cheats, according to the Tax Justice Network report, with Germany and France also among the top losers. Indias annual loss due to corporate tax abuse is estimated at over $10 billion.

What are the problems with the plan?

Apart from the challenges of getting all major nations on the same page, since this impinges on the right of the sovereign to decide a nations tax policy, the proposal has other pitfalls. A global minimum rate would essentially take away a tool countries use to push policies that suit them. Also, bringing in laws by next year so that it can take effect from 2023 is is a tough task. The deal has also been criticised for lacking teeth: Groups such as Oxfam said the deal would not put an end to tax havens. Express Explained is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@ieexplained) and stay updated with the latest

Where does India stand?

India, which has had reservations about the deal, ultimately backed it in Paris. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had last week said India is close to deciding the specifics of the two-pillar proposal and is in the final stages of deciding on the details.

India is likely to try and balance its interests, while asserting that taxation is ultimately a sovereign function. India may have to withdraw its digital tax or equalisation levy if the global tax deal comes through. OECD said the Multilateral Convention (MLC) will require all parties to remove all Digital Services Taxes and other relevant similar measures with respect to all companies, and to commit not to introduce such measures in the future.

To address the challenges posed by the enterprises who conduct their business through digital means and carry out activities in the country remotely, the government has the Equalisation Levy, introduced in 2016. Also, the IT Act has been amended to bring in the concept of Significant Economic Presence for establishing business connection in the case of non-residents in India.

Also, there are apprehensions on the impact of this deal on investment activity. The New York Times reported on October 7: India, China, Estonia and Poland have said the minimum tax could harm their ability to attract investment with special lures like research and development credits and special economic zones that offer tax breaks to investors.

Sitharaman on September 21, 2019 had announced a cut in corporate taxes for domestic companies to 22% and for new domestic manufacturing companies to 15%. The Taxation Laws (Amendment) Act, 2019 amends the Income-Tax Act, 1961 to provide for the concessional tax rate for existing domestic companies subject to certain conditions. Also, existing domestic companies opting for the concessional taxation regime will not be required to pay Minimum Alternate Tax.

This, along with other measures, was estimated to cost the exchequer Rs 1.45 lakh crore annually. The effective tax rate, inclusive of surcharge and cess, for Indian domestic companies is around 25.17%.

While taxation is ultimately a sovereign function, and depends upon the needs and circumstances of the nation, the government is open to participate and engage in the emerging discussions globally around the corporate tax structure. The economic division will look into the pros and cons of the new proposal as and when it comes and the government will take a view thereafter, said a senior government official. The average corporate tax rate stands at around 29% for existing companies that are claiming some benefit or the other.

Another official said New Delhi was proactively engaging with foreign governments with a view to facilitating and enhancing exchange of information under Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements, Tax Information Exchange Agreements and Multilateral Conventions to plug loopholes.

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Explained: Taxing Big Tech where it earns profits - The Indian Express

The logos of mobile apps, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Netflix, are displayed on a screen in this illustration picture taken December 3, 2019.

WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - A whistleblowers claim that Facebook (FB.O) chased profit rather than rein in hate speech leaves two questions for policymakers to answer: Do the social networks actions merit a regulatory response, and if so, what should it be? One answer to the second question might be to put a cap on the companys ability to sign up new users.

Facebooks critics are getting more airtime read more , and politicians are on the alert. Frances Haugen, who was a product manager at Facebook, is due to testify before the Senate on Tuesday, after detailing on the 60 Minutes show on Sunday the ways in which she says the platform failed to act on socially destructive content .

In some ways its a riff on an old theme. Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O) video service YouTube last week banned Covid-19 vaccine misinformation after such topics flooded its site. Complaints filed by Amazon.com (AMZN.O) workers to the National Labor Relations Board have shot up during the pandemic. Chief executives have testified multiple times before Congress, and the Federal Trade Commission slapped a record $5 billion privacy-related fine on Facebook in 2019.

