Elon Musk and Peter Thiel: The billionaires fomenting a global race war

Middle-East Eye 09.01.25

Two white South Africans are shaping a big chunk of the world:

‘Palantir technologies are deployed to both US-backed wars in Gaza and Ukraine. As Responsible Statecraft reported last year, "Palantir has tested in real time its new Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) on the Ukrainian war front. It has been described as ‘an intelligence and decision-making system that can analyze enemy targets and propose battle plans.’ Other Palantir security technologies include AI for predictive policing and surveillance.”… The strategy that these billionaires have arrived at is to create fear and hostility towards "the Other" - migrants, Muslims, terrorists, the "woke". Such constantly hyped threats distract from the very real forces of billionaire capital, ecological destruction and imperial violence that are shaping our world. In this vein, SpaceX and X owner Musk has appointed himself Wizard of Oz of the far-right great replacement/rape crusaders - he now says Nigel Farage is no longer fit to lead the anti-immigrant Reform Party in the UK because he will not support jailed agitator Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson... Billionaires like Thiel and Musk are top dogs in the current world order, and they do not want a bigger dog than them stepping in and stopping their reckless, highly profitable activities. They perhaps fear that a party or government espousing socialism or simply brave enough to tax wealth could place controls over billionaire capital, and deprive these masters of the universe of their wealth and power.’

Technocracy Rising-Part 1: Why It’s Crucial to Understand the End Game

OffGuardian 05.12.24

Technocracy serves those who have a concentration of power. It’s nothing more than a centralised power grab to steer societies:

'In recent years, populism has taken flight by inspiring the masses to reject the rule of “the elite” and chart a new course. However, without scrutiny, this movement and its key figures could be just as dangerous as the establishment they are attempting to usurp. In fact, what we are witnessing is not populism in its truest sense but techno-populism or technocracy, as it has been called since its inception in 1920… Technocracy can be defined simply as an impersonal and scientific method of managing all aspects of a society. Its primary concerns deal with how energy is produced and used. But it goes much deeper than this. One of the best explanations can be found in an issue of The Technocrat magazine from September 1937, where it states: Technocracy is the science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism to produce and distribute goods and services to the entire population of this continent. For the first time in human history it will be done as a scientific, technical, engineering problem. There will be no place for Politics or Politicians, Finance or Financeers, Rackets or Racketeers.”.. Regardless of one’s comprehension of technocratic plans, a monumental reshaping of governments, economies, and societies is occurring, but not by elected representatives, constitutions, creeds, or the will of the people. Power is now concentrated in the hands of an exclusive class of scientists, technologists, engineers, and technicians—many of whom also happen to head multi-billion-dollar corporations… Silicon Valley is the seat of modern technocracy. Big Tech is the euphemism for which it’s currently known. The World Economic Forum defines this dynamic as public-private partnerships (PPP). Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreeson are some of today’s most prominent techno-populists. Many believe they are modern day Justice League type heroes leading the world to newfound freedom (or at least in the United States). All were major contributors to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign in 2024. Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance has deep connections to Peter Thiel, indicating how close technocrats truly are to running the country.'

Thiel's Palantir dumped by Norwegian investor over work for Israel

Reuters 25.10.24

If ethics were to be made compulsory in tech, most companies would become obsolete due to their humane infractions:

‘One of the Nordic region's largest investors has sold its holdings in Palantir Technologies (PLTR.N) because of concerns that the U.S. data firm's work for Israel might put the asset manager at risk of violating international humanitarian law and human rights. Storebrand Asset Management disclosed this week that it had "excluded Palantir Technologies Inc. from our investments due (to) its sales of products and services to Israel for use in occupied Palestinian territories.” The investor, which manages about 1 trillion crowns ($91.53 billion) in assets, held around 262 million crowns ($24 million) in Palantir, a spokesperson told Reuters… Palantir has previously defended its work for Israel. CEO Alex Karp said he was proud to have worked with the country following the Hamas attacks in October last year and in March told CNBC that Palantir had lost employees and that he expected to lose more over his public support for Israel… Palantir's systems are supposed "to identify individuals who are likely to launch 'lone wolf terrorist' attacks, facilitating their arrests preemptively before the strikes that it is projected they would carry out," Storebrand said. It added that, according to the United Nations, Israeli authorities have a history of incarcerating Palestinians without charge or trial.’

Metropolitan police shared sensitive data about crime victims with Facebook

The Guardian 15.07.23

Why anyone would still be using Facebook is beyond me:

'Victims’ charities and privacy experts said the data sharing was a “shocking violation of trust” that risked undermining confidence in the police. Dame Vera Baird, the former victims’ commissioner, said: “You think you are dealing with a public authority you can trust and in fact you are dealing with Facebook and the wild world of advertising.” Mark Richards, an online privacy researcher, said use of the advertising pixels in this context was “like asking someone to report a crime while a stranger is in the room”.’

My Statement to Congress

Racket News 09.03.23

Matt Tlaibi writes about the Twitter Files and lays open the relationship between Big Tech and governmental agencies:

‘The original promise of the Internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere.  What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise, and use machine learning and other tools to turn the internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role…  We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation “requests” from every corner of government: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi-private entities doing the same, including Stanford’s Election Integrity Project, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and others, many taxpayer-funded.  A focus of this fast-growing network is making lists of people whose opinions, beliefs, associations, or sympathies are deemed “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “malinformation.” The latter term is just a euphemism for “true but inconvenient.”  Undeniably, the making of such lists is a form of digital McCarthyism.’

US sues Google over ‘anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful’ ad tech monopoly

TechCrunch 24.01.23

Never too late:

'The lawsuit, filed today in Virginia’s Eastern District federal court, describes a pattern going back to the company’s purchase of DoubleClick in 2008. This “vaulted Google into a commanding position over the tools publishers use to sell advertising opportunities, complementing Google’s existing tool for advertisers, Google Ads, and set the stage for Google’s later exclusionary conduct across the ad tech industry.” The DOJ argues ill intent by Google in architecting the digital ad market in a way that unfairly favors its own products. From the complaint:  One industry behemoth, Google, has corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the wide swath of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers, and brokers, to facilitate digital advertising. Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies.’

Meta's Oversight Board tells company to allow 'death to Khamenei' posts

Reuters 09.01.23

When it suits the US government’s interest, one of its propaganda tools, Facebook in this instance, becomes the town crier clamouring for heads to roll:

‘Meta's (META.O) Oversight Board on Monday overturned the company's decision to remove a Facebook post that used the slogan "death to Khamenei" to criticize the Iranian leader, saying it did not violate a rule barring violent threats…  The company bans language that incites "serious violence" but aims to avoid overreach by limiting enforcement to credible threats, leaving ambiguity around when and how the rule applies.  After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, for example, Meta introduced a temporary exemption to allow calls for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin, aiming to give users in the region space to express their anger over the war.  However, days later it reversed the exemption after Reuters reported its existence.’

‘Lack of respect’: outcry over Amazon employee’s death on warehouse floor

The Guardian 09.01.23

Death will not interrupt the flow of profit with Amazon:

‘On the morning of 27 December 2022 at the Amazon DEN4 warehouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado, 61-year-old Rick Jacobs died on the job after experiencing a cardiac event, right before a shift change…  As workers arrived for their day shift, they say they were not notified about what was going on and continued working as usual while a deceased colleague remained in the facility and emergency responders awaited the arrival of a coroner…  Numerous worker deaths have been reported at Amazon in recent years, including three deaths in New Jersey and one in Pennsylvania over summer 2022. Amazon has faced intense scrutiny over working conditions due to the company’s high injury rates, mishandled human resource errors and high employee turnover.'

Controversial £360m NHS England data platform ‘lined up’ for Trump backer’s firm

The Guardian 13.11.22

Peter Thiel is to get his hands on NHS data.  The UK health industry is being auctioned off to private firms without so much as a nod to patients’ privacy rights:

‘An NHS project to incorporate tens of millions of personal digital medical records into one of the biggest health data platforms in the world is to be launched without seeking new patient consent.  Health officials confirmed this weekend the proposed £360m new data platform for England will incorporate the NHS shared care records that track patients across the health and care system.  The American software firm Palantir, which is chaired by the billionaire Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel, is considered the favourite to win the contract. The firm has hired two senior officials from the NHS and has been advised by Global Counsel, the consultancy firm set up by the former Labour cabinet minister Lord Mandelson.  Ministers have disclosed in parliamentary answers that the patient information project does not require a public consultation before the five-year contract is tendered or additional patient consent.’

Amazon's Creepy Palm Reading Payment System Is Taking Over Whole Foods

Gizmodo 10.08.22

Amazon is hoping a burgeoning market of biometric data will take off.  It probably well, unfortunately:

‘Amazon One works by linking a customers’ credit card to their unique palm signature. Users then hover their hand over a palm reader to pay, in this case for their overpriced groceries. Prior to the recent expansion effort, One palm readers were limited to seven Whole Foods Stores and a handful of Amazon Go and Amazon Book stores.  The ecommerce behemoth’s end goal here is to expand One’s use beyond its own business and provide the technology to third parties. Though primarily used as a contactless payment method currently, Amazon’s previously suggested One can also potentially be used as identity verification tools for offices. You can imagine a future where football stadiums, Midtown offices, concert venues, and neighborhood grocery stores partner with Amazon to roll out palm reading kiosks.’

A plan to redesign the internet could make apps that no one controls

Technology Review 01.07.22

A decentralised internet may be the way to deal with tech giants’ control of our data:

‘Dfinity is building what it calls the internet computer, a decentralized technology spread across a network of independent data centers that allows software to run anywhere on the internet rather than in server farms that are increasingly controlled by large firms, such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud. This week Dfinity is releasing its software to third-party developers, who it hopes will start making the internet computer’s killer apps. It is planning a public release later this year.  Rewinding the internet is not about nostalgia. The dominance of a few companies, and the ad-tech industry that supports them, has distorted the way we communicate—pulling public discourse into a gravity well of hate speech and misinformation—and upended basic norms of privacy. There are few places online beyond the reach of these tech giants, and few apps or services that thrive outside of their ecosystems.  There is an economic problem too. The effective monopoly of these firms stifles the kind of innovation that spawned them in the first place. It is no coincidence that Google, Facebook, and Amazon were founded back when Barlow’s cyberspace was still a thing…  

It's possible that the internet may be forced to change whether the average user cares or not. “Privacy regulations could become so restrictive that companies will be forced to move to a more decentralized model,” says Kagal. “They might realize that storing and collecting all this personal information is just not worth their while anymore.”  But all of this assumes that the internet can be weaned off its core business model of advertising, which determines both the minutiae of data collection and the balance of power at the top. Dfinity believes that making the internet a free market again will lead to a boom in innovation like the one we saw in the dot-com days, with startups exploring new ways to make money that don’t rely on indiscriminate processing of personal data. Kagal hopes that more people will choose to pay for services rather than using freemium ones that make money from ads.’

Google ordered to pay Australian politician over defamatory YouTube videos

Reuters 06.06.22

This may pave the way to more court actions against tech giants:

‘An Australian court on Monday ordered Google to pay a former lawmaker A$715,000 ($515,000), saying its refusal to remove a YouTuber's "relentless, racist, vilificatory, abusive and defamatory" videos drove him out of politics.  The Federal Court found the Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) company intentionally made money by hosting two videos on its YouTube website attacking the then-deputy premier of New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, that have been viewed nearly 800,000 times since being posted in 2020.’

Twitter to pay $150m to settle claims it wrongly shared users’ phone numbers

The Guardian 25.05.22

Private personal information is a thing of the past:

‘Twitter will pay a $150m penalty and put in new safeguards to settle federal regulators’ allegations that the social media company gave advertisers improper access to users’ personal information.’

How much longer can Google own the internet?

Recode 20.05.22

A behemoth is facing omnidirectional lawsuits.  May it flounder:

‘You can add the new legislation to the growing pile of Google’s antitrust woes. While the media has given more attention to the antitrust issues of rivals Apple and Meta, Google is potentially in more trouble than any other Big Tech company. State and federal governments have filed four antitrust cases, all within a year of each other. In October 2020, the Department of Justice and 14 state attorneys general sued Google over alleged anti-competitive practices to maintain its search engine and search ad monopoly. That December, 38 other state attorneys general filed a separate, similar case. If you combine the two lawsuits, every state except Alabama, plus Puerto Rico, DC, and Guam, is suing Google over its search business…  

It’s too early to say how likely it is that Lee’s bill will go anywhere. But we do know that two bipartisan antitrust bills are very close to becoming law, likely by the end of the summer. Both of them would forbid Google from giving its own products preference on the platforms it owns and operates: The Open App Markets Act would force the Google Play app store to follow certain rules, while the American Innovation and Choice Online Act bans self-preferencing on platforms that Big Tech companies own and operate. Google wouldn’t be allowed to give its own products prominent placement in Google search results, for instance, unless those products organically earned that spot…  

The DOJ’s case focuses on the “exclusionary agreements” Google allegedly made with other companies to keep its search engine dominant. Google isn’t just the default search engine on Chrome; it’s also the default on Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox. But Apple and Mozilla didn’t necessarily pick Google because they think it’s the best search engine for their users. Google paid them to do it. The company is believed to pay billions every year to Apple and hundreds of millions to Mozilla for that default spot. That money is the vast majority of Mozilla’s funding, and a not-insignificant chunk of Apple’s profits, too.’

