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Facebook Whistleblower, Former Facebook Data Scientist Support Section 230 Reform

Lindsey Loving — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 15:27:51 +0000

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Reacting to yesterday’s congressional hearing and testimony by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, in an opinion piece for The New York Times, former Facebook data scientist Roddy Lindsay agreed with Haugen’s proposed solution to address the problem of big tech platforms spreading harmful misinformation and fake news – make the platforms liable for content they promote via their algorithms. Lindsay and Haugen suggest that Congress reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which currently protects the tech platforms from such liability.

News Media Alliance President & CEO, David Chavern, made a similar suggestion last year in an op-ed in WIRED, stating, “Limiting Section 230 and making the platforms responsible for content they decide to promote and amplify would, at the very least, require the platforms to carefully track and filter what they promote, and introduce incentives to support known sources of quality information.”

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ACCC Publishes Digital Advertising Services Report, Urges More Regulation of the Ad Tech Industry

Johannes Munter — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 16:14:17 +0000

On September 27, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) published the long-awaited final report of its Digital Advertising Services Inquiry. The inquiry, focusing on online display advertising, began in February 2020 following a request from the Treasury and comes after the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry that concluded in 2019. The report aligns with many other investigations conducted by national competition regulators around the world in finding that Google has a dominant market position in the ad tech industry. The lack of competition has likely resulted in higher digital ad fees and lower publisher ad revenues, which leads to less and lower quality content. The report makes six recommendations to address the situation, including increasing transparency in the ad tech markets, authorizing the ACCC to promulgate rules to regulate the market, and addressing competition issues caused by data advantage. The report notes that these measures are necessary as enforcement under existing competition laws is not sufficient. The ACCC is expected to discuss how these recommendations should be given effect in another report to be published in September 2022. Read the full report here.

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Media Associations Urge Value for Journalism in Digital Ecosystem

Staff — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 13:15:00 +0000

The News Media Alliance is one of 18 international and national news media associations to sign a joint letter published today calling for countries to prioritize the value of journalistic content on digital platforms and ensure fair compensation from the big tech platforms to the news publishers that produce that content. The 18 trade associations – comprising more than 40,000 news publishers – span North and South America and include Canada, the United States, Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

The letter states, “Recent initiatives by companies such as Google and Facebook to pay media in some countries for content licenses are valuable. However, these programs do not constitute a proper and comprehensive response. The industry needs to be compensated for the disproportions and restore some balance to the ecosystem.”

The letter can be viewed here.

The signatory organizations are Inter American Press Association (IAPA), World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), Iberoamerican Telecommunications Organization (OTI), Grupo de Diarios América (GDA), International Association of Broadcasting (IAB), News Media Canada (NMC, Canada), News Media Alliance (NMA, USA), Media AllianceMx (Mexico), Honduran Media Association (AMC, Honduras), Media Association of Jamaica (MAJ, Jamaica), Dominican Society of Newspapers (SDD, Dominican Republic), Information Media Association (AMI, Colombia), Ecuadorian Association of Newspaper Editors (AEDEP, Ecuador), Peruvian Press Council (CPP, Peru), National Association of Newspapers (ANJ, Brazil), National Press Association (ANP, Bolivia), National Press Association (ANP, Chile), and Association of Argentine Journalistic Entities (ADEPA, Argentina).

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The Alliance Joins in RCFP Amicus Brief for Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

Natalie Seales — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 14:07:32 +0000

On September 17, the Alliance signed onto an amicus brief arguing that Google’s amended complaint in its antitrust lawsuit against Texas should be made publicly available. Judge Castel in the Southern District of New York asked the parties to show why the complaint should not be publicly filed without redaction. The brief argues that both the First Amendment and common law favor transparency and public access to the litigation filings. While Google claims large amounts of its complaint is “highly confidential,” the law shows a presumption against redaction in the public interest and requires any redactions to be narrowly tailored.