Still, the profit machine keeps humming read more . Facebooks second-quarter revenue jumped by 56% year-over-year and it has 3.5 billion monthly active users on its family of platforms. Ad sales for YouTube, with 2 billion monthly viewers, grew by 84%. Amazon is growing rapidly, too.

Technology regulators could instead take a page from a Wall Street watchdog read more . In 2018 after a wave of fake account scandals, the U.S. Federal Reserve ordered Wells Fargo (WFC.N) to keep its assets below a certain level just under $2 trillion until it improved its governance and risk management. That unusual cap remains in place.

A similar ceiling on user or subscriber growth, if policymakers decide its merited, would have a rapid effect. Such metrics are an obsession for Silicon Valley, fueling their influence and revenue, and share prices.

China got there already: Its government in July barred ride-hailing firm Didi Global (DIDI.N) from acquiring new users pending a data security investigation. In the United States, Congress would likely have to legislate such a penalty and grant authority to a regulator like the FTC to enforce it. Thats no simple task. But even the threat of such a move might get Big Tech to take its social impact more seriously.

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CONTEXT NEWS

- A Facebook whistleblower on Oct. 3 said the company repeatedly put profit over cracking down on misinformation and knew that its Instagram unit hurt the mental health of teenage girls, according to an interview on 60 Minutes.

- Frances Haugen, a former product manager on the civic misinformation team at Facebook, also said her lawyers have filed at least eight complaints about the social media platform with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. She provided documents for a Wall Street Journal investigation on Facebook and will appear at a Senate hearing on Oct. 5.

Editing by John Foley and Marjorie Backman

Reuters Breakingviews is the world's leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time.

Sign up for a free trial of our full service at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and follow us on Twitter @Breakingviews and at http://www.breakingviews.com. All opinions expressed are those of the authors.

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Best tool to rein in Big Tech is a cap on users - Reuters

(Bloomberg) -- A rebound in megacap technology stocks that helped snap four weeks of declines for the Nasdaq 100 Stock Index had one notable exception this week: Facebook Inc.

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A 0.3% gain for the social media giant on Friday wasnt enough to reverse losses the stock suffered earlier in the week amid intense scrutiny of its products and a global outage. Facebook shares ended the week down nearly 4%, marking the fourth-straight week of declines, the longest such stretch since the height of the Covid-19 crisis in March 2020.

The shares were down 14% from a September peak, the worst showing among the biggest U.S. technology companies. The weakness stood in contrast to gains for other big technology companies such as Microsoft corp. and Alphabet Inc., which both advanced about 2% this week.

Recent losses reflect a rise in Treasury yields, which have broadly weighed on growth stocks, along with a number of company-specific headwinds. This week saw a lengthy global outage of the companys sites, along with Senate testimony from a former insider turned whistle-blower, who argued that Facebook puts profits ahead of user safety.

Despite these issues, the stocks decline has some sensing a bargain. Facebooks price-to-earnings ratio is 24.4, below the 26.3 ratio for the S&P 500 Index. The stock is also trading at a discount to its average historical multiple, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. On Thursday, JPMorgan wrote that the stock looks undervalued and that it is buying the pullback.

Should the stock work its way back to record levels, that would be in line with historical precedent, which has seen Facebook recover through a number of high-profile crises.

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Truist Securities analyst Youssef Squali echoed this view on Friday, writing that this time does feel different, but the outcome ultimately is most likely the same - Facebook should still be a winner. The firm reiterated a buy rating on the stock.

(Updates shares with closing prices throughout.)

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2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Facebook Left Out of Big Tech Rebound in 4th Week of Losses - Yahoo Finance

Libertarian: No Need to Break Big Tech

Mondays massive outage is the latest sign Facebook is clearly in trouble and the government doesnt need to step in, argues Reasons Robby Soave. A month of disastrous news coverage after a whistleblower leaked internal documents fueled a new wave of criticism from tech skeptics, but the case for breaking it up is weaker than ever as the social-media giant crumbles. The outage, which also affected its Instagram app, was so bad that Facebook employees couldnt even get inside the companys headquarters: The security systems were part of the same network. And the revelation that its desperate to attract young users shows Facebooks relevance is probably fading. Its not in control of our lives, our economy or our democracy despite mainstream medias cynical attempts to convince the public otherwise.

