Trump all up in the tubes

by 3:57 pm. It has 183 Comments.

This White House proposal to regulate social media moderation could be one of the bloated, mangy shitgibbon’s mock-charges (via MIT Technology Review):

The news: A draft executive order would give the FCC oversight over how social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter moderate their sites, according to CNN, which obtained a copy. Dubbed “Protecting Americans from Online Censorship,” the order calls for the FCC to develop new rules to define when the law protects tech firms’ decisions to take down content—and when it doesn’t. It also demands that the Federal Trade Commission take those new rules into account when investigating potential malpractice by companies.

The politics: This represents a major escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against social- media firms, which he claims are biased against conservatives (despite a lack of evidence), and would be a vast expansion of the FCC’s responsibilities.

There’s a sound argument that Big Tech needs regulation to prevent bad things, such as social media being weaponized to subvert democracy or platforms chewing up user data to become marketing panopticons. But that’s not what this is about.

The proposed oversight is theater in response to made-up conservative grievances, like Trump-supporting clowns Diamond & Silk’s claim that Facebook was shadow-censoring them, which a Congressional hearing revealed was based on the sister-grifter duo’s ignorance about how user settings work. And Trump’s own periodic squealing about Twitter interfering with his follower count, which happened to coincide with Twitter’s occasional purges of bot accounts.

Anyhoo, let’s hope this is much ado about nothing. The last thing we need is that moron all up in the tubes. Speaking of moronic, Trump staged a taxpayer-funded MAGA rally in Pittsburgh a while ago and said an appallingly stupid thing about wind power:

“Some day the environmentalists are going to tell us what’s going on with that. And then all of the sudden it stops — the wind and the televisions go off.”

Jesus take the wheel.





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Liz Warren: Let’s Break Up Big Tech

by 7:05 am. It has 244 Comments.

Senator Warren announced yesterday morning that she thinks we should break up the big tech monopolies. She focuses on Google, Facebook, and Amazon in particular, though there are obviously other companies that would also fit this description.

Today’s big tech companies have too much power — too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy. They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation.

One focus is on how companies use mergers and acquisitions to limit competition, like how Facebook snaps up every available messaging company. This seems pretty self-explanatory. The other main focus of her Medium post, which I find more interesting, is that companies which own networks should not be allowed to participate in those networks. This one’s a little less clear to the layperson, so she lays on some history.

But where the value of the company came from its network, reformers recognized that ownership of a network and participating on the network caused a conflict of interest. Instead of nationalizing these industries — as other countries did — Americans in the Progressive Era decided to ensure that these networks would not abuse their power by charging higher prices, offering worse quality, reducing innovation, and favoring some over others. We required a structural separation between the network and other businesses, and also demanded that the network offer fair and non-discriminatory service.

Her plan:

My administration would restore competition to the tech sector by passing legislation that requires large tech platforms to be designated as “Platform Utilities” and broken apart from any participant on that platform.

[…] Amazon Marketplace, Google’s ad exchange, and Google Search would be platform utilities under this law. Therefore, Amazon Marketplace and Basics, and Google’s ad exchange and businesses on the exchange would be split apart. Google Search would have to be spun off as well.

This is an interesting idea! And it’s high time we had this conversation at a presidential-campaign level. (I’m sure this was eaten by various shitstorms in yesterday’s news, but still.)

She sort of talks about how we also need to deal with privacy, but it’s not included in this plan, which is fair. The post says the same about preventing foreign tampering. To me, the big thing that’s actually missing is how to handle the infrastructure platforms like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform. Those two service umbrellas undergird a great deal of the world’s technological infrastructure, including that of the American government. In the case of Amazon, they also provide most of the actual corporate profit, I believe. The cheapish, on-demand infrastructure they provide is actually pretty helpful to small innovators too.

Anyway, this, the co-determination bill, the CFPB, are all good examples of what I love about Warren. Her “making capitalism work for everybody” shtick just really resonates with this neoliberal shill.

I was originally going to post this yesterday afternoon, but my flight had terrible wifi, so now you’re getting it after dinner from Tokyo.





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Klobuchar Takes on Big Tech

by 12:21 pm. It has 181 Comments.

Finally got an opportunity to watch Amy Klobuchar’s campaign launch speech yesterday. I thought it was a pretty good speech overall, and if she wanted to convey grit and toughness by talking for 25 minutes in a howling blizzard, mission accomplished. I was shivering all the way down here in Florida:

One thing that struck me about the speech was Klobuchar’s focus on Big Tech. The Post noticed that too:

Klobuchar’s decision to make privacy and Internet connectivity a central focus of her campaign could elevate tech policy issues during the Democratic primary. By touting these issues during her first major speech as a 2020 contender, Klobuchar is making a big bet that privacy and other digital concerns are increasingly important to American voters.