How the West Was Won: Counterinsurgency, PSYOPS and the Military Origins of the Internet, Part 2

The Cogent 04.04.22

On the murky world of social manipulation and the players embedded within its construct:

‘Consistent with the opaque nature of Facebook's origins, shortly after its launch in 2014, co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz brought Napster founder Sean Parker on board. At the age of 16, Parker hacked into the network of a Fortune 500 company and was later arrested and charged by the FBI. Around this time Parker was recruited by the CIA.  To what end, we don’t know.  What we do know is that Parker brought Peter Thiel to Facebook as its first outside investor. Theil, who remains on Facebook’s board, also sits on the Steering Committee of globalist think tank, the Bilderberg Group. As previously stated, Thiel is the founder of Palantir, the spooky intelligence firm pretending to be a private company.  The CIA would join the FBI, DoD and NSA in becoming a Palantir customer in 2005, later acquiring an equity stake in the firm through their venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel. At the time of his first meetings with Facebook, Theil had been working on resurrecting several controversial DARPA programs…  According to the official record, Zuckerberg built the first version of Facebook at Harvard in 2004. Like J.C.R Licklider before him, he was a psychology major.  Harvard's President at that time was economist Lawrence Summers, a career public servant who served as Chief Economist at the World Bank, Secretary of the Treasury under the Clinton Administration, and 8th Director of the National Economic Council.  Now here's where it gets interesting. Summers' protege, Sheryl Sandberg, is Facebook’s COO since 2008. Sandberg was at the dials during the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and predictably, manages Facebook’s Washington relationships. Before Facebook, Sandberg served as Chief of Staff at the Treasury under Summers and began her career as an economist, also under Summer, at the World Bank.  Another Summers-Harvard-Treasury connection is Facebook’s Board Member, Nancy Killefer, who served under Summers as CFO at the Treasury Department.  It doesn’t end there. Facebook’s Chief Business Officer, Marne Levine also served under Summers at the Department of Treasury, National Economic Council and Harvard University.  The CIA connection is Robert M. Kimmet. According to West Point, Kimmet “has contributed significantly to our nation’s security…seamlessly blending the roles of soldier, statesman and businessman. In addition to serving on Facebook's board of Directors, Kimmet is a National Security Adviser to the CIA, and the recipient of the CIA Director’s Award.’  The icing on the cake, however, is former DAPRA Director, Regina Dugan, who joined Facebook’s hardware lab, Building 8, in 2016, to roll out a number of mysterious DARPA funded-projects that would hack people’s minds with brain-computer interfaces.  Dugan currently serves as CEO of Welcome Leap. A technology spin-off of the world's most powerful health foundation, concerned with the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), including transdermal vaccines. Welcome Leap brings DARPA’s military-intelligence innovation to “the most pressing global health challenges of our time,” called COVID-19.  Connecting the dots: Welcome Leap was launched at the World Economic Forum, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its founder is Jeremy Ferrar, former SAGE member, long-time collaborator of Chris Witty and Neil Ferguson and the patsy taking the wrap for the Wuhan leak cover-up story…  

Founded on the principles of freedom of expression and heralded as a liberating new frontier for humanity, the internet has criminalised free speech, divorced it from our nature and ensnared us under a dragnet of surveillance.  But above all else, cyberspace has bought into existence a substructure of reality that is cannibalising the five-sensory world, while forcing humanity to embark on the greatest exodus in human history, from the tangible world to the digital nexus, from our real lives to the metaverse.’

FACEBOOK ALLOWS PRAISE OF NEO-NAZI UKRAINIAN BATTALION IF IT FIGHTS RUSSIAN INVASION

The Intercept 24.02.22

The hypocrisy over speech ‘laws’ is staggering:

‘The Azov Battalion, which functions as an armed wing of the broader Ukrainian white nationalist Azov movement, began as a volunteer anti-Russia militia before formally joining the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014; the regiment is known for its hardcore right-wing ultranationalism and the neo-Nazi ideology pervasive among its members. Though it has in recent years downplayed its neo-Nazi sympathies, the group’s affinities are not subtle: Azov soldiers march and train wearing uniforms bearing icons of the Third Reich; its leadership has reportedly courted American alt-right and neo-Nazi elements; and in 2010, the battalion’s first commander and a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Andriy Biletsky, stated that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].”…  According to internal policy materials reviewed by The Intercept, Facebook will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.” Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”’

Google Illegally Used Dark Patterns to Trick Users Into Handing Over Location Data, State AGs Say

Gizmodo 24.01.22

It’s not in Google’s financial interest to be honest:

‘Monday’s lawsuit drew inspiration from a 2018 Associated Press article that determined Google services were storing users’ location data even if those users had turned on privacy settings preventing the company from doing so. The D.C. office launched an investigation not long after that article into Google location tracking practices. In the end, the state determined that, regardless of any particular setting a user picked, they had “no option but to allow the company [Google] to collect, store, and use their location.”  In an emailed statement, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has led a volley of other suits against Google, went as far as to say the company “systematically lies to millions of consumers in order to stack billions of dollars into its coffers.”’

Big Tech’s latest power grab is like Amazon owning the roads it delivers packages on

Reuters 21.01.22

The information highway is majority-owned by big tech.  Such monopolies on data traffic and internet communications are deeply unsettling:

‘The internet might seem ethereal. The move towards the metaverse strengthens the illusion that a virtual space, rather than a physical one, will primarily dominate the decades to come. But all our internet experiences occur because pulses of light miraculously travel inside more than 400 fibre-optic cables stretching over 1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles) buried underwater – enough cable to go around the earth 32 times. Without this physical infrastructure, the metaverse, indeed everything we now depend upon in modern society, would not exist.  Most people are unaware that in less than a decade, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Meta (formerly Facebook) and Amazon have become by far the dominant users of the world’s undersea cables. Before 2012, their share was less than 10%. Today, that figure is about 66%.  And this is just the start. As the Wall Street Journal points out, in the next three years, they are on track to become the primary financiers and owners of the web of cables connecting the wealthiest and most bandwidth-hungry countries on the shores of both the Atlantic and the Pacific. By 2024, they will have an ownership stake in more than 30 long-distance undersea cables. In 2010, these companies had an ownership stake in only one – the Unity cable partly owned by Google, connecting Japan and the US.’

Lawsuit claims Facebook and Google CEOs were aware of deal to control advertising sales

The Guardian 15.01.22

Am reminded of Mr. World in ‘American Gods’ who declared that ours is not an age of tech innovation, but one of manipulation:

‘Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were allegedly aware of and approved a deal to collaborate on the potential manipulation of advertising sales, according to newly revealed documents.  The documents, which came to light on Friday, were filed as part of a lawsuit against Google brought by the attorneys general of multiple US states. The lawsuit was first filed in December 2020 and claimed Google misled publishers and advertisers about the price and process of advertising auctions. At that time, many documents and parts of the lawsuit were redacted, but court rulings have since made them public…  According to the Wall Street Journal, the complaint alleges that “Google pocketed the difference between what it told publishers and advertisers that an ad cost and used the pool of money to manipulate future auctions to expand its digital monopoly”. The documents further cite internal messages in which Google employees said it was like they were using “insider information” to grow the business.  The Journal reported the lawsuit also claims executives at both Facebook, which recently rebranded as Meta, and Google signed off on a deal to allegedly assure that Facebook would bid on, and win, a certain percentage of ads.’

Fossil fuel firms among biggest spenders on Google ads that look like search results

The Guardian 05.01.21

From controlling ‘misinformation’ to actually delivering ‘misinformation’, Google’s attempts at edicts seriously fail to impress:

‘Fossil fuel companies and firms that work closely with them are among the biggest spenders on ads designed to look like Google search results, in what campaigners say is an example of “endemic greenwashing”…  The results show that over one in five ads seen in the study – more than 1,600 in total – were placed by companies with significant interests in fossil fuels.  Advertisers pay for their ads to appear on the search engine when a user queries certain terms. The ads are appealing to businesses because they are very similar in appearance to search results: more than half of users in a 2020 survey reported they could not tell the difference between a paid-for listing and a normal Google result.  ExxonMobil, Shell, Aramco, McKinsey, and Goldman Sachs were among the top-20 advertisers on the search terms, while a number of other fossil fuel producers and their financiers also placed ads.’

Elon Musk Calls for End to Government Subsidies Now That They’ve Made Him Rich

Gizmodo 07.12.21

Musk is on the rampage to stop government subsidies, after he’d received support himself:

‘So either Musk hasn’t thought about this bill and is talking out his ass or he’s thought a lot about this bill and is, from the sounds of it, losing sleep over it. The tech CEO has relied on government contracts and subsidies for all his businesses. SpaceX? Government contracts and subsidies. Tesla? Government subsidies and loans. Solar City? Folks, it’s subsidies. A 2015 Los Angeles Times deep dive estimated Musk received $4.9 billion in government subsidies, a number that has almost surely risen since then… He was conspicuously silent on public transit, a huge boon to local economies, transit justice, and the climate. But then, more roads—which would be a climate disaster as long as the internal combustion engine is still around—means more cars, which means more potential Tesla customers. And wait, that’s right. Musk owns the Boring Company, which relies on government contracts to make money. “If we don’t cut government spending, something really bad is going to happen,” he continued. “This is crazy. Our spending is so far in excess of revenue, it’s insane.”’

Revealed: Documents Show Bill Gates Has Given $319 Million to Media Outlets

Mint Press News 15.11.21

If you want to control the world’s narrative, you control its message:

'That the Gates Foundation is underwriting a significant chunk of our media ecosystem leads to serious problems with objectivity. “The foundation’s grants to media organizations…raise obvious conflict-of-interest questions: How can reporting be unbiased when a major player holds the purse strings?” wrote Gates’s local Seattle Times in 2011. This was before the newspaper accepted BMGF money to fund its “education lab” section. Schwab’s research has found that this conflict of interests goes right to the very top: two New York Times columnists had been writing glowingly about the Gates Foundation for years without disclosing that they also work for a group — the Solutions Journalism Network — that, as shown above, has received over $7 million from the tech billionaire’s charity. Earlier this year, Schwab also declined to co-report on a story about COVAX for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, suspecting that the money Gates had been pumping into the outlet would make it impossible to accurately report on a subject so close to Gates’s heart. Sure enough, when the article was published last month, it repeated the assertion that Gates had little to do with COVAX’s failure, mirroring the BMGF’s stance and quoting them throughout. Only at the very end of the more than 5,000-word story did it reveal that the organization it was defending was paying the wages of its staff…

In most coverage, Gates’s donations are broadly presented as altruistic gestures. Yet many have pointed to the inherent flaws with this model, noting that allowing billionaires to decide what they do with their money allows them to set the public agenda, giving them enormous power over society. “Philanthropy can and is being used deliberately to divert attention away from different forms of economic exploitation that underpin global inequality today,” said Linsey McGoey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, U.K., and author of No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy. She adds: The new ‘philanthrocapitalism’ threatens democracy by increasing the power of the corporate sector at the expense of the public sector organizations, which increasingly face budget squeezes, in part by excessively remunerating for-profit organizations to deliver public services that could be delivered more cheaply without private sector involvement.”’

Metaverse: how Facebook rebrand reflects a dangerous trend in growing power of tech monopolies

The Conversation 04.11.21

Couldn’t agree more with this article’s conclusion but it looks like the tech giants will move towards orbits of wealth generators, as usual:

‘Huge technology firms such as Google and Facebook are increasingly criticised for unethical data collection and the use of algorithms which encourage hateful beliefs and viral misinformation. Their technology has also encouraged unjust labour practices including hi-tech digital surveillance to monitor workers, as happened in Amazon warehouses, and facilitated digital platforms such as Uber, which refuse to provide basic worker rights. Longer term, the mining of rare earth metals and the massive amounts of energy required for data processing are major contributors to climate change. These problems point to the threat of capitalist tech monopolies where, according to theorist Neil Postman, the culture “seeks its authorisation in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology”. Microsoft and Google have already been accused of monopolistic practices. These “bit tyrants” are troubling “technopolies” which actually use their power and influence to stifle innovation and competition using – ironically – traditional practices of the old economy. Perhaps even more troubling is how these companies channel innovation away from its potential for social good… The rebranding of technology companies is not merely cosmetic, it represents a dangerous attempt to monopolise all forms of technology development linked to a metaverse and the spread of metacapitalism. What is needed instead is a real discussion about fostering open-source culture, data rights and ownership, and the use of technology for positive social transformation – not simply selling more products.’

Bill Gates and the Uncertain Future of Food Security

Off-Guardian 29.10.21

When a publication doesn’t get money from the circular economy of Gates’ philanthropic endeavours, the ugly truths come out:

‘On paper, the Gates Foundation has all the appearances of a major benefactor to the Global South, with grants to agriculture projects, mostly in Africa, now exceeding US$6 billion. Of these endowments, however, a report published by non-profit, GRAIN, found that over 90% were awarded to organisations in the US and Europe, and just 5% went to NGOs in Africa, and by far the largest recipient country was the US. When it comes to agricultural grants awarded to universities and national research centres around the world, 79% went to grantees in the US and Europe, and just 12% to recipients in Africa. Far from lifting millions of farmers out of poverty, Gates endowments support market-based strategies to the benefit of multinational corporations and at the expense of farming communities. Despite the billions of dollars in aid and government subsidies, hunger and malnutrition continues to worsen across sub-Saharan Africa since the arrival of the Gates Foundation in 2006. Culminating in 155 million people pummelled into hunger last year, as a result of lockdowns which Gates has thrown his full weight behind since the start of the pandemic. Gates’ complicity in the looming food security catastrophe will, of course, go entirely unnoticed by his acolytes on the left, who view him as a latter-day saint, magnanimously donating his personal wealth for the prosperity of humanity, when nothing could be further from the truth.'

Metaverse, Mars, meditation retreats: billionaires want to escape the world they ruined

The Guardian 29.10.21

A blunt appraisal of the situation outlined in this article:

‘Zuckerberg’s virtual world of play pretend is a way of escaping the destruction he’s wrought on the real one. Facebook has played a major role in fomenting ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, drumming up lynch mobs in India and Sri Lanka, amplifying white nationalism in the US and providing the anti-vaccine movement with a massive megaphone during a global pandemic. Rather than address this ruination, Zuckerberg wants us to all turn our attention to a land of make-believe where he’s friends with rappers and you can watch Instagram stories on a pirate ship. He joins a cadre of 21st-century robber barons who, having successfully colonized huge swaths of Earth 1.0, are looking to escape to other spheres of reality. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are obsessed with physically leaving the planet, ploughing their wealth into a viciously fought space race despite the fact that no one is going to Mars anytime soon. Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, tried a more metaphysical escape, spending weeks at a time at glamorous meditation retreats, practicing total silence, in an effort to escape the noisy, unregulated world of hate speech he platformed.'

Why people believe Covid conspiracy theories: could folklore hold the answer?

The Guardian 26.10.21

This is the time when all your investments in the media (£14,600,000 to date plus change) pay out, debunking valid questions:

‘Why do people blame Gates for everything? He’s become a symbol for the worst parts of big tech, says Tangherlini. “He’s got information, he’s got computing power and he’s got more money than anyone else in the entire world.” And from that perspective, his philanthropy can be seen as suspect: “now he’s decided to tell you how to live your life”. And while the results of his philanthropy may be an objective good, the lack of accountability of his funding and foundation is something that worries people. There are non-conspiratorial criticisms of his position as the most powerful decision-maker in global health, affecting the lives and healthcare of millions of the world’s poorest people. He is not elected or accountable and though people know there is a lot of money, they are not sure where it is all going, or why. “He has this foundation that is a black box, and with black boxes you can ascribe all sorts of things to them. And he’s going out and doing something that reeks of colonialism – he’s going out to help the poor black and brown people in Africa. “Bill Gates is in Africa, he’s in everybody’s house because everybody’s got computers, and then he’s pushing these vaccines. And we already have prior storytelling about vaccines as threatening or dangerous or coming from the outside.”’

Facebook invests billions in metaverse efforts as ad business slows

Reuters 26.10.21

Reality, according to Facebook. Hit by its slumping ad sales revenue, the company wants to invest in a virtual interactive world:

‘The financial commitment to this hardware-focused unit which will work on Facebook's "metaverse" ambitions, comes as the company is swamped by coverage of documents leaked by former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen which she said showed the company chose profit over user safety… Facebook, which has invested heavily in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), including buying companies like Oculus, this year created a product team to work on the metaverse. This month, it said it plans to hire 10,000 employees in Europe over the next five years to work on this initiative… The company's total revenue, which primarily consists of ad sales, rose to $29.01 billion in the third quarter from $21.47 billion a year earlier, missing analysts' estimates of $29.57 billion. Sandberg said Facebook's advertisers were also affected by the global supply-chain disruptions and labor shortages, which hurt advertising demand across a range of sectors and regions. Facebook said it repurchased $14.37 billion in stock during the third quarter and announced an additional $50 billion in share buybacks.’

Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands, documents show

Reuters 13.10.21

It’s plagiarism pure and simple and done from a position of power.  This company really deserves to pay up:

‘The documents reveal how Amazon’s private-brands team in India secretly exploited internal data from Amazon.in to copy products sold by other companies, and then offered them on its platform. The employees also stoked sales of Amazon private-brand products by rigging Amazon’s search results so that the company’s products would appear, as one 2016 strategy report for India put it, “in the first 2 or three … search results” when customers were shopping on Amazon.in…  The internal documents also show that Amazon employees studied proprietary data about other brands on Amazon.in, including detailed information about customer returns. The aim: to identify and target goods - described as “reference” or “benchmark” products - and “replicate” them.’

We are Google and Amazon workers. We condemn Project Nimbus

The Guardian 12.10.21

Project Maven got scrapped in the past, but I highly doubt any project favourable to Israel would receive such attention.  Hope it does, though, and the more ‘celebrities’ outcry happen, the quicker we may see the blinkers on Israel’s savage discrimination re Palestinians unravel:

‘So far, more than 90 workers at Google and more than 300 at Amazon have signed this letter internally. We are anonymous because we fear retaliation.  We have watched Google and Amazon aggressively pursue contracts with institutions like the US Department of Defense, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), and state and local police departments. These contracts are part of a disturbing pattern of militarization, lack of transparency and avoidance of oversight.  Continuing this pattern, our employers signed a contract called Project Nimbus to sell dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government. This contract was signed the same week that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – killing nearly 250 people, including more than 60 children. The technology our companies have contracted to build will make the systematic discrimination and displacement carried out by the Israeli military and government even crueler and deadlier for Palestinians.  Project Nimbus is a $1.2bn contract to provide cloud services for the Israeli military and government. This technology allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.’

Whistleblower says Facebook put profit before reining in hate speech

Reuters 04.10.21

The fact that anyone should be surprised by this is surprising in itself:

‘Frances Haugen, who worked as a product manager on the civic misinformation team at Facebook, appeared on Sunday on the CBS television program "60 Minutes," revealing her identity as the whistleblower who provided the documents that underpinned a Wall Street Journal investigation and a Senate hearing on Instagram's harm to teen girls…  "There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook," she said during the interview. "And Facebook over and over again chose to optimize for its own interests like making more money.”  Haugen, who previously worked at Google and Pinterest, said Facebook has lied to the public about the progress it made to clamp down on hate speech and misinformation on its platform.  She added that Facebook was used to help organize the Capitol riot on January 6, after the company turned off safety systems following the U.S. presidential elections.’

Jeff Bezos is on a quest for eternal life – back on Earth, we’re searching for Amazon’s taxes

The Guardian 10.09.21

It’s all a bit grim, really:

‘Bezos was this month reported to be a significant investor in Altos Labs, an age-reversal firm which is on the scientific quest for immortality. Among other expansions, it is thought the firm will now open a lab within the UK, which I think you’ll agree means so much more to our nation than a fair tax contribution from Amazon. You know we’d only spend that shit on social care or the NHS or something, when Jeff can see it’s far better for us to get people on ordinary incomes to pay extra for all that, so that guys like him are freed up to spaff their money on Earth’s most preposterous midlife crises. How else to interpret the fact that this eternal-life news emerged in the very week it was revealed that despite Amazon UK sales increasing by £1.89bn last year, the firm paid just £3.8m more corporation tax?  Anyway, you’ll be aware that the old immortality game is already being played by a number of other tech bros, from Google co-founder Larry Page to Peter Thiel, both of whom have siphoned serious millions into the idea that “death is a problem that can be solved”. Other figures have been linked to firms investigating the benefits of transfusing yourself with the blood of someone younger and poorer (I paraphrase, but only slightly).’

Elon Musk’s Tesla Bot raises serious concerns – but probably not the ones you think

The Conversation 07.09.21

Pertinent questions are being asked in this article as tech innovations are left to wealthy people:

‘This make-tech-more-human approach to innovation is what’s underpinning the technologies in Tesla’s cars, including the extensive use of optical cameras. These, when connected to an AI “brain,” are intended to help the vehicles autonomously navigate road systems that are, in Musk’s words, “designed for biological neural nets with optical imagers” – in other words, people. In Musk’s telling, it’s a small step from human-inspired “robots on wheels” to humanlike robots on legs…  But if consumers, investors and others are bedazzled by the glitz of new tech or dismissive of the hype and fail to see the bigger picture, society risks handing the future to wealthy innovators whose vision exceeds their understanding. If their visions of the future don’t align with what most people aspire to, or are catastrophically flawed, they are in danger of standing in the way of building a just and equitable future.  Maybe this is the abiding lesson from dystopian robot-future sci-fi movies that people should be taking away as the Tesla Bot moves from idea to reality — not the more obvious concerns of creating humanoid robots that run amok, but the far larger challenge of deciding who gets to imagine the future and be a part of building it.’

How Jeff Bezos Became Public Enemy Number One (VIDEO)

Cold Fusion 24.07.21

Amazon’s Ring, Echo and Alexa would provide a wireless-free mesh network of total surveillance for most neighbourhoods.  Its deep ties to the CIA/NSA has become solidified (@11:55)

Amazon to remove more content that violates rules from cloud service, sources say

Reuters 03.09.21

Social media players, and now cloud service providers, decide who and what can exist on the internet.  This ‘wokeness’ is killing free speech:

‘Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) plans to take a more proactive approach to determine what types of content violate its cloud service policies, such as rules against promoting violence, and enforce its removal, according to two sources, a move likely to renew debate about how much power tech companies should have to restrict free speech.  Over the coming months, Amazon will hire a small group of people in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division to develop expertise and work with outside researchers to monitor for future threats, one of the sources familiar with the matter said.  It could turn Amazon, the leading cloud service provider worldwide with 40% market share according to research firm Gartner, into one of the world's most powerful arbiters of content allowed on the internet, experts say.’

Elon Musk Unveils His Funniest Vaporware Yet

Gizmodo 20.08.21

Musk badly craves attention by spouting nonsense.  Unfortunately, he can get away with it despite his satellites polluting the skies and his autonomous vehicles’ high crash records:

‘Sadly, if we want any of these robots to actually create less work for people we’d have to reorganize society completely. Because Musk’s old-fashioned promises could be a reality if politicians actually wanted them to be. Worker productivity is through the roof compared to the 1960s, but workers aren’t sharing in the wealth they create. The problem is that billionaires like Musk are keeping more of the profits. We didn’t get 30-hour work weeks because your boss has no incentive to pay you for working less. Your boss wants to squeeze as much work out of you as possible while paying you the absolute minimum. That’s the whole idea behind capitalism.’

The Shadow State: NeuralHash and Apple’s Post-Privacy World

Jonathan Turley 13.08.21

Well-written piece from a rights advocacy lawyer:

‘The controversy over Apple’s new system raises not just privacy concerns but broader concerns over the shifting of power from the government to corporate figures. In critical areas, United States is moving from a democracy to a corporatocracy where critical rights and privileges are effectively controlled by a small number of CEOs. The founding fathers of that corporatocracy are figures like Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Tim Cook (Apple), and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). It is an alternative government created by acclamation rather than any constitution. From free speech to Covid mandates, many on the left, including the Biden Administration, have called for policies to be carried out by corporations like a type of shadow state. At the same time, companies like Facebook have been running commercials for months to try to convince people to embrace corporate censorship over their own speech. Yet, in this brave new world of corporate governance, nothing quite prepared many of us for…  

What is really maddening is that companies like Facebook and Apple do not simply want us to yield core rights to them but to love them for it. After all, the cheerful hip figures on the Facebook censorship commercial like “Joshan” only want you to “change” to allow your “blending of the real world and the internet world.” Then there is Apple which simply tells you to “Think Different” with all of the other worthy netizens at the “Genius bar.”  In this new world, free speech itself is a danger rather than the very thing that defines us. Privacy is a shield used by those who want to harm children. “Changing” with Joshan means learning to love corporate monitoring and “modifications.”  Carrying around your own personal surveillance device is not the only thing that you will lose in Apple’s Orwellian NeuralHash. In the end, the powers of both corporations and the government will be enhanced by our modified selves. Under the controlling standard of the “Katz” test, our privacy is protected from warrantless surveillance by our “expectations of privacy.” When such expectations exist, the government generally must obtain a warrant after showing probable cause that a crime is or has been committed. However, as our expectations fall, the government can engage in more warrantless surveillance. As it engages in more warrantless surveillance, our expectation fall further. Well, you get the idea.’

U.S. states allege Google 'unlawfully' preserves Play Store monopoly

Reuters 07.07.21

Apple’s rulebook of enacting a 30% tax on its app store apps gets hijacked by Google, and that’s not going down very well in some US States:

‘Thirty-seven U.S. state and district attorneys general sued Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google on Wednesday, alleging that it bought off competitors and used restrictive contracts to unlawfully maintain a monopoly for its app store on Android phones.  The allegations about Google's Play Store stem from an investigation involving nearly every U.S. state that began in September 2019 and have already resulted in three other lawsuits against the company. The cases threaten to force major changes to how it generates billions of dollars in revenue across its businesses, including advertising, in-app purchases and smart home gadgets…  The plaintiffs, which include California and the District of Columbia, also say Google has unlawfully mandated that some apps use the company's payment tools and give Google as much as 30% of digital goods sales. The "extravagant commission," compared with the 3% other marketplaces charge, has forced app makers to raise prices and consumers to spend more, the states said.  ”Google Play is not fair play," Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said in a statement. "It must stop using its monopolistic power and hyper-dominant market position to unlawfully leverage billions of added dollars from smaller companies, competitors and consumers beyond what should be paid.”’

Tesla top-of-range car caught fire while owner was driving

Reuters 02.07.21

Well, that’s embarrassing:

‘A Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Model S Plaid electric vehicle burst into flames on Tuesday while the owner was driving, just three days after the $129,900, top-of-the-range car was delivered following its June launch, an attorney for the driver told Reuters.  The driver, identified as an "executive entrepreneur", was initially not able to get out of the car because its electronic door system failed, prompting the driver to "use force to push it open," Mark Geragos, of Geragos & Geragos, said on Friday.’

Google takes down maps targeting hundreds of Thais accused of opposing king

Reuters 29.06.21

The fact that these maps were available in the first place is a cause for grave concern:

‘Google took down two Google Maps documents on Monday that had listed the names and addresses of hundreds of Thai activists who were accused by royalists of opposing the monarchy, the technology company said.  Thai royalist activist Songklod "Pukem" Chuenchoopol told Reuters he and a team of 80 volunteers had created the maps and planned to report everyone named on them to police on accusations of insulting the monarchy…  A version of one of the maps seen by Reuters included the names and addresses of nearly 500 people, many of them students, together with their photos in university or high school uniforms. It had received over 350,000 views.  The faces of those named had been covered by black squares with the number 112, in reference to the article under the country's criminal code which makes insulting or defaming the monarchy punishable by up to 15 years in prison.’

Cancel Amazon Prime

The Atlantic 22.06.21

The giant has become a true behemoth:

‘Thanks in large part to the revenue from Prime subscriptions and from the things subscribers buy, Amazon’s value has multiplied roughly 97 times, to $1.76 trillion, since the service was introduced. Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the United States, after Walmart, and it is responsible for roughly 40 percent of all e-commerce in the United States. (Walmart is second, with roughly 7 percent.) It controls hundreds of millions of square feet across the country and is opening more fulfillment centers all the time. It has acquired dozens of other companies, most recently the film studio MGM for $8.5 billion. Its cloud-computing operation, Amazon Web Services, is the largest of its kind and provides the plumbing for a vast swath of the internet, to a profit of $13.5 billion last year. Amazon has entered some 40 million American homes in the form of the Alexa smart speaker, and some 150 million American pockets in the form of the Amazon app; both, of course, make shopping for paper towels effortless and even fun, something you can do while chopping vegetables or watching television, further feeding the Amazon perpetual-motion machine.’

Wikipedia and the Military-Intelligence Complex: How the Free Encyclopedia Feeds the National Security State from Which It Emerged

CounterPunch 25.06.21

Interesting history of Wikipedia, the go-to authoritative website on ‘everything’:

‘Wikipedia is part of the very internet developed by the military with public money in the 1950s-60s, then called ARPANET. Generally speaking, corporations hope that the systems developed in the military that evolve in the public-corporate realm—satellites, computers, data analysis, etc.—will inspire new military-intelligence innovations in a permanent feedback loop…  By 2006, the Intelligence Community had developed its own Intellipedia. A Top Secret report released under a FOIA request instructed intelligence officers how to edit Wikipedia’s entry on MK-ULTRA, the CIA’s mind control program (1953-circa 1970s), for Intellipedia. MK-ULTRA led to deaths and involved the exploitation of prisoners, mental patients and foreign POWs. The CIA document reveals that the NSA has a mirror-site of Wikipedia. It states: “Be bold in modifying this Wikipedia import … Correct mistakes; remove bias; categorize; … when assimilation into Intellipedia is complete, remove this template and add {{From Wikipedia}}”…  Funded by weapons contractors like BAE Systems and Boeing, and until recently led by people like Katherine Maher, ex-World Banker and Fellow of the Truman National Security Project, which exists to promote “US values” at home and abroad, the Wikimedia Foundation that enables Wikipedia does not exist in a vacuum. Wikipedia does not present unbiased, scholarly encyclopedia entries. It is as much part of the military-industrial-complex as mainstream corporate media.'