Conservative: The Lefts Threat to Democracy

America faces an existential constitutional crisis, warns The Wall Street Journals Gerard Baker, and it owes at least as much to sustained antidemocratic behavior on the left and across much of the ruling classes as it does to the actions of a bombastic former president. Notably, the people who want to stop Donald Trump . . . themselves have been traducing political norms at least since he first came down that escalator in 2015, and not just with the Russia fabrications. If hed been able to flip three states to win in 2020, Does anyone think . . . this resistance movement . . . would have accepted it? Until those on the left acknowledge their own role in the undermining of democratic legitimacy, the crisis will only deepen.

Media watch: Politicizing the Pandemic

A New York Times piece titled Red COVID, fumes Jeremy Beckham at Glenn Greenwalds Substack, obscures the reality of the pandemic and manipulates data in favor of a self-congratulatory liberalism. The article claimed counties that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump had more than a four-fold greater mortality rate than counties that decisively voted against Trump. But the Gray Ladys crude analysis failed to adjust or account for age, the strongest predictor of COVID mortality. Consider: Republican voters tend to be older than Democratic voters. And rural counties, where Trump won by the largest margins, have older populations than suburban and urban counties. The piece was rife with sloppy data analysis so its laughable that it blames vax rates on a Republican Party hostile to science and empirical evidence.

From the right: The End of Team Biden

At Spectator World, Roger Kimball suggests Oct. 4, 2021, as the date that signaled the beginning of the end for Team Biden. Thats when supposedly moderate Attorney General Merrick Garland penned a memo that will go down in infamy, ordering the FBI to mobilize against parents who oppose critical race theory in public schools, citing (completely unnamed) threats. Whats really at issue is the criminalization of dissent: As Mary Chastain notes at Legal Insurrection, Garland & Co. want to figure out how to deal with parents who have the nerve to be involved in their childs education. Apparently that, snorts Kimball, must be met by nationalizing the police power of the state and stomping down on any resistance as if it were domestic terrorism.

Mideast eye: Israeli Strike at Iran Back on Table

Israel is making serious contingency plans to move unilaterally against Iran, should it become necessary, notes Ilan Berman at National Review. The step has never been Israels preference, and the goal would be only to cause temporary setbacks and complications to Tehrans path toward the bomb. But Irans nuclear program isnt standing still, and Tehran seems to think time is on its side. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett just said it outright at the United Nations: We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. If Israel does strike, predicts Berman, it will be because the United States and its international partners did not take Irans nuclear program, or Israels concerns, seriously enough.

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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No need to break Big Tech and other commentary - New York Post

Image: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP/Getty Images

UK Finance has released their 2021 Half Year Fraud Update. In the paper, the organization argues that fraud in UK has reached a level where it poses national security threat. Figures, for instance, reveal that during the first half of 2021 alone, 754 million ($100 million) has been stolen from consumers.

By using tactics such as scam phone calls, text messages and emails, as well as fake websites and social media posts, criminals have been seeking to trick people into handing over personal details and passwords at a renewed intensity.

This triggered Katy Worobec, Managing Director of Economic Crime, UK Finance, to comment: Fraud has a devastating impact on victims so partnerships like the Banking Protocol are not only crucial in helping vulnerable people, but it also stops stolen money from going on to fund other illicit activities including drug smuggling, human-trafficking and terrorism.

Benoit Grang, Chief Technology Evangelist, OneSpan explains to Digital Journal that measures need to be strengthened to repel the threat posed by cybercriminals.

According to Grang: There are always steps that banks and other financial institutions (FIs) can take to improve security. As with any organization that handles sensitive customer data or finances, security plays a critical role in the success of digital transformation initiatives.

While multiple businesses are impacted, Grang calls out one sector in particular: This is especially the case in the ever-changing finance and cybersecurity environment.