It’s especially striking since tech policy is not generally an issue that drives voters’ feet to the polls. In a survey about voter priorities ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, Gallup listed health care, the economy and immigration as the top concerns among voters. Technology wasn’t even included in the 12 issues on the list. Yet if Klobuchar shows Democratic voters — especially key demographics like millennials — are paying attention, other politicians may start to prioritize issues like privacy and net neutrality in campaigns.

I also saw a GMA clip from yesterday of Klobuchar talking to George Stephanopoulos, and she elaborated a bit on her approach to Big Tech when asked what she specifically brings to the 2020 race:

“I don’t think anyone is talking enough about the challenges of our day, like digital disruption and the changes it’s making to the workforce and the need for privacy laws. No one’s willing to take on the tech companies, and I am.”

Klobuchar was on Maddow last night, and she talked about the Russians using technology to fuck with our elections in refreshingly clear terms. She, Mark Warner and John McCain sponsored the sorely needed Honest Ads Act to bring online political advertising regulation in line with print, TV and radio ads.

Maddow asked about the reports from disgruntled employees. I thought Klobuchar handled that pretty well. She owned up that she could be “too tough” and push people “too hard” sometimes but also pointed out that there are people who’ve been with her for many years, including those who went on to work for President Obama and then returned to staff her office after his terms were up.

Maddow also asked about how Klobuchar is handling what Maddow characterized as the unusual circumstance of a run of negative press, and Klobuchar pointed out that she’d dealt with that before as a DA and senator and said she’s plenty tough enough to weather a presidential run. From what I’ve seen so far, I believe her.

I haven’t ruled out supporting any declared candidates for the Democratic nomination — except Gabbard, who is a kook and thankfully going nowhere. I don’t know who’s gonna catch fire in the primary or who has what it takes to win the general.

But I’m glad Elizabeth Warren is in the race elevating economic issues, and I’m happy Klobuchar is bringing workforce dislocation, online manipulation, data and privacy issues to the fore. I think people care about the issue more than the polling suggests. If they don’t, they damn well should.

Open thread!





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Secrecy Isn’t What It Used To Be

by 4:35 pm. It has 78 Comments.

Results of CIA investigations continue to be leaked. Concern was expressed at this norm-breaking. The norms exist for a reason, though. The CIA’s reason for existence is national security.

The President of the United States is acting in conflict with the recommendations of his national security agencies and in conflict with national security. Sending troops to the border for political effect. Sharing another nation’s highly classified intelligence with an adversary. Bragging about a plane that he believes is invisible. Failing to visit the troops in war zones. And more.

This is a conundrum for the national security agencies. The internet and the availability of information are changing their roles too.

Information once of limited availability is now on the internet. Some are free, some for sale. Overhead satellite photos, court documents, historical archives, social media that inadvertently shows significant features. Read more





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That NYTimes Facebook Bombshell: “Delay, Deny, Deflect..”

by 10:34 pm. It has 119 Comments.

Much as I hate to endorse any opinion of Franklin Foer’s, I have to admit I’m glad I never joined Facebook. (Not being on Facebook has sometimes felt like a minor luxury, because I don’t have an employer who demands it, or social networks that I can’t access via alternate routes. And, yes, I realize they’ve probably mined all my personal information anyways.) Props to the NYTimes reporters:

… In just over a decade, Facebook has connected more than 2.2 billion people, a global nation unto itself that reshaped political campaigns, the advertising business and daily life around the world. Along the way, Facebook accumulated one of the largest-ever repositories of personal data, a treasure trove of photos, messages and likes that propelled the company into the Fortune 500.

But as evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.

When Facebook users learned last spring that the company had compromised their privacy in its rush to expand, allowing access to the personal information of tens of millions of people to a political data firm linked to President Trump, Facebook sought to deflect blame and mask the extent of the problem.

And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and it faced a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.…

…[T]rust in the social network has sunk, while its pell-mell growth has slowed. Regulators and law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe are investigating Facebook’s conduct with Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm that worked with Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, opening up the company to fines and other liability. Both the Trump administration and lawmakers have begun crafting proposals for a national privacy law, setting up a yearslong struggle over the future of Facebook’s data-hungry business model…
Read more





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