Here's Who Funds the Tech Think Tanks Asking Congress to Reconsider This Whole Antitrust Thing

Gizmodo 21.06.21

No surprise there.  Same tactics used by the Telecoms and Tobacco industries:

‘A coalition of 13 different think tanks and advocacy groups penned an open letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday warning lawmakers about two major antitrust bills that lawmakers are set to vote on later this week. Instead of wrangling Big Tech, the letter says, these bills would “dramatically degrade” if not outright break the gizmos and gadgets we love using every day…  Chamber of Progress, a tech policy trade group started by ex-Google policy lead Adam Kovacevich that brands itself as “center-left,” and lists corporate partners like Amazon, Facebook, Uber, and Google on its homepage. When asked in an interview with Protocol whether he could disclose how much money these partner orgs were contributing on the regular, Kovacevich flatly responded “no,” saying that “most associations don’t do that.”  The Computer and Communications Industry Association, a DC-based lobbying group that’s spent a modest few thousand lobbying the likes of Cicilline and other members of the antitrust subcommittee. Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Uber are among the dues-paying members listed on its website,  The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that’s become pretty tight-lipped about its corporate sponsors in recent years, but has previously reported donations between $25,000 and $50,000 from Facebook and Google, respectively. Amazon, when asked by the New York Times about a $15,000 donation it made to the institute in the past, said the sum was given to “help advance policy objectives aligned with our interests.” Yeesh.   The Connected Commerce Council, a non-profit lobbying group that’s been known to run op-eds singing the praises of tech company’s tools for small businesses, and whose leadership board is stuffed to the gills with current and former lobbyists for Google and Amazon.  The Consumer Technology Association, a lobbying group repping more than 2,000 tech companies, and charging them between $80 to $40,000 per year for that privilege. Its many, many members include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb, Lyft… 

The Developers Alliance, a Virginia-based lobbying group that includes Facebook and Google among its dues-paying members.  The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a DC think-tank with a storied history of whining about negative tech coverage. Amazon, Facebook, and Google are among its listed supporters.  NetChoice, a tech-centric trade group backed by the same list of familiar faces (Amazon, Facebook, Google) and a few new ones (Etsy, TikTok).  The Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which is partially bankrolled by two major telco industry trade groups (the Internet and Television Association and the Wireless Association) that would have just as much to lose as some of the aforementioned tech companies.  TechFreedom, a (very loud) tech policy think tank that’s among Google’s big list of trade groups and advocacy orgs getting “the most substantial contributions” from the company’s public policy team.  The R Street Institute, a DC-based think tank that’s also on Google’s Big List O’ Donors.  TechNet, a “national, bipartisan network of technology CEOs” that, naturally, includes CEOs from some of your favorite companies that were already listed in this exact article.   Americans for Prosperity, which doesn’t have any outright ties to the big tech companies it breathlessly throws itself behind, but was literally founded by the Koch brothers. Considering how Google and Facebook, in particular, have pretty deep ties to the Koch family’s sprawling web of political advocacy orgs, it’s not surprising finding another one on this list.’

Roger Waters claims he rejected Mark Zuckerberg request to use Pink Floyd song: ‘No f***ing way’

The Independent 15.06.21

An appropriate ‘up-yours’ to Zuckerberg from a an admirable artist:

‘Appearing at a forum supporting jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the 77-year-old claimed the Facebook founder offered him “a huge amount of money” to use the 1979 track “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”.   “It’s a request for the rights to use my song, ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Pt 2’ in the making of a film to promote Instagram,” he said. “So it’s a missive from Mark Zuckerberg to me arrived this morning, with an offer of a huge, huge amount of money, and the answer is - f*** you! No f***ing way!”  “And I only mention that because it’s the insidious movement of them to take over absolutely everything. So those of us who do have any power, and I do have a little bit — in terms of control of the publishing of my songs I do anyway. So I will not be a party to this bull****, Zuckerberg,” he added.‘

Amazon beefs up Covid testing capabilities

BBC 03.06.21

Amazon goes into healthcare.  What other sectors will it soon dominate?:

‘Amazon is to expand its Covid testing lab facilities in the UK as the pandemic continues.  The online giant said this was to benefit employees and UK public health.  However, analysts said it could also provide business opportunities in the health sector and buff up Amazon's reputation after questions over working conditions.  Amazon recently moved into the online pharmacy business in the US for subscribers to its Prime service…  Right now this multimillion-pound site in Salford is only testing for Covid-19, but it's unlikely to be left idle after the pandemic.  Amazon's most valuable product is the information they already hold about their customers, and medical data is a very rich pool indeed to be dipping their toes into.’

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to build new kind of nuclear reactor in Wyoming

The Guardian 03.06.21

Nuclear power in the hands of investors = nightmare:

‘Chris Levesque, TerraPower’s president and chief executive, said the demonstration plant would take about seven years to build.  “We need this kind of clean energy on the grid in the 2030s,” he told reporters.  Nuclear power experts have warned that advanced reactors could have higher risks than conventional ones. Fuel for many advanced reactors would have to be enriched at a much higher rate than conventional fuel, meaning the fuel supply chain could be an attractive target for militants looking to create a crude nuclear weapon, a recent report said.  Levesque said that the plants would reduce proliferation risks because they reduce overall nuclear waste.’

Content moderation in conflict zones: What role for big tech?

News Trust 21.05.21

Big tech is seriously biased when delivering content:

‘Facebook, Twitter, Google and Venmo all declined to comment on whether criticism over the Gaza-Israel conflict had prompted broader internal reviews of their content moderation processes or other policies. But they have responded to individual criticism: on May 8, Instagram publicly apologised for the deletions of Sheikh Jarrah posts and suspensions of accounts. This week, its parent company Facebook set up a round-the-clock "special operations center" to deal with content on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.   "It is staffed by experts from across the company, including native Arabic and Hebrew speakers," a Facebook spokesman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Facebook has established other "special operations centers" to deal with content on COVID-19, wildfires in California and Australia in recent years, violence in Myanmar, and major elections, including in the United States. A Twitter spokeswoman said the company uses "a combination of technology and human review to enforce the Twitter Rules...impartially," but did not specify whether it had created a dedicated team on the Gaza flare-up.   Following outrage on social media, YouTube recently deleted a video linked to the Israeli government that depicted rocket fire. A spokeswoman said the company uses automated systems to find content "at scale" while humans help with "contextual decisions" on removing content regardless of language… illian York, director of international freedom of expression at advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that "tech companies are not legally bound to be neutral in any way.” She pointed to what she said were inherent biases on tech platforms against certain Arabic names being used in page titles, or the portrayals of women's bodies.'

Understanding Big Tech Dominance Requires Economics, Not Conspiracy Theories

AIER 17.05.21

Copyright law protection needs to be addressed once a large tech company achieves a modicum of dominance:

‘Large tech firms have dominance owing to the system of legal monopolies available under intellectual property laws, which by virtue of antitrust and common carrier laws results in a quasi-symbiotic relationship. That is all that is required to comprehend the causes of Big Tech’s ascendancy, and suggests the means by which it may be addressed… Absent state-provided protections from competition––which stem from a legal theory that treats ideas like lawns (much to the benefit, unsurprisingly, of attorneys)––there would be far more competition, greater turnover among industry leaders, and less of all that follows with state-sanctioned business concentration. The supposition that innovation would grind to a halt without a guaranteed reward is discredited upon even the most cursory review of human progress. Free people with freed minds plying their wares upon free markets rarely under-supply novelty.’

How SoftBank ate the world

WIRED 07.02.19

The biggest tech conglomerate is Softbank (a 2019 article):

‘The acquisition of Arm was Europe’s biggest ever technology deal. It also marked the moment that many people in Britain, including business and technology insiders, had first heard of SoftBank. That this relatively unknown Japanese telco was in fact a heavyweight global investor came as a revelation to most, despite its run of big-ticket purchases. In 2013, SoftBank acquired US telco Sprint for $22.2 billion, and Finnish games developer Supercell for $1.5 billion. In 2014, it had launched an investment outpost in California – a precursor to the Vision Fund called SoftBank International, which had made early ­investments in companies such as ride-sharing startups DiDi in China and Ola Cabs in India, and Tokopedia, an Indonesian ­e-commerce company that currently has 80 million users. “We were a bit under the radar,” David Thévenon, a partner at SoftBank, says. “People were always confused by the name SoftBank. ‘Are you a bank? Are you a mobile operator?’ We had to keep explaining that we had been doing ­international investments for years…” The lower limit for a Vision Fund investment is $100 million, but most are between $500 million to a few billion, typically for 20 to 40 per cent of the company. “It’s changed the game for investing in a dramatic way,” Michael Marks, CEO of the US construction startup Katerra, observes. “Tech companies are becoming billion-dollar businesses. I think that SoftBank was just the first to see that it could deploy much more capital and get big returns. It over-invests to anoint the winners. It may turn out it’s a colossal risk and doesn’t work out, but I think it will. It’s a ­fascinating experiment,” Marks says…

This is a global network that includes Apple, Qualcomm, Sharp, Alibaba, Sprint (the fourth-largest carrier in the US), Yahoo! Japan (which, unlike its US parent, remains the most popular website in its country) and SoftBank Mobile, whose $23.5 billion IPO last December was the second biggest market listing of all time. The Vision Fund is also one of the biggest foreign investors in India, China and Europe. It has a presence in Mumbai, Singapore, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. “When you think about investment, when you look at most of the American firms, they don’t do global, very few of them do true global stuff,” Thévenon says. “SoftBank, however, is everywhere.”… “I think another very common theme that runs through all of our investments is really around data,” Jeffrey Housenbold, a managing partner at the Vision Fund, says. “It’s really about data and the merger of human and machine in this notion of the singularity and artificial intelligence. How do we process that data in order to make the world a better place – to make people happier, to enrich their lives, to provide better products and services? It doesn’t matter if it’s by using data to enable drug discovery or trying to make food delivery more efficient. Data runs across almost every one of our companies.”… And, as Son likes to say: “Whoever controls data controls the world.”’

Twitter isn’t censoring accounts to keep users ‘safe’, it is using its power to spoon-feed the world establishment narratives

RT 30.04.21

Both Twitter and Facebook should be dismantled as they’re not fit for purpose:

‘It’s one thing to have policies against violence, abuse, and harassment. But in “protecting” users, Twitter is hell-bent on censoring voices that rock the boat, even when all they have tweeted is a peer-reviewed scientific paper… Twitter is censoring pretty much anything about Covid that doesn’t match the narrative promoted by the WHO, CDC, and other such bodies. Even a well-known epidemiologist has faced Twitter’s wrath. An article in the American Institute for Economic Research noted. “Harvard Professor Martin Kulldorff and co-creator of the Great Barrington Declaration, one of the most cited epidemiologists and infectious -disease experts in the world has been censored by Twitter. His tweet on how not everyone needs a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 was not taken down. He had a warning slapped on it and users have been prevented from liking or retweeting the post.” That article also emphasized: “Dr. Kulldorff serves on the Covid-19 vaccine safety subgroup that the CDC, NIH, and FDA rely upon for technical expertise on this very subject.”‘

In space, no one will hear Bezos and Musk’s workers’ call for basic rights

The Guardian 25.04.21

Colonising space under these two billionaires may end up being an exercise in slave indenture:

'Musk says SpaceX will land humans on Mars by 2026 and wants to establish a colony by 2050. Its purpose, he says, will be to ensure the survival of our species. “If we make life multi-planetary, there may come a day when some plants and animals die out on Earth but are still alive on Mars,” he tweeted. Bezos is also aiming to build extraterrestrial colonies, but in space rather than on Mars. He envisions “very large structures, miles on end” that will “hold a million people or more each”… The gap between the compensation of CEOs and average workers is already at a record high. They inhabit different worlds. If Musk and Bezos achieve their extraterrestrial aims, these worlds could be literally different. Most workers won’t be able to escape into outer space.’

TikTok sued for billions over use of children's data

BBC 21.04.21

Social media company could face billions in damages:

‘"TikTok is a hugely popular social media platform that has helped children keep in touch with their friends during an incredibly difficult year. However, behind the fun songs, dance challenges and lip-sync trends lies something far more sinister.” She alleges the firm is "a data collection service that is thinly veiled as a social network" which has "deliberately and successfully deceived parents”. She added that those parents have a "right to know" what private information is being collected via TikTok's "shadowy data collection practices”.'

Flashback: How And Why The CIA Made Google

Technocracy 18.04.21

A seriously long exposé on the intricate web between defence agencies, PR spinners, warmongers and the tech industries created to provide the infrastructure:

‘In 1994 — the same year the Highlands Forum was founded under the stewardship of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the ONA, and DARPA — two young PhD students at Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, made their breakthrough on the first automated web crawling and page ranking application. That application remains the core component of what eventually became Google’s search service. Brin and Page had performed their work with funding from the Digital Library Initiative (DLI), a multi-agency programme of the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA and DARPA… In other words, the provision of MDDS funding to Brin through Ullman, under the oversight of Thuraisingham and Steinheiser, was fundamentally because they recognized the potential utility of Brin’s work developing Google to the Pentagon, intelligence community, and the federal government at large… Google, then, had been enabled with a “significant” amount of seed-funding and oversight from the Pentagon: namely, the CIA, NSA, and DARPA… Brin’s supervisor at Stanford, Prof. Jeffrey Ullman, was in 1996 part of a joint funding project of DARPA’s Intelligent Integration of Information program. That year, Ullman co-chaired DARPA-sponsored meetings on data exchange between multiple systems… From inception, in other words, Google was incubated, nurtured and financed by interests that were directly affiliated or closely aligned with the US military intelligence community: many of whom were embedded in the Pentagon Highlands Forum…

In sum, the investment firm responsible for creating the billion dollar fortunes of the tech sensations of the 21st century, from Google to Facebook, is intimately linked to the US military intelligence community; with Venables, Lee and Friedman either directly connected to the Pentagon Highlands Forum, or to senior members of the Forum… The push for indiscriminate, comprehensive mass surveillance by the military-industrial complex — encompassing the Pentagon, intelligence agencies, defense contractors, and supposedly friendly tech giants like Google and Facebook — is therefore not an end in itself, but an instrument of power, whose goal is self-perpetuation. But there is also a self-rationalizing justification for this goal: while being great for the military-industrial complex, it is also, supposedly, great for everyone else… It is this sort of closed-door networking that has rendered the American vote pointless. Far from protecting the public interest or helping to combat terrorism, the comprehensive monitoring of electronic communications has been systematically abused to empower vested interests in the energy, defense, and IT industries.’

The Military Origins of Facebook

Unlimited Hangout 12.04.21

A very interesting article on the close association between DARPA, Palantir and Facebook:

‘Thiel and Facebook cofounder Mosokvitz became involved outside of the social network long after Facebook’s rise to prominence, with Thiel’s Founder Fund becoming a significant investor in Moskovitz’s company Asana in 2012. Thiel’s longstanding symbiotic relationship with Facebook cofounders extends to his company Palantir, as the data that Facebook users make public invariably winds up in Palantir’s databases and helps drive the surveillance engine Palantir runs for a handful of US police departments, the military, and the intelligence community. In the case of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Palantir was also involved in utilizing Facebook data to benefit the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign… It is hardly a coincidence that someone like Peter Thiel, who built Palantir with the CIA and helped ensure Facebook’s rise, is also heavily involved in Big Data AI-driven “predictive policing” approaches to surveillance and law enforcement, both through Palantir and through his other investments. TIA, LifeLog, and related government and private programs and institutions launched after 9/11, were always intended to be used against the American public in a war against dissent. This was noted by their critics in 2003-4 and by those who have examined the origins of the “homeland security” pivot in the US and its connection to past CIA “counterterror” programs in Vietnam and Latin America.’

Imperator Meaning As Elon Musk Changes Twitter Bio to 'Imperator of Mars’

Newsweek 12.04.21

The guy is not only delusional but starting to sound dangerous:

'Elon Musk has changed his Twitter bio to include the phrase "Imperator of Mars." As of Monday morning, Musk's full Twitter bio read: "Technoking of Tesla, Imperator of Mars." In addition, the bio included a single winking emoji.’