There is a related sector that needs to be called out as well, notes Grang: Big-tech firms are at serious risk of being left behind. Most consumers interact with their finances and financial institutions via smartphones or laptops, and often conduct payments or other financial activities via other messenger applications.

These means there needs to be a fusion between the two sectors. Grang recommends: As a result, big tech needs to be held to account and recognise the role they must play to ensure that consumers are protected from fraud and retain control over their personal data.

As to how this might be driven, Grang says the government and state agencies need to play a major role. He observes: The responsibility to ensure that digital financial services are secure lies firmly with regulators, who can lay down consumer protection guidelines, and technology companies themselves, to implement a level of security commensurate with the sensitivity of the data that they hold.

Therefore, Grang says, what the finance sector needs is firmer and more extensive regulation in order to keep markets in check.

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UK fraud on the rise: Big tech must step up to stem the flow - Digital Journal

When it comes to the H-1B and the tech industry, much of the discussion tends to focus on how the largest and most-established tech companies use the visa. However, examining smaller companies relationship with the H-1B can yield additional insights.

For data on H-1B filings and average H-1B salaries by company, we can turn to theH-1B Salary Database,which indexes Labor Condition Application (LCA) disclosure data from theUnited States Department of Labor (DOL). For the purposes of this analysis, we exclude all of the companies in non-tech industries, such as medicine. Heres the resulting list:

As weve noted before, its not surprising that Netflix tops the list, considering its history of paying all employees high salaries (the theory is that extraordinary skills are worth extraordinary compensationbut if you dont deliver, youre handed an extraordinary severance package). But the other companies paying H-1B workers the highest salaries arent the largest or most prominent ones in techRoku, TikTok, and Reddit, for example, all pay far more on average than Apple, Microsoft, Google, or Salesforce.

Meanwhile, some of techs largest companies file for many thousands of visas every yearand those are only direct filings.Big tech firmstend to subcontract H-1B workersfrom subcontracting and business-services companies, which one of the reasons why the latter file for so many visas every year.Although the Trump administration took several steps to make itmore problematic for companies to subcontract H-1B workers, it seems unlikely that the practice will end anytime soon.

Critics of the H-1B system might look at a list like this and say it proves their point: smaller companies tend to use the visa to gain the highly specialized talent they need, whereas larger ones rely on it to secure software developers and other roles at a cheaper rate. Companies like Microsoft, meanwhile, argue thattheyre obeying the visas original intentbut given their size, its inevitable they would apply for thousands of visas every year to meet their diverse project needs.

Membership has its benefits. Sign up for a free Dice profile, add your resume, discover great career insights and set your tech career in motion. Register now

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Smaller Tech Companies Pay H-1B Workers More Than Big Tech - Dice Insights

The need to regulate Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google, or Amazon is now daily news. This week's scandal involving Facebook is just the latest in a saga.

From the news battle between Google, Facebook and Australia to the Trump/Parler dispute, from new proposals to regulate digital companies in the US to increasing pressure by competition authorities in Europe, Big Tech firms are in the spotlight for the power they wield.

Appearances before the US Congress or European and national parliaments are ever more frequent. On both sides of the Atlantic, a general regulatory momentum is mounting. The EU has taken the first steps with a Commission proposal to tackle tech companies market power (via the Digital Markets Act) and internal moderation structures (via the Digital Services Act).

All this is different to anything we have seen in the past. There have been and still are private entities that, de facto, regulate markets think of sports federations or companies so critical to a given economy that they also hold substantial political power. But we have never before had market-dominating companies whose aim is to create a community of ideas.

Previous monopolists were not involved in the regulation of speech, nor in the dissemination of knowledge that shapes public opinion. But for Big Tech companies, fostering a large community similar to a public sphere is key to the business model.

Moderating and maintaining engagement is the end goal. An advertising-dependent businesses, Big Tech firms work as digital gatekeepers and carefully curate the content shown to users. They are the editors of that public sphere: both the vehicles of speech, and the controllers of speech.