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Intelligence Officials Express Concern Over Big Tech Breakup

Natalie Seales — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 16:22:42 +0000

On September 15, several former top national security officials sent a letter asking Congress to delay antitrust bills, because it would harm the U.S. in its tech race with China. Axios published the letter, signed by 12 former intelligence officials. In essence, the letter asks that Congress focus on “protecting American innovation and developing a comprehensive strategy to counter the growing challenge posed by China and its authoritarian approach to digital governance.” They expressed great concern over breaking up any of the tech companies, as Chinese tech giants continue to grow. However, Tom Wheeler, visiting fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution, pointed out that China itself regulated digital platforms in order to foster competition and innovation, highlighting that enabling competition through regulations drives innovation whereas monopolies curb it.

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Biden Nominates Privacy Advocate to FTC

Natalie Seales — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 16:26:43 +0000

Biden recently nominated “longtime privacy advocate” Alvaro Bedoya to the FTC on Monday. Axios reports this nomination “signals aggressive action” from the FTC against big tech. Bedoya has has worked at Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy & Technology as the founding director since 2014. He is known for a study about the need for regulation with police department’s use of facial recognition technology in 2016. Politico also reports that a top FTC aide to FTC Chair Lina Khan told an Israeli newspaper that both Google and Facebook were going to be broken up: “their judgment has been written.” Read more.

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The Facebook Files Reveal Direct Knowledge of Harmful Policies and Practices

Natalie Seales — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 16:19:24 +0000

The Wall Street Journal has begun a series called The Facebook Files based on internal emails and files the outlet obtained. While Facebook claimed to be promoting “meaningful social interactions” (MSI) by demoting quality journalism it claimed was divisive, it was actually promoting misinformation. Documents show that Facebook employees warned in internal memos that the algorithmic change was not increasing MSI, instead “misinformation, toxicity, and violent content [were] inordinately prevalent among re-shares.” Internal reports even expressed concern about the “long term effects on democracy.” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said Facebook’s ranking changes are not to blame for “the world’s divisions” and said divisions have “been growing for many decades, long before platforms like Facebook even existed.”

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Judge Restricts Apple’s Anti-Competitive App Store Practices

Natalie Seales — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 20:57:40 +0000

Today, the Northern District of California published its decision in the Epic Games v. Apple case. The court found that Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition Law and issued an injunction against Apple. The injunction prohibits Apple from requiring developers to use in-app purchasing or restricting in-app links. The court ruled in favor of Apple on all other counts. Read more.

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Australian Court Holds News Publishers Liable for Third Party Comments

Natalie Seales — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 13:40:20 +0000

On September 8, the High Court of Australia denied media companies’ appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales defamation decision last year. On June 1, 2020, the Supreme Court of New South Wales held that several media companies were liable under defamation law for comments by third parties on news posts on the media groups’ Facebook pages. In denying the appeal, the High Court used dated precedent to adopt a very broad definition of publisher and publication. The Court ultimately held that the news groups were “facilitating, encouraging and thereby assisting the posting of comments by the third-party Facebook users” and thus publishers of those comments and can be held liable for defamatory content. Read more.

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Statement: Small News Publishers Get Deal in Australia

Staff — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 14:54:21 +0000

After a month of negotiating collectively under authorization from the ACCC, with the looming threat of forced arbitration, Australian news organization Country Press Australia (CPA), which includes over 180 regional and local publications across the country, struck a deal with Google. According to Mumbrella, 70 of CPA’s publications will appear in the Google News Showcase, and Google will pay CPA to curate content for the program.

News Media Alliance President & CEO, David Chavern, stated, “This deal shows the real power of the Australian Bargaining Code – collective bargaining for small publishers that had no ability to get compensation otherwise, backed by arbitration. Through receiving fair compensation from the platforms, news publishers can continue to reinvest in producing the high-quality journalism that the world needs now more than ever.”

In February, Australian Parliament passed the ACCC news media bargaining code, which requires the dominant tech platforms to, among other things, negotiate with and compensate news publishers in Australia for use of their content online. Baseball-style arbitration could be invoked if the companies did not agree on compensation.

Chavern continued, “The Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA) would provide news publishers here in the U.S. a similar ability to collectively negotiate with the big tech platforms for fair compensation for use of their content. The JCPA is the best solution for local publishers to be able to continue the critically important work they do of keeping the public informed on the issues and events impacting their local communities. The cost of inaction, in terms of the spread of misinformation we are all experiencing, is simply too great to ignore any longer.”

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