Revealed: the Facebook loophole that lets world leaders deceive and harass their citizens

The Guardian 12.04.21

Facebook chooses which fake accounts are to be handled based on political persuasions:

‘With 2.8 billion users, Facebook plays a dominant role in the political discourse of nearly every country in the world. But the platform’s algorithms and features can be manipulated to distort political debate. One way to do this is by creating fake “engagement” – likes, comments, shares and reactions – using inauthentic or compromised Facebook accounts. In addition to shaping public perception of a political leader’s popularity, fake engagement can affect Facebook’s all-important news feed algorithm. Successfully gaming the algorithm can make the difference between reaching an audience of millions – or shouting into the wind… Ultimately, Zhang argues that Facebook is too reluctant to punish powerful politicians, and that when it does act, the consequences are too lenient. “Suppose that the punishment when you have successfully robbed a bank is that your bank robbery tools are confiscated and there is a public notice in a newspaper that says, ‘We caught this person robbing a bank. They shouldn’t do that,’” Zhang says. “That’s essentially what’s going on at Facebook. And so what’s happened is that multiple national presidents have made the decision that this risk is enough for them to engage in it. “In this analogy, the money has already been spent. It can’t be taken back.”'

Surely We Can Do Better Than Elon Musk

Current Affairs 07.04.21

Thankfully, the media is waking up to Musk’s fabricated ‘genius’:

‘Supporting innovations that the market doesn’t find profitable is part of what the state is for. But the fact that Musk takes public money while presenting himself as the heroic libertarian opponent of stodgy government bureaucracy is maddening. So, too, is the fact that he, rather than the public, is the one who ends up getting rich. (Ah, but he told Bernie Sanders he is only “accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”) And if present trends continue, cities may end up giving Musk giant sums of money based on promises he has no intention of fulfilling, and our space exploration budget may go to help Musk set up his sky-polluting for-profit satellite company and quixotic “space servitude” mission to Mars… Instead, we need a humanistic vision of a high-tech future, one that rejects workplace tyrants, privatized spacefaring, and ever-multiplying underground freeways in favor of democratic governance, strong public institutions, and transit for the people. It can be done, even in the world of Actual Machines. And it can be more inspiring than anything Elon Musk has ever dreamed of.’

Bill Gates and Neo-Feudalism: A Closer Look at Farmer Bill

Geopolitics 14.03.21

Bill Gates has always creeped me out but now with his enormous purchase of arable land in the US, I am truly concerned.  A long read:

‘According to the newest issue of The Land Report, Gates has quietly made himself the largest owner of farmland in the United States. Gates’ portfolio now comprises about 242,000 acres of American farmland and nearly 27,000 acres of other land across Louisiana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Arizona, Florida, Washington and 18 other states….  

The Gates Foundation is not conventional philanthropy. It gives miniscule, if any, support to popular causes like the Wounded Warrior Foundation, ASPCA, environmental, or voting rights or civil rights groups.  It is a weaponized philanthropy that Gates launched in 1994 to resuscitate his reputation after the Microsoft antitrust case exposed him as a lying, cheating, thieving, manipulator intent on felonious monopoly control of global information conduits.  Gates has since invested $36 billion into the Gates Foundation, which has a value of $46.9 billion over which he and his wife exercise total control. The foundation has given away only $23.6 billion in charitable grants, and these “gifts” include billions in tax-deductible donations to companies in which Gates is invested, like Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Sanofi.  Gates’ brilliant mind devised this scheme to form a foundation that shelters his income, and allows him to leverage taxpayer dollars by investing the foundation’s earnings in projects that multiply his wealth and expand his power and public prestige, while avoiding taxes.  Using this structure, he can give tax-deductible donations to companies he partly owns and reap personal and foundation profits while avoiding taxes — and allowing him to hide his money in myriad ways. It’s a win-win! Gates has deployed his foundation as the embodiment of his base instincts for monopoly and control — a vehicle for ruthless philanthrocapitalism that hijacks public access and blurs the lines between corporate and public interests, cloaks private profit agendas with lofty public-spirited rhetoric and gives himself monopoly control over public health, our planet’s life support systems, our economics and people.’

Facebook asks judge to throw out FTC anti-trust lawsuit

BBC 11.03.21

If the case succeeds I shall celebrate:

‘The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 45 other states sued Facebook for alleged anti-competitive behaviour in December.  The lawsuit requested the breaking up of the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp.   On Wednesday, Facebook described the complaint as "nonsensical" and asked the judge to throw the case out.  In a statement, Facebook said the case "ignores the reality of the dynamic, intensely competitive high-tech industry in which Facebook operates”.  The FTC has until 7 April to respond.  Facebook purchased Instagram for $1bn (£718m) in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19bn (£13.6bn) in 2014 - which the FTC claims was done to "eliminate threats to its monopoly”.'

TikTok agrees to $92mn settlement in class-action over alleged privacy breach of US users

RT 26.02.21

Wouldn’t it be amazing if the same ruling applied to Facebook?:

‘The popular app allegedly “infiltrates its users’ devices and extracts a broad array of private data including biometric data and content that defendants use to track and profile TikTok users for the purpose of, among other things, ad targeting and profit.”’

Google fires second AI ethics leader as dispute over research, diversity grows

REUTERS 19.02.21

A priceless paragraph:

‘Google has recruited top scientists with promises of research freedom, but the limits are tested as researchers increasingly write about the negative effects of technology and offer unflattering perspectives on their employer’s products.’

New Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Loves Fossil Fuels and Facial Recognition

VICE 03.02.21

The hardcore vision of new CEO for Amazon spells disquiet as it endorses autonomous AI weapons and more FR tech being used.  This leaves ex-CEO, Bezos, to pursue dreams of colonising distant planets through Blue Origin:

‘AWS has not only played a key role in helping Amazon disregard antitrust law, but in attracting then crushing competitors. During Jassy’s tenure, AWS became the “invisible backbone” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has doubled down on cloud contracts with the agency despite over two years of internal and external protests…  In a PBS Frontline documentary released February 2020, Jassy again insisted that it was premature to raise concerns about facial recognition technology and claimed there was no evidence it had led to any abuse or misuse. "We don't have a large number of police departments that are using our facial recognition technology and as I said we've never received any complaints of misuse. Let's see if somehow they abuse the technology—they haven't done that,” Jassy said. “And to assume they're going to do that and therefore you shouldn't allow them to have access to the most sophisticated technology out there doesn't feel like the right balance to me”…  

Jassy is also a commissioner on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, an independent panel created in 2018 by the National Defense Authorization Act to consider technological developments necessary to "comprehensively address the national security and defense needs of the United States." Led by Eric Schmidt, former CEO and executive chairman of Google, in January this year the panel submitted a report to Congress that argued there was a "moral imperative" to pursue the development and use of weapons incorporating artificial intelligence technology…  It is hard to imagine he will be that much better than Bezos in other arenas like the struggles of warehouse, grocery, and delivery workers for dignified working conditions and livable wages. Considering that he was the head of AWS when it fought to build a $10 billion “war cloud” for the Pentagon, it is hard to imagine he will be better on the question of military contracts either. ‘

Google Deletes 100,000 Negative Reviews of Robinhood App From Angry Users

Gizmodo 29.01.21

Google emulates Amazon by playing the star-rating fix:

‘Google removed at least 100,000 negative reviews of the stock trading app Robinhood from the Google Play app store after angry users sent a flood of critical reviews that caused the app’s rating to plummet on Thursday. The app’s rating went from roughly four stars out of five on Wednesday to just one star on Thursday…  A Google spokesperson confirmed the tech giant has deleted the reviews and defended the move overnight, telling Gizmodo over email that it has rules against “coordinated or inorganic reviews.” Gizmodo asked how negative reviews could be deemed “inorganic” when people seem reasonably upset about Robinhood’s actions in recent days. Google stopped responding to Gizmodo’s emails after that inquiry.’

Apple and Facebook at odds over privacy move that will hit online ads

The Guardian 28.01.21

A new spat erupting between Facebook and Apple.

‘Speaking to the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection conference on “Data Privacy Day”, Cook defended Apple’s decision to introduce the features, called App Tracking Transparency (ATT). That setting, coming to iPhones in “early spring”, will for the first time require apps to ask for users’ permission in order to track them around the web… “Some may well think that sharing this degree of information is worth it for more targeted ads,” he [Tim Cook] said. “Many others, I suspect, will not, just as most appreciated it when we built a similar functionality into Safari limiting web trackers several years ago.  “If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are not choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform. Too many are still asking the question ‘how much can we get away with?’, when they need to be asking ‘what are the consequences?’.   “What are the consequences of prioritising conspiracy theories and violent incitement simply because of their high rates of engagement? What are the consequences of not just tolerating but rewarding content that undermines public trust in lifesaving vaccinations? What are the consequences of seeing thousands of users join extremist groups, and then perpetuating an algorithm that recommends even more?”…  According to the Information, a tech news site, Facebook is planning to launch an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, arguing that the company is breaking US law by requiring independent developers to follow rules that Apple does not itself have to abide by.’

This Was WhatsApp's Plan All Along

Gizmodo 15.01.21

An in-depth article showing how Zuckerberg aims to get richer off WhatsApp users:

‘This fee gets divvied up by those parties, and–of course—by WhatsApp.   While a few outlets covered this burgeoning product as something like Facebook’s answer to the “customer support” emails and texts from days of yore, it went pretty much unnoticed by most outlets that (rightfully) saw the API as a pretty boring piece of adtech. Brands, on the other hand, couldn’t be more jazzed about the idea, and they kept on being jazzed while WhatsApp adopted new features meant to make it more commerce-friendly…  Some analysts estimated that a year later, the number of enterprises plugged into the API went from 100 to roughly 1,000. At its current rate, the team said, WhatsApp is on track to get close to 55,000 businesses using this API by the end of 2024, all collectively racking up a hefty $3.6 billion in messaging fees…  WhatsApp’s response, which we emphasized here is just... something (emphasis ours):  “WhatsApp considers communications with Business API users who manage the API endpoint on servers they control to be end-to-end encrypted since there is no third-party access to content between endpoints.  Some organizations may choose to delegate management of their WhatsApp Business API endpoint to a third-party Business Solution Provider. In these instances, communication still uses the same Signal protocol encryption. However, because the WhatsApp Business API user has chosen a third party to manage their endpoint, WhatsApp does not consider these messages end-to-end encrypted. In the future, in 2021, this will also apply to businesses that choose to leverage the cloud-based version of the API hosted by Facebook…”’

Google suspends 'free speech' app Parler

BBC 09.01.21

Free speech goes out the window after the storming of the Capitol building last week.  With Twitter and Facebook removing Trump from their platform it looks like we’re getting the new Ministry of Truth, aka a tech giant consortium, tenets implemented.  Surely this is a backward move for any democracy?:

‘It briefly became the most-downloaded app in the United States after the US election, following a clampdown on the spread of election misinformation by Twitter and Facebook.  However, both Apple and Google have said the app fails to comply with content-moderation requirements.’

As Helen Buyniski writes in this RT article: “By blocking Trump from even posting on Twitter and Facebook and live-streaming platform Twitch — Big Tech has made it clear they’re no longer satisfied with a mere monopoly over one of the few profitable industries left in the US. They won’t stop accumulating power until they run politics, from the presidency to the smallest local election.”

And Amazon now joins the fray for removing Parler from its web hosting services.

WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using the app

Ars Technica 06.01.21

All the promises made by Facebook when it purchased WhatsApp go down the drain:

‘WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messenger that claims to have privacy coded into its DNA, is giving its 2 billion plus users an ultimatum: agree to share their personal data with the social network or delete their accounts…  Under the new terms, Facebook reserves the right to share collected data with its family of companies.  “As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies,” the new privacy policy states. “We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings.”’

Tech censorship: how paranoid should we be? (VIDEO)

Underd 28.12.20

An interesting interview with Glenn Greenwald talking to Freddie Sayers (Unherd) about the new censorship tactics employed by tech giants.

Microsoft’s iron cage: Prison surveillance and e-carceration

Al Jazeera 21.12.20

Microsoft’s profits from the incarceration and surveillance industry is staggering:

'Tribridge’s three core products – Offender 360, Youth 360 and Pretrial360 – drastically expand data collection and analysis. The software brings together “separate silos” of information – be it from schools, medical systems, or disparate correctional databases – to give a complete “360-degree view” of each person. Individuals can then be compared against other people in the database as part of an ongoing (involuntary) human experiment said to identify traits like aggressiveness or predict behaviours, such as “escape risk” or the likelihood of committing a crime.  Under the guise of “data collection” and “better management” of people, Big Data systems are designed to keep tabs on people in increasingly fine detail – at a profit for tech corporations…  

In the UK, Microsoft is also advertising its controversial Domain Awareness System, the Microsoft Aware surveillance platform, as its very own Digital Prison Management Solution (DPMS) for prisons. A product that combines “Microsoft technology with corrections operational knowledge”, the solution “empowers agencies and prison authorities to ingest and collaborate on data to respond to real-time threats and hazards whilst streamlining operations,” providing “a feature rich situational awareness platform” for prison authorities.  For Microsoft, this was years in the making. In a 2016 blog post, “Digital Technology and the Prison of the Future”, Microsoft envisioned prisons monitored with CCTV, drones and IoT devices, including “finger, face, and eye recognition to identify inmates” as well as RFID tagging and tracking bands.  

Much like its New York City surveillance solution, the DPMS seeks to provide authorities with a 21st century God-like view of their human subjects. “Law enforcement organisations and prison authorities,” Microsoft explains, “have many powerful tools to provide insight regarding violent crime and terrorism, including real-time sensors (e.g., remote detectors, automated car registration plate readers, and closed-circuit television [CCTV] cameras) as well as traditional law enforcement data (such as …  police … and national security records)”…  In true capitalist form, Microsoft offers prisons its Aware Solution at a price per head: £504 ($679) to £2602.74 ($3,505.98) per person per day.’

Facebook Is Developing A Tool To Summarize Articles So You Don’t Have To Read Them

BuzzFeed 15.12.20

Facebook should stick to connecting with family and friends:

‘Among the advancements touted by Schroepfer were the company’s commitments to artificial intelligence, which has often been seen internally as a panacea to the social network’s ills. He noted that Facebook’s data centers were receiving “new systems” that would make them 10 to 30 times faster and allow Facebook’s artificial intelligence (AI) to essentially train itself.  “And it is actually the key tool we are using right now today in production to fight hate speech, misinformation, and honestly the hardest possible content problems we face,” Schroepfer said, noting a company talking point that Facebook now detects 95% of all hate speech on the platform…  “AI will not save us,” wrote Nick Inzucchi, whose December goodbye note was obtained by BuzzFeed News. “The implicit vision guiding most of our integrity work today is one where all human discourse is overseen by perfect, fair, omniscient robots owned by [CEO] Mark Zuckerberg. This is clearly a dystopia, but one so deeply ingrained we hardly notice it any more”…  During Tuesday’s meeting, the company also unveiled an AI assistant tool called “TLDR,” which could summarize news articles in bullet points so that a user wouldn’t have to read the full piece. Named after the online acronym for “too long, didn’t read,” the tool supposedly could also provide audio narration, as well as a vocal assistant to answer.’