Precisely because Big Tech is different, we cannot expect the old remedies to work. Classic antitrust or competition law will play a part but it is not enough. The reason for this is simple: to regulate a public sphere, one needs to address more than simply the market.

All constitutional states know that free speech is the baseline, and that ideas then need an institutional process to become knowledge and form the basis of decision-making. If regulators wish to create a healthy digital environment for users, they need to ensure that two things are present: a) pluralism and b) institutions.

We need to ensure that users can share ideas, contrast visions, argue and debate. It is now clear that Big Tech, preoccupied by creating networks, selling ads, and rapid growth, forgot about this. The algorithms work to maximize attention without editorial concerns.

Online platforms generate bubbles of agreement that segregate the public sphere and divide communities, so as to better target like-minded people with advertising. These firms have centered their business model on such clustering.

If companies can unilaterally control the algorithm that curates content and such an algorithm is solely aimed at clustering and expanding the network for advertising purposes this will reduce pluralism instead of promoting it. And this has consequences for democracy.

Therefore we suggest the creation of algorithmic pluralism as a possible solution. We must create an actual algorithmic market in which different players can create and sell algorithmic choices to users.

Imagine a scenario in which people can change the content they see in their social feeds by choosing one of several available algorithms. A world where people acquire the algorithms to be installed on their networks not just turn it off, as is already possible on some platforms like Twitter. A world where companies compete to offer us more responsible, pluralistic algorithms.

When I turn off the ads-oriented algorithm, a steady feed of people agreeing with my views suddenly becomes a new world of disagreement. When I toggle the sports-oriented one, my feed becomes a sporting blog made up of different supporters. My literature-oriented feed becomes a debate of contrasting views and positions on writing and art.

My advertisement algorithm shoots all sorts of product-related content my way, for those shopping spree days. My privacy algorithm prioritizes my data. In all of them, I see the myriad different views, commercial and political, religious and agnostic, artistic and literary, that the world has to offer. I jump from one community to the next.

Big Tech would have to offer this algorithmic market itself, or else allow an intermediary market to arise. Different firms could develop creative ways of tailoring content that could then be sold to the platforms, or to individual users.

This would bring increased transparency, as companies would be incentivized to show how their algorithms surpass those of competitors, and could be held more directly accountable for flaws. If an algorithm is faulty or non-transparent, a competitor will take its place.

People would then be able to choose privacy-oriented providers that showed them diverse content, while still using the platforms they love. It would circumvent the costly exercise of moving from one platform to a new (often unpopulated) network. It would empower consumers to choose.

This alone, however, will not be enough. We must also ensure that Big Tech firms regulatory power over speech in the virtual public sphere is subject to institutions that, as they do in our democracies, work to transform contrasting views into actual, shareable knowledge.

This is often the role of constitutions in liberal states: they work as frameworks setting the rules of the game. They make our disagreements possible while also rationalizing them. We suggest the adoption of similar, quasi-constitutional principles within Big Tech companies, to foster healthier exchanges of ideas.

This means the imposition of due process obligations on the companies as the EUs proposed Digital Services Act (DSA) aims to do (albeit imperfectly) through notices and takedowns for users to check platforms power themselves.

It means increasing transparency obligations, and fostering independent quasi-judicial bodies (Facebooks Oversight Board is actually a good start) as instances of appeal, but with broader supervisory powers, up to and including over the algorithms themselves.

It means creating within such companies the quasi-constitutional bureaucracies that are always necessary to prevent power from being exercised in an unaccountable way.

We acknowledge the ambition of these proposals. But we need that creative ambition to match the power held by Big Tech, without empowering a police state.

If we wish to keep our democratic values intact, we must ensure that the democratic tools that constrain state power are applied to Big Tech. This means not only fostering plural marketplaces of ideas, but reinforcing them, with institutional tools designed to act as a check on power.

Miguel Poiares Maduro is a former Portuguese development minister and executive chair of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), a digital fact-checking and anti-disinformation project. Francisco de Abreu Duarte is a law researcher at the European University Institute.

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Regulating Big Tech will take pluralism and institutions | View - Euronews

Jack Poulson has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of how tech companies are evolving into military contractors. Tracking such intricate connections has become a full-time, though unpaid, job for the former Google research scientist as head of Tech Inquiry, a small non-profit tackling the giant task of exposing ties between Silicon Valley and the US military.

Google, and tech companies in general, transitioning into weapons development is something that should be paid close attention to, says Poulson. And certainly employees of the company should have a voice in whether that work is performed.

By delving through government contracting information and lobbying disclosures, and filing FOIA requests, Tech Inquiry has produced a set of custom databases for activists, journalists, and other researchers to probe tech-government connections. Its research covers the US government as well as close intelligence allies, such as the UK and Canada. The group has also put out three dense reports that have been the foundation for many news articles. And its collaborating with advocacy groups to research the complex dealings and structures of tech firms.

Tech Inquirys latest report reveals (among many other things) Microsofts substantial role in a military drone AI program called Project Maven. If that name sounds familiar, its because the same program caused a huge rift at Google in 2018 when thousands of employees objected to the Dont be evil company contributing AI tech to a killer drone program. Google ultimately left Maven, but its peers in tech continued with little public notice.

FROM TEAM PLAYER TO DISSIDENT

It was another Google controversy that gave Poulson international status. In 2018, when he was an AI researcher at the company, he encountered source code for Project Dragonfly, a version of Googles namesake search engine being developed for mainland China. It contained a blacklist of forbidden queries, including the term human rights. Googles facilitation of Chinese government censorship was well known within the company, but Poulson made news by taking a stand against it in a public resignation.

Poulsons resignation letter quickly made him a spokesperson for tech worker opposition, with appeal to both the left and the right. It was a reasonably bipartisan issue actually, if anything, Republicans cared more about it than Democrats, he says. I wasnt criticising the United States. From my perspective, I was criticising Google. But Im sure from a lot of peoples perspectives, they were onboard because it included a critique of China.

Poulsons advocacy extended beyond censorship to also opposing Googles work on military contracts, such as Maven. And he found himself invited to confidential meetings between tech CEOs and senior officials from the Department of Defence and intelligence agencies, who looked to him as the voice of techies opposed to working on weapons systems. Im not quite so sure I had any significant impact on what their opinions were, he says. But I certainly learned a lot about what sorts of relationships existed and who attended those sorts of meetings.

Exposing those relationships became the goal of Tech Inquiry, which Poulson formed in summer 2019, along with four other tech experts. They include fellow Google dissidents Irene Knapp and Laura Nolan, anti-surveillance advocate Liz OSullivan, and tech consultant Shauna Gordon-McKeon.

Both Liz and Laura have played very significant roles in the campaign to stop killer robots, says Poulson. Knapp is also a privacy advocate. And Gordon-McKeon develops open-source software to help groups govern themselves online.

Unsurprisingly given its founders backgrounds, the organization employs a fair amount of technology. Working at Google, Poulson specialized in natural language processing and recommendation systems. While we mostly encounter recommendation engines in features, such as Netflix suggestions and TikTok feeds, the tech goes much further.

Tech Inquiry sets it loose on data, such as federal procurement records, to understand connections between companies and the government. It also analyses language on company websites to find similarities between them.

The result is a recommendation system that guides research by Tech Inquiry or anyone who uses its tools. Maybe they know about (data analysis firm) Palantir, but they dont know about, say, a Black Cape or a Fivecast or one of those companies, says Poulson. Having a recommendation system helps fill in some of those similarities.

But theres still plenty of manual labour. Tech Inquirys previous report, Death and Taxes, documented how technology and defence companies benefited from the Trump corporate tax cuts and how much they have been able to avoid in federal taxes.

The report, which covered 57 publicly traded companies, required reading through and collating over 1,000 financial filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Read more via Fast Company

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Meet the former Google employee, who is connecting the dots between Big Tech and Military - IOL

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