Pinterest in $22.5m gender discrimination payout

BBC 15.12.20

Pinterest forced to cough up millions for gender discrimination:

‘In the lawsuit, filed in August, Ms Brougher accused Pinterest of excluding her from meetings after she pushed for equal pay.   She said Pinterest ultimately fired her after she pushed for equal pay and raised concerns about sexist comments by a colleague to the company.  The complaint said the move had "solidified Pinterest's unwelcoming environment for women and minorities”.'

The dark reality behind Slack’s billion-dollar sale to Salesforce

Fast Company 10.12.20

Giant tech company’s acquisitions are spiralling out of control.  No more room for competition:

'Slack is but one of many stories in Silicon Valley of a “defensive” acquisition, where a company is no longer able to compete independently against the tech giants. These giants, armed with nearly limitless funds and extensive client relationships, frequently abuse their advantage and bully smaller upstarts into oblivion...  There are so many horror stories of businesses suffering from this monopolistic power disparity. One of these is Vevo, which was forced to shutter most of its offering in 2018 due to increased pressure from YouTube...  Instagram is perhaps the most famous example of this. Private conversations between Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom and investor Matt Cohler show the predatory relationship between tech giant executives and upstart rivals. As Instagram became more and more beloved by users, alleged threats of Mark Zuckerberg’s desire to “destroy” the app grew stronger.’

Chris Hedges: The ruling elite’s war on truth

RT 25.11.20

Chris Hedges outlines the increasing censorship tools tech companies are using to silence certain narratives:

‘Taibbi argues that the precedent for overt censorship took place when the major digital platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Spotify, YouTube – in a coordinated move blacklisted the right-wing talk show host Alex Jones.  “Liberal America cheered,” Taibbi told me when I interviewed him for my show, 'On Contact': They said ‘Well this is a noxious figure. This is a great thing. Finally, someone’s taking action.’ What they didn’t realize is that we were trading an old system of speech regulation for a new one without any public discussion. You and I were raised in a system where you got punished for speech if you committed libel or slander or if there was imminent incitement to lawless action, right? That was the standard that the Supreme Court set, but that was done through litigation. There was an open process where you had a chance to rebut charges. That is all gone now. Now, basically there’s a handful of these tech distribution platforms that control how people get their media. They’ve been pressured by the Senate, which has called all of their CEOs in, and basically ordered them, ‘We need you to come up with a plan to prevent the sowing of discord and spreading of misinformation.’ This has finally come into fruition. You see a major reputable news organization like the New York Post – with a 200-year history – locked out of its own Twitter account. The story [Hunter Biden’s emails] has not been disproven. It’s not disinformation or misinformation. It’s been suppressed as it would be suppressed in a Third World country. It’s a remarkable historic moment. The danger is that we end up with a one-party informational system. There’s going to be approved dialogue and unapproved dialogue that you can only get through certain fringe avenues. That’s the problem. We let these companies get this monopolistic share of the distribution system. Now they’re exercising that power.’

How Amazon became a pandemic giant – and why that could be a threat to us all

The Guardian 18.11.20

Long article detailing workers’ woes, ignored safety guidelines and the unstoppable rise of the company:

‘Before the Covid-19 crisis, Amazon was already a vast presence in the economy and its customers’ lives, but now its reach and sheer size is almost beyond comprehension. At the end of July, the company announced that it had doubled its quarterly profits to $5.2bn (£3.95bn), compared with $2.6bn at the same point in 2019. Net sales had risen by 40%.’

Amazon apologises for telling rugby fan Northern Ireland is not part of UK

The Independent 15.11.20

This company’s lack of education and general knowledge is risible:

‘Amazon has apologised for falsely claiming Northern Ireland was not part of the UK in a tweet that sparked a slew of posts joking that the firm had made a show of support for Irish reunification.  The e-commerce giant’s customer service Twitter account made the error after reaching out to a rugby fan in the province who had found it difficult to watch the Autumn Nations Cup games being hosted by streaming service Amazon Prime.  “We apologise but upon reviewing your location you’re in Northern Ireland,” a representative of the firm wrote to the customer. “Rugby Autumn Nations Cup coverage is exclusively available to Prime members based in the UK. We don’t have the rights to other territories.”.’

Amazon hits trouble with Sweden launch over lewd translation

The Guardian 29.10.20

How idiotic:

‘To start with, Amazon chose the wrong flag: the Argentine flag appeared where the Swedish flag should have been placed on the country picker. It is unclear how the error happened: aside from copious use of blue, the two flags are not similar.’

The DOJ says Google monopolizes search. Here’s how.

Technology Review 20.10.20

Monopoly from the big tech players is hard to dismantle:

‘The lawsuit specifically singles out Google’s behavior on mobile devices, noting that while its Android operating system is free and open source, in reality it maintains control. Contracts with vendors block forking of Google’s Android software, force the pre-installation of Google apps, and include revenue-sharing agreements that are better for companies that play by Google’s rules.   The lawsuit claims that revenue-sharing agreements with Apple, worth $8 to 12 billion a year and accounting for up to 20% of Apple’s worldwide net income, ensure that Google search remains the default search engine on the Safari browser and iPhones, as well as for Siri and Spotlight, Apple’s system-wide search feature.  The exclusionary contracts cover almost 60% of search queries in the US…  

Google’s alleged monopolization of search also amplifies its ability to maintain a superior product, the lawsuit alleges. It dominates the amount of data collected, and its larger data sets can be used to create more accurate algorithms, which in turn results in better search results targeted to each individual user. According to the DOJ, this cycle reinforces Google’s market dominance, unfairly protecting it from the competition.  Google has also monopolized online search advertisements, according to the lawsuit. Its monopoly on search gives it access to the largest potential audience for advertisers, making it by far  the most attractive option. The lawsuit specifically cites the attractiveness of text and shopping ads, both of which appear higher than organic search results.   The online search advertising industry has ballooned to $50 billion, and of that, advertisers pay roughly $40 billion to Google per year.’ 

More on the story.

Congress made a lousy case for breaking up Big Tech

Technology Review 09.10.20

A good follow-up article on efforts by US Congress to ‘control’ big tech:

‘Disappointingly, the much-ballyhooed document is riddled with factual errors. For example, it claims that “a decade into the future, 30% of the world’s gross economic output may lie with [Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google] and just a handful of others.” But the source for that statistic, a study by McKinsey, actually said that by 2025 (not 2030), revenues from all digital commerce (not just by the Big Four and a few others) might reach 30% of global revenues.  To put in perspective how misleading the report’s original claim was, consider that the combined annual revenue last year of Amazon, Apple,  Facebook, and Google represented only about half a percent of global economic output. Such a blatant error is conceivable only in a piece of work that first assumed its conclusion (“Big Tech is taking over the world”) and worked backward from there. There are dozens of other examples like this…  

Granted, all the data presented here doesn’t rule out future antitrust cases against the tech companies. The Justice Department and some state attorneys general plan to launch an antitrust case against Google in the coming weeks. The FTC is likely to file suit against Facebook before the end of the year.  If those cases go to court, more sophisticated economic modeling based on non-public data might show that prices would have fallen even faster—or there would have been an even bigger startup boom—had the tech giants in question not been so dominant. But such an outcome would only prove that even if these companies really do harm competition, we don’t need major changes to our antitrust laws to hold them accountable.’

US tech giants accused of 'monopoly power’

BBC 07.10.20

Rightly so:

'The 449-page report, penned by committee staff, accused the companies of charging high fees, forcing smaller customers into unfavourable contracts and of using "killer acquisitions" to hobble rivals.   "To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons," it said.   It said the findings should prompt politicians to consider a series of changes.   Those included stronger enforcement of existing competition law, as well as changes to limit the areas in which a firm may do business or prevent companies from operating as players in areas where they are the dominant provider of infrastructure - as Amazon does, for example, when it acts as both a seller and marketplace for other merchants.’ 

Exclusive: China preparing an antitrust investigation into Google

REUTERS 30.0920

Tit for tat manoeuvres between US and China:

'China is preparing to launch an antitrust probe into Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google, looking into allegations it has leveraged the dominance of its Android mobile operating system to stifle competition, two people familiar with the matter said.  The case was proposed by telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd last year and has been submitted by the country’s top market regulator to the State Council’s antitrust committee for review, they added.’

How tech billionaires’ visions of human nature shape our world 

The Conversation 11.09.20

An interesting guesswork article on tech players’ philosophy and vision of the world:

'A different tragic vision lies in the writings of Peter Thiel. This billionaire tech investor was influenced by philosophers Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt. Both believed evil, in the form of a drive for dominance, is part of our nature.  Thiel dismisses the “Enlightenment view of the natural goodness of humanity”. Instead, he approvingly cites the view that humans are “potentially evil or at least dangerous beings”... Technologists who see evil risk creating coercive solutions. Those who believe in evil are less likely to think deeply about why people act as they do. They are also less likely to see how situations influence people’s actions… Just as believing in evil is associated with supporting pre-emptive aggression, Palantir doesn’t just wait for people to commit crimes. It has patented a “crime risk forecasting system” to predict crimes and has trialled predictive policing. This has raised concerns.'

Search autocomplete rejigged by Google for political queries, as tech giants become the election meddlers they claim to fight

RT 11.09.20

Tech giants set the rules for what the ‘truth’ is:

‘Google is tightening its autocomplete feature on searches, vowing to remove predictions that support or oppose any political party, and any voting info – even if true. If anyone else did this, it would be called election meddling… The search giant’s insistence on its own political fairness has long elicited smirks, especially after researcher Robert Epstein revealed Google’s search manipulations had the ability to redirect millions of votes to its desired candidates, and leaked emails in 2016 revealed shocked employees engaged in post-election brainstorming to prevent a repeat of President Donald Trump’s victory…  It’s not just Google, of course. Twitter announced on Thursday that it will “label or remove false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election or other civic process,” including “unverified information about election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying, or certification of election results.”…  Facebook, too, has thrown itself into election-season control of information, vowing to block all new political and “issue” ads a week before the vote itself – no matter how truthful or relevant their content – and tag premature reports of victory with warning labels. “Misinformation about voting,” meanwhile, will be purged with the assistance of state voting authorities, while Messenger users will be unable to mass-forward messages.’

‘Nothing nefarious at all’: Backlash as ex-NSA chief, involved in mass surveillance revealed by Snowden, joins Amazon board

RT 10.09.20

Amazon advertises for someone capable of busting union attempts and now hires an ex general deeply implicated with the NSA scandal, which is still ongoing:

'General Keith Alexander, ex-director of the National Security Agency, who oversaw illegal mass spying on Americans, has been appointed to Amazon’s board of directors, drawing the ire of privacy advocates, including Edward Snowden…  Journalist Glenn Greenwald, a Snowden ally who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the US intelligence machine’s global mass surveillance program, tweeted that Alexander's appointment only revealed Amazon’s true colors.  “Gen. Keith Alexander was head of NSA when it secretly built a massive domestic surveillance system aimed at Americans – the one an appellate court just ruled likely illegal. Amazon just appointed him to its Board of Directors, again showing who they are,” Greenwald said.’

Last week the US wanted to break up Big Tech. Now it’s trying to supersize it.

VOX 03.08.20

By asking Microsoft to buy Tik Tok, Trump eyes an increase of American big tech dominance in global markets:

‘But it seems to me that one of the striking parts of the whole deal would be that the US government, which says it worries about the reach and power of its homegrown tech giants, is now actively encouraging a deal that would supersize one of those giants…  In its last 12 months, Microsoft generated a staggering $143 billion in revenue — for context, that’s two Facebooks. And while its growth is coming from enterprise customers and cloud services, Microsoft still dominates personal computers. If you’re not reading this on a phone or tablet, the odds are very high you’re reading this on a Microsoft Windows-powered machine... In short: If you were worried about the concentration of tech power in the US, you wouldn’t add the most consequential new social media platform in years to a company that made $44 billion in profits — four Amazons — last year.’

Tech CEOs Invoke the American Dream to Obscure the Nightmare They Created

VICE 29.07.20

When big tech with a size of a small country’s GDP invoke humble roots:

‘Bezos wasn’t alone in portraying his company as representing some aspect of what one might call the American dream, or America itself. Google CEO Sundar Pichai framed the hearing as being about “opportunity” and said that, growing up in India, he didn’t have much access to a computer until he came to America to study. Although Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t invoke the humble dorm room origin mythos that has given his company so much cover in the past, he said that “the tech industry is an American success story.” Apple CEO Tim Cook described his company as a “uniquely American company.”..  Just last week, America’s largest unions petitioned the FTC to investigate Amazon’s exploitation of the Covid-19 pandemic over concerns that it was suppressing wages, exploiting data on sellers to undermine their products, and leveraging its dominance in cloud computing to make competitors reliant on Amazon’s offerings.  The company also operates as part of the backbone of ICE’s deportation machine, offered a racially-biased facial recognition software to police departments nationwide, and transmits fear and racist paranoia to suburbs through its Ring surveillance program and its partnerships with over 600 police departments (as of December 2019)… 

A quick glance reveals the same is true for the other companies. Apple and Google are both being sued for using Congolese child miners to secure cobalt and other minerals at minimal cost, resulting in the maiming and death of several children. Apple is also a key player in reducing opportunities for individuals and small businesses in America to repair their devices, leading to calls for right to repair legislation.   Facebook has spent years apologizing and promising to do better after facilitating a genocide in Myanmar, cratering the news industry, harming the mental health of users and content moderators, compromising elections, attempting to remake the global monetary system with it as a key player, spreading hate speech and propaganda, and more.’  

U.S. lawmakers accuse Big Tech of crushing rivals to boost profits

REUTERS 29.07.20

The big four tech players face a grilling on anti-trust laws by US congress:

'Facebook Inc’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon.com Inc’s Jeff Bezos, Google owner Alphabet Inc’s Sundar Pichai and Apple Inc’s Tim Cook - whose companies have a combined market value of about $5 trillion - parried a range of accusations that they crippled smaller rivals in their quest for market share.   The videoconference hearing was the first time the four CEOs have appeared together before lawmakers…  

Cicilline set the tone for the hearing when he began by accusing Google of theft. “Why does Google steal content from honest businesses?” he asked. He alleged Google stole reviews from Yelp Inc and threatened to delist Yelp from search results if it objected.   Pichai responded mildly that he would want to know the specifics of the accusation. “We conduct ourselves to the highest standards,” he added, disagreeing with the characterization.   Facebook’s Zuckerberg took a series of questions about the company’s purchase of Instagram in 2012 and whether it was acquired because it was a threat, as he dubbed it in an email obtained by the committee.’

More here and here.

Facebook, Twitter remove accounts of Bolsonaro supporters following court order

REUTERS 25.07.20

However much I despise Bolsonaro, if tech companies keep doing that, then free speech is really dead:

‘Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) took down the accounts of several high-profile supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro following a Supreme Court order, a move that underlines the tricky territory the social media titans are navigating in some of the world’s largest jurisdictions…  Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the removal of 16 Twitter accounts and 12 Facebook accounts on Friday, a decision tied to an ongoing probe into the alleged dissemination of disinformation by supporters of the right-wing Bolsonaro.   Among the purposes of the “fake news” investigation, as it is known in Brazil, is to discover if misinformation and threats against Supreme Court officials are being funded illicitly.’ 

‘We will coup whoever we want’: Elon Musk sparks online riot with quip about overthrow of Bolivia’s Evo Morales

RT 25.07.20

Musk’s ego is stratospheric:

'The provocative comments were made after the billionaire businessman suggested that another government stimulus bill to help boost America’s faltering economy would “not be in the best interests of the people.”   One unpersuaded commentator fired back: “You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.”  Musk, apparently unphased by the accusation, responded: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” In a follow-up tweet, he claimed that Tesla gets its lithium from Australia.'

Big Tech CEOs ready defenses for U.S. Congress hearing into their growing power

REUTERS 23.07.20

Looking forward to reading about the hearing’s results, when it finally takes place:

‘The CEOs of Facebook, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet’s Google and Apple, are set to speak before the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel on July 27. They will present their testimonies virtually, according to sources familiar with their plans.   The panel is questioning the companies as part of its probe into whether they actively work to harm and eliminate smaller rivals, while not always making the best choices for their customers.’

Exclusive: Google offers data pledge in bid to win EU okay for Fitbit buy

REUTERS 13.07.20

Pretty sure Google will find loads more ways to capitalise on their Fitbit purchase:

'Alphabet Inc’s Google has offered not to use health data of fitness tracker company Fitbit to help it target ads in an attempt to address EU antitrust concerns about its proposed $2.1 billion acquisition, the U.S. tech company said late on Monday… “This deal is about devices, not data. We appreciate the opportunity to work with the European Commission on an approach that safeguards consumers’ expectations that Fitbit device data won’t be used for advertising,” Google said in an emailed statement to Reuters.’

TikTok halts Hong Kong access after security law

BBC 10.07.20

An app renowned for poor security defences is now formally disabled in Hong Kong.  Many players have pledged they would remove their app from the city due to infringements on human rights by the Chinese government.  Let’s see who does in the end:

'Short-video app TikTok has halted operations in Hong Kong, according to a notice posted on its website.  The company flagged the move earlier this week after China imposed a new security law on the city.  The law has restricted freedoms in the semi-autonomous territory, raising concerns of official oversight of social media.  Other social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter are also reviewing operations in Hong Kong.  TikTok has come under scrutiny from the US and other countries because of concerns it could share user data with Chinese authorities.’

'Palestine' is not an anti-Semitic word

TRTWorld 09.07.20

An opinion piece lays it out quite succinctly re Instagram removing references to Palestine.  The story has been reviewed by some world publications but not that many:

‘But in addition to on the ground policing, the Israeli government has invested heavily into winning public opinion and policing Palestinian public discourse.   The most recent scandal involves Palestinian-Dutch supermodel Bella Hadid, daughter of Palestinian architect Mohammad Hadid, posting a blurred copy of her father's US passport noting his birthplace, Palestine.  Instagram removed her post, citing it violated community standards. She replied to the platform through her story:  “What part of me being proud of my father’s birthplace of Palestine is 'bullying, harassment, graphic, or sexual nudity'? Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying,” and that, “You can’t erase history by silencing people. It doesn’t work like that.”’

Big Tech may not be afraid of a boycott. But it might fear a regulator

The Guardian 05.07.20

Regulations and financial contributions are long overdue:

‘To less fanfare than the boycott campaign, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority last week unveiled the fruits of its year-long study of the digital advertising market, which is worth £14bn annually in Britain. The report ran to more than 400 pages and diagnosed a serious problem: Facebook and Google enjoy dominant positions and the lack of competition is so severe that an entirely new regulatory regime is required.  The tech duo enjoy “such unassailable market positions that rivals can no longer compete on equal terms,” said the CMA. Weak competition in search and social media leads to less innovation and “consumers giving up more data than they would like”. And, if the £14bn – or £500 per household – is being inflated by lack of competition, consumers may be paying more than they should for hotels, flights, electronic gadgets, books, insurance and other goods.’

U.S., EU advocacy groups warn against Google's purchase of Fitbit

REUTERS 02.07.20

Google wants to gobble up fitness tech player:

‘Acquiring Fitbit would give Google such intimate information about users as how many steps they take daily, the quality of their sleep and their heart rates.   “Past experience shows that regulators must be very wary of any promises made by merging parties about restricting the use of the acquisition target’s data. Regulators must assume that Google will in practice utilize the entirety of Fitbit’s currently independent unique, highly sensitive data set in combination with its own,” the groups said… EU antitrust regulators will decide by July 20 whether to clear the deal with or without concessions or open a longer investigation.  In Washington, Google is under antitrust investigation by the Justice Department, a congressional committee and dozens of states for allegedly using its massive market power to harm smaller competitors.’

Exclusive: Facebook ad boycott campaign to go global, organisers say

REUTERS 28.06.20

Hopefully this campaign will not evolve into a One Truth Ministry anytime soon:

‘The “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign will begin calling on major companies in Europe to join the boycott, Jim Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, said in an interview with Reuters on Saturday. Since the campaign launched earlier this month, more than 160 companies, including Verizon Communications (VZ.N) and Unilever Plc (ULVR.L), have signed on to stop buying ads on the world’s largest social media platform for the month of July… Annually, Facebook generates $70 billion in advertising sales and about a quarter of it comes from big companies such as Unilever with the vast majority of its revenue derived from small businesses.   But the publicity around its hate speech policies have hurt its perception and stock. On Friday, Facebook’s 8.3% decline in stock price wiped out $56 billion in market capitalization.’

‘Mark Zuckerberg is the biggest oligarch in the history of mankind’

Fast Company 26.06.20

A very refreshing critique of tech companies:

‘What these companies have done is created a business model where the most incendiary, upsetting, controversial, and oftentimes false and damaging things get more oxygen than they deserve because we are a tribal species and when people say things that are upsetting we tend to engage. Engagement equals enrichment. The more rage equals the more clicks equals the more Nissan ads. So these algorithms have figured out that if you promote the flawed junk science of anti-vaxxers, it increases shareholder value. …  These [social media companies] are some of the most damaging organizations we’ve seen on the planet. Mark Zuckerberg is the most dangerous person in the world. He has absolutely institutionalized sociopathy, and he has a $2 billion beard in Sheryl Sandberg who runs around wallpapering over the actions of one of the most damaging organizations in the world…  

We have let these companies . . . grow unfettered well past where we broke up the aluminum, the oil companies, well past where we began investigating Microsoft. They absolutely have monopoly power, whether it’s a [30%] tax on every app that Apple [sells at its App Store], whether it’s 93% of decisions being influenced by one search engine, whether it’s that one company has become the arbiter of our truth globally and has become the biggest prostitute of hate in the history of mankind—of course, that’s Facebook. We have blown by any reasonable sense of when the FTC or the DOJ, who have consistently had their budgets cut, typically decide to move in and break up these companies. And meanwhile [tech companies’] lobbying budgets have jumped dramatically. Amazon now has over a hundred full-time lobbyists in Washington. The government is no longer a countervailing force to private power. It’s a co-conspirator.’

Facebook will label newsworthy posts that break rules as ad boycott widens

REUTERS 26.06.20

Facebook tries to retain its ads profits due to growing boycott:

‘Facebook Inc said on Friday it will start labeling newsworthy content that violates the social media company’s policies, and label all posts and ads about voting with links to authoritative information, including those from politicians…  The policy changes come during a growing ad boycott campaign, called “Stop Hate for Profit,” that was started by several U.S. civil rights groups after the death of George Floyd, to pressure the company to act on hate speech and misinformation…  More than 90 advertisers including Japanese carmaker Honda Motor Co Ltd’s U.S. subsidiary, Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s, Verizon Communications Inc and The North Face, a unit of VF Corp, have joined the campaign, according to a list by ad activism group Sleeping Giants.’

Coronavirus: Tesla gave workers permission to stay at home before sending termination notices

The Independent 25.06.20

Two people sacked for not wanting to risk their lives and talking about it:

‘When he defiantly reopened the company’s Fremont plant against county orders last month, Elon Musk promised Tesla employees they could stay home if they felt uneasy. They would not be penalised.  If “you feel uncomfortable coming back to work at this time, please do not feel obligated to do so,” he wrote in an email sent to the company’s factory workers in early May that was viewed by the Post.  Nonetheless, two Tesla workers say they received termination notices alleging a “failure to return to work” after they opted to take unpaid leave to protect themselves and their family members when the factory restarted production the second week of May…  Tesla’s standoff, first with public health officials, then with its own workers, has become one of the most dramatic corporate battles taking place over response to the global coronavirus pandemic. Mr Musk and the company have argued that the work is essential, something the county disputed. Some workers say that the company’s opaque approach is endangering their lives to build cars.’

Katie Hopkins’ Twitter account permanently suspended

The Independent 19.06.20

Whilst I decry restrictions to freedom of speech, I cannot help but be glad that a vile and hateful xenophobic character has been pulled down, however, in this age of digital communication, what avenues are left for expressing opinions?:

‘Ms Hopkins, who has been repeatedly retweeted by US president Donald Trump, gained more than 1.1 million followers on the site before her suspension, which came hours after she had complained she had lost her blue tick “verified” status.  In a statement a spokesperson for the social media firm said: “Keeping Twitter safe is a top priority for us – abuse and hateful conduct have no place on our service and we will continue to take action when our rules are broken.  “In this case, the account has been permanently suspended for violations of our Hateful Conduct policy”…  The UN intervened after a column in The Sun in which Ms Hopkins described migrants as “cockroaches” and “feral humans”, while in 2017 she left a job at radio station LBC after posting a tweet calling for a “final solution” shortly after the Manchester Arena bombing.’

Trump ads removed from Facebook for ‘violating our policy against organized hate’

The Independent 18.06.20

Facebook under scrutiny with regards to political ads:

‘Donald Trump’s election campaign ran more than 80 Facebook ads featuring a large inverted red triangle, a symbol used by Nazis to label political prisoners, in its attack ads against “antifa” and “far-left mobs” that, the campaign claims, are “destroying” American cities.  The ads were posted on the president’s page, the Team Trump page, and vice president Mike Pence’s page…  After they were posted on 17 June, the ads made hundreds of thousands of “impressions”, according to Facebook’s metrics that illustrate how many times the ads appeared on a user’s screen…  Jewish progressive group Bend the Arc said that “the president of the United States is campaigning for re-election using a Nazi concentration camp symbol” to “smear millions of protesters”.’

Facebook blocks and bans users for sharing Guardian article showing Aboriginal men in chains

The Guardian 15.06.20

Facebook moderates according to its whims:

‘Facebook has blocked and in some cases banned users who tried to share a Guardian article about the site incorrectly blocking an image of Aboriginal men in chains…  The journalist and activist Cory Doctorow said on Twitter the incident showed Facebook could not moderate at scale, and that automated moderating was not evenly distributed, with some minority groups more likely to have their discussions censored…  “Because the problem with [Facebook] isn’t merely that [CEO] Mark Zuckerberg is uniquely unsuited to making decisions about the social lives and political discourse of 2.6 billion people … it’s that NO ONE is capable of doing that job. That job should not exist.”’

Google's new rules clamp down on discriminatory housing, job ads

REUTERS 12.06.20

The ads and the way they target certain segments of the population to be discouraged.  Otherwise players are fined:

‘Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Thursday it was tackling unlawful discrimination by barring housing, employment and credit ads from being targeted to its users based on their postal code, gender, age, parental status or marital status.   The new policy, which will take effect by the end of the year in the United States and Canada, comes more than a year after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) charged Facebook Inc for selling discriminatory housing ads and said it was looking into similar concerns about Google and Twitter Inc.’ 

Twitter takes down Beijing-backed influence operation pushing coronavirus messages

REUTERS 11.06.20

Twitter upping its censorship of fake accounts:

‘Twitter (TWTR.N) on Thursday said it removed more than 170,000 accounts tied to a Beijing-backed influence operation that deceptively spread messages favorable to the Chinese government, including about the coronavirus… Twitter, along with other American social media companies such as Facebook and Instagram, is blocked in China.’

Twitter, Facebook disable Trump video tribute to Floyd over copyright complaint

REUTERS 05.06.20

Copyright infringement right upheld in most social media sites against Trump.  Expect to see new restrictive legislation from the White House soon:

‘Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc and Instagram disabled President Donald Trump’s campaign tribute video to George Floyd on their platforms on Friday, citing copyright complaints…  YouTube’s parent, Alphabet Inc, said the video the Trump campaign uploaded was not identical to the one uploaded to Twitter. The content identified in the copyright complaint was not present and the site did not remove the video, YouTube said.   Twitter has been under fierce scrutiny from the Trump administration since it fact-checked Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of mail-in voting fraud. It also labeled a Trump tweet about protests in Minneapolis as “glorifying violence.”’ 

Amazon BACKS DOWN after many, including Elon Musk, slam it for censorship of book questioning Covid-19 threat

RT 04.06.20

Amazon is acting like the truth ministry:

‘Publishing and e-commerce giant Amazon is facing a wave of criticism for refusing to publish a book questioning whether the media and medical experts made the threat of Covid-19 seem much bigger than it is, before backing down…  Following the accusations of censorship and anger online in support of Berenson, Amazon has reversed their original position and decided to publish his book.  “Looks official - @amazon BACKED DOWN! Of course I don’t know what anyone who doesn’t have @elonmusk and so many others pushing will do, but at least this time they backed down,” the author later tweeted.’

‘System glitch’: Facebook admits RT Deutsch story was WRONGLY labeled ‘fake’ but damage to traffic is already done

RT 04.06.20

Facebook decides on what is fake news:

‘Facebook fact checkers have labeled a video published by RT’s German-language branch RT Deutsch ‘fake news,’ after the outlet reported a viewership spike. They later blamed a ‘technical glitch’ but the damage was already done.   An innocent post about a hospital being built in Russian city of Ufa to treat people suffering from Covid-19 had somehow incurred the displeasure of Facebook’s ever-watchful fact checkers.’

Facebook deactivates accounts of Tunisian political bloggers and activists

The Guardian 04.06.20

System glitch blamed on censorship:

‘The Facebook accounts of several high-profile bloggers and activists in Tunisia were among those deactivated without warning over the weekend.  Up to 60 accounts are understood to have been deactivated, including that of journalist and political commentator Haythem El Mekki...  Whatever the causes, over the past nine years the country’s relationship with Facebook has changed. “I think one of the main dangers is that it’s not transparent to Tunisians,” said Mizouni. “For instance, during last year’s elections, we were unable to find out who was paying for what political adverts and why, despite several requests from NGOs to do so.”’

Zoom to exclude free calls from end-to-end encryption to allow FBI cooperation

The Guardian 04.06.20

At least they’re being honest about working with the FBI:

‘Eric Yuan, the company’s CEO, raised alarm among privacy advocates on Wednesday by saying Zoom planned to exclude free calls from end-to-end encryption so as to leave open the possibility of working with law enforcement.  “Free users for sure we don’t want to give [end-to-end encryption] because we also want to work together with FBI, with local law enforcement in case some people use Zoom for a bad purpose,” Yuan said on the call with analysts…  

The decision could set a dangerous precedent for privacy, said Tim Wade, the technical director at cybersecurity firm Vectra.  “In an online world, encryption is paramount to privacy, and privacy promotes safety, liberty, and fairness into our social fabric,” he said. “Gating personal privacy behind a paywall erodes basic freedoms and fairness.”’

Tech companies caring about Black Lives Matter is too little, too late

Fast Company 03.06.20

The hypocrisy of tech giants towards the BLM movement is glaring:

‘What is happening is an example of what is sometimes called “performative wokeness.” These companies issuing a statement that they “stand with the Black community” is the absolute least they can do. It would be better to remain silent rather than reveal their rank hypocrisy. Many of these companies generate profit either by exploiting Black labor and/or by amplifying hate and extremism that directly harms Black folks. If Amazon truly felt that Black lives matter, its executives would change the way they treat their workforce, stop selling their facial recognition software Rekognition, and dismantle their Ring Doorbell and Neighbors programs. If Facebook truly stood with the Black community, it would eliminate the widespread organizing of white supremacy on its platform. But it’s unlikely that those changes will happen anytime soon.  Ultimately, in the coming weeks, many of the same companies that tweeted “BLM” or claimed “support for the Black community” in the last few days will happily have their tech used in the service of tracking down and punishing Black protestors.’

Google in $5bn lawsuit for tracking in 'private' mode

BBC 03.06.20

Tracking enabled even in incognito mode.  It would be interesting to see if it does cough up $5 billion: 

'The proposed class action likely includes "millions" of Google users who since 1 June 2016 browsed the internet in private mode according to law firm Boies Schiller Flexner who filed the claim on Tuesday in federal court in San Jose, California.  ncognito mode within Google's Chrome browser gives users the choice to search the internet without their activity being saved to the browser or device. But the websites visited can use tools such as Google Analytics to track usage.  The complaint says that Google "cannot continue to engage in the covert and unauthorized data collection from virtually every American with a computer or phone”.'

Facebook staff anger over Trump post

BBC 01.06.20

Wanting to distance himself from Twitter, Zuckerberg does not wish to anger Trump and have the spotlight trained on Facebook:

‘Mr Trump took to Facebook to repeat a tweet about the widespread protests in Minneapolis, following the death of George Floyd in police custody.  Twitter had placed a warning over the content, which it said "glorified violence", but Facebook said it did not violate its company policy…  “We need to strive harder as a company, and industry, to have our Black colleagues’ and fellow citizens’ backs so that they are not having to face down institutionalised societal violence and systemic oppression alone,” added David Gillis, a director in product design at Facebook.   Other employees used the company’s internal messaging system to try to raise their concerns, The Verge reports...  Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg spoke on the phone on Friday.   It’s unknown what was discussed, but both sides called the conversation productive, according to Axios news website.'

YouTube investigates automatic deletion of comments criticising China Communist party

The Guardian 27.05.20

Has YouTube joined the ranks of China’s poodle as Google blatantly has?:

‘Luckey, a founder of the virtual reality group Oculus who is now works for a defence tech firm, tweeted: “YouTube has deleted every comment I ever made about the Wumao, an internet propaganda division of the Chinese Communist party,” and suggested the filtering appeared to be a new policy of censorship…  YouTube, which is owned by Google, said in a statement it had made no policy changes and that its filters were designed to remove only “spammy, hateful or harassing comments” from the platform.  “This appears to be an error in our enforcement systems and we are investigating,” a YouTube spokesperson said of the complaints. “Users can report suspected issues to troubleshoot errors and help us make product improvements.”’

Big Tech Supporting Blacklisted Surveillance Companies

Top20VPN 21.05.20

Why would ethics and legality come between tech companies and profit?:

‘Google, Amazon and Microsoft power over half the Chinese surveillance companies on the US Department Of Commerce blacklist…  Through providing essential web services to these controversial companies, US firms are playing a part in the proliferation of highly invasive surveillance products that have the potential to undermine human rights around the world.’

Apple and Google release phone technology to notify users of coronavirus exposure

The Guardian 20.05.20

Apple and Google release their decentralised surveillance tech for virus:

‘The software relies on Bluetooth wireless technology to detect when someone who downloaded the app has spent time near another app user who later tests positive for the virus…  Public health agencies from Germany to the states of Alabama and South Carolina have been waiting to use the Apple-Google model, while other governments have said the tech giants’ privacy restrictions will be a hindrance because public health workers will have no access to the data.’

Dystopian and disturbing: Big Tech censorship lumps together conspiracy loons and proper scientists

RT 18.05.20

The Ministry of One Truth is here.  YouTube is both judge and jury:

‘YouTube’s censorious attitude is not confined to policing conspiracy theorists and flat-earth nutters, either. Recently, it has removed a video of the respected epidemiologist Dr Knut M Wittkowski’s discussion of how to understand and respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Big Tech companies are entirely open about their right to police the debate that surrounds Covid-19 related policy. When YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told an interviewer that anything that contradicted the recommendations of the World Health Organization would be removed from her platform, she projected an imperious image of someone possessing the sacred authority of a god…  Scepticism and questioning is integral to scientific advance. This position was recognised centuries ago, when one of Britain’s oldest and most respectable scientific institutions, the Royal Society, was founded with the motto ‘Nullius in verba’ – that is, “On the word of no one.” The advice it conveys is clear: knowledge about the material world should be based on evidence rather than authority. Without constant questioning, science loses its vitality and turns into a dogma.’

'Cat and mouse game': how Citizen Lab shone a spotlight on Israeli spyware firm

The Guardian 12.05.20

Israeli NSO surveillance tech, sold to governments worldwide, has been looking at dissenting voices:

‘Deibert and his team have used their novel research techniques – “pretty complex stuff” as Deibert describes them – to help expose how dozens of journalists, human rights activists, and senior government officials have allegedly been targeted by governments around the world who use NSO’s software to hack phones.  While NSO has insisted that its hacking software is only meant to be used by law enforcement officials to track down terrorists and other criminals , Deibert and his team have painted a different picture… “We’ve seen repeatedly, and it’s an often overlooked element of this type of digital surveillance: the fear that an autocrat across the other side of the planet could be inside your very home, inside your pocket. It’s really disturbing,” Deibert said.  Citizen Lab has also helped to lay the groundwork for a landmark lawsuit against NSO by WhatsApp, the popular messaging app, which has alleged that the company’s software was used in 2019 to hack 1,400 users.’

These are the people Facebook put in charge of deciding whether to delete controversial posts

CNBC 06.05.20

‘Facebook on Wednesday announced the first 20 members of its Oversight Board, an independent body that can overturn the company’s own content moderation decisions.   The oversight board will govern appeals from Facebook and Instagram users and questions from Facebook itself, although it admitted it will have to pick and choose which content moderation cases to take due to the sheer volume of them… The board said it will publish transparency reports each year and monitor what Facebook has done with its recommendations.   “It will be very embarrassing to Facebook if they don’t live up to their end of this,” Thorning-Schmidt, a co-chair, said.   Brent Harris, Facebook’s director of global affairs, said Facebook will implement the board’s decisions “unless they violate the law.”’

Pre-crime: Twitter will warn users about their 'HARMFUL' language, BEFORE they tweet

RT 05.05.20

Arbitrary decision from a huge social giants.  First they ban people, then they ban tone:

‘Twitter will now notify some users whenever they’re about to post a reply using “harmful” language. On a platform that’s already been pilloried for enforcing its rules haphazardly, the plan will surely offend potential offenders… Explaining the decision, Twitter took a motherly tone. “When things get heated, you may say things you don't mean,” the firm said in a tweet on Tuesday. “To let you rethink a reply, we’re running a limited experiment on iOS with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it’s published if it uses language that could be harmful.”’

Facebook’s Oversight Board will be Zuckerberg’s patsy censors, giving him cover as he aims to control all global information

RT 20.02.20

Zuckerberg to appoint an Oversight Board to monitor speech:

‘The Oversight Board will provide Facebook with a great advantage: it will shield Zuckerberg and Facebook from scrutiny and state regulation. It could remove total culpability for policy blunders around censorship or political bias from Facebook’s executives. And it will most definitely be used as a counter to future regulatory investigations for potential antitrust violations and other malpractice, as the company could hide behind the Oversight Board arguing Facebook is no longer free to pursue profit over what’s fair for society… 

The fundamental danger of this new direction for Facebook is that it has escalated the drive for online censorship. Regulating what we can say, see, hear and read will always result in further curbs, not less. The idea that views, particularly strongly held ones, should constantly be put to the test in conflict with others, is now anathema, a bygone age of yesteryear.

The public will no longer determine what’s true and good. No, now we have Facebook’s 40 unelected moral overlords to determine what can and can’t be said or published. The ennoblement of these 40 individuals has transformed the rest of us into infants devoid of moral agency.’

We Shouldn’t Have to Beg Mark Zuckerberg to Respect Democracy

Counterpunch 18.02.20

Facebook wants to retain all ad profits but to eschew responsibility for providing a platform for false information:

‘There really is nothing terribly complicated about Facebook’s situation, nor any grand questions of freedom of speech and freedom of the press that don’t come up all the time with traditional media. The basic story is that Facebook is now gaming a provision of a quarter-century old law to pretend it is a common carrier when that is clearly not the case.

If Facebook wants to be treated like a common carrier, then it should become one. That would mean not profiting from ads and boosted posts. It would also mean not selling personal information from its users. If it wants to be a common carrier then it can simply allow people to post as they please and not try to profit from content or personal information…

The law must be adjusted to take away Facebook’s special status. It is a media outlet and it is long past time that it be treated like one.’

Samsung is in dire trouble

WIRED 13.02.20

Samsung is not doing so well - overhyped and unrealised 5G rollout plus a couple of scandals have hit the firm:

‘Marketing matters, though, and the impact of that reduced spend is clear: between 2014 and 2019 while Apple’s share of the UK vendor market rose from 33 per cent to 50 per cent, Samsung’s nudged up from 22 per cent to 28 per cent. In light of this, at the start of this year the company attempted to kickstart sluggish sales of its Galaxy A90 5G handset by slashing its UK price by £180 just three months after launch. That the offer has been extended into February is telling… 

Despite this, Conor Pierce, corporate vice president of UK and Ireland at Samsung, argues that 2019 was an “encouraging year from our overall performance” in his region, and that the company had “record premium retention” of 81 per cent returning customers.   He concedes that 5G has not taken off in the way Samsung had hoped. “We had much higher expectations of 5G in 2019. If you look at the UK, we achieved 91 per cent market share in 5G last year, albeit in a much smaller market than we expected. But what’s important is that we are building that wave, not being part of that wave.”’

Inside Mark Zuckerberg's Lost Notebook

WIRED 12.02.20

Seriously creepy:

‘The tension between expanding the boundaries of Facebook and maintaining an appearance of privacy preoccupied Zuckerberg's mind and filled his notebook in other ways. He took three pages to lay out a vision for something he called “Dark Profiles.” These would be Facebook pages for people who, whether by omission or intention, had not signed up for Facebook. The idea was to allow users to create these profiles for their friends—or really just about anyone who didn't have a Facebook account—with nothing more than a name and email address. Once the profile existed, anyone would be able to add information to it, like biographical details or interests… 

Twelve years later, Zuckerberg would be questioned in Congress about whether Facebook kept tabs on people who had not signed up for the service. He punted the question, but Facebook later clarified. The company said it keeps certain data on nonusers for security purposes and to show outside developers how many people are using their app or website. But, it asserted, “we do not create profiles for non-­Facebook users.”’

US orders Google, Facebook and others to reveal details of years of acquisitions  

The Guardian 11.02.20

The FTC orders tech giants to disclose acquisition of smaller companies details:

‘Joe Simons, the FTC chairman, said in a statement that the initiative “will enable the Commission to take a closer look at acquisitions in this important sector, and also to evaluate whether the federal agencies are getting adequate notice of transactions that might harm competition”.  

The intensifying scrutiny comes amid calls from some lawmakers to overhaul the FTC entirely, saying it is not doing enough to hold big tech accountable. Senator Josh Hawley, of Missouri, introduced a plan on Monday proposing the agency be absorbed into the Department of Justice.’

Google takes on EU in court over record antitrust fines

REUTERS 11.02.20

Google is accused by the EU of abuse of market power by favouring its own price comparison shopping service:

‘“Google’s search service acts as a de-facto kingmaker. If you are not found, the rest cannot follow. No company should be allows to abuse such position to promote its own services at the detriment of competitors and consumers alike,” said lawyer Thomas Hoppner who advises clients who are critical of Google.  

“The judgement will have repercussions for a large variety of industries that depend on fair ranking of their services on Google Search,” he said.’

Samsung's Galaxy S20 has no new ideas and it's all 5G's fault

WIRED 07.02.20

Due to the Huawei controversy, not much money will be made on 5G as a lot of telecom operators would be spending huge amounts removing components from their network:

‘5G’s launch was a bit on an unholy mess for consumers before this political issue scooped it up and blitzed the lot in a food processor, sans lid. There’s 5G gunk all over the ceiling and we don’t have a mop.   The longer term solution is for these networks to use 5G hardware from Nokia and Ericsson. They are two other leading suppliers, not just ghosts from smartphone Christmases past.   However, this is where we reach the crux of why the Samsung Galaxy S20 resting on 5G is not all that appealing’. 

I blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica – four years later, Facebook still hasn’t learnt its lesson

Independent 28.01.20

Brittany Keiser on Facebook getting away with crime:

‘Firstly, we must demand that politicians be held to the same community standards as you and I. If I cannot spread libellous content, neither should campaigners for Boris Johnson or Donald Trump.  Secondly, I call for Facebook to open up their process of detecting hate speech, fake news and voter suppression. They are doing too little, too late and need to allocate more funding to prevention – and quickly.  Lastly, I demand that we assign criminal liability to executives of companies that allow data protection violations through negligence. Think about how much more incentive Facebook would have to solve these issues were jail time on the table. It seems to me that if we allow Mark Zuckerberg and other tech execs to simply pay a fine for electoral violations, we are selling our democracy to the highest bidder. So we should ask ourselves: should democracy continue to be for sale? Our actions will be the answer.’ 

Google’s ads just look like search results now

The Verge 23.01.20

’Google is fundamentally an ad business. In the third quarter of 2019, Google’s parent company Alphabet made nearly $34 billion from Google advertising, out of a total revenue of $40 billion for Alphabet as a whole. At that sort of scale, small changes in ad click-through rates could end up having a huge effect on Alphabet’s bottom line, even if it means tricking users for cheap clicks.’

Facebook must hand over mishandled data from thousands of apps, says US judge

Independent 18.01.20

‘A Massachusetts judge has ordered Facebook to turn over data about thousands of apps that may have mishandled its users' personal information, rejecting the tech giant's earlier attempts to withhold the key details from state investigators.’

GOOGLE AT A TRILLION DOLLARS: HOW A GARAGE STARTUP MORPHED INTO AN OMNIPRESENT LEVIATHAN 

Independent 17.01.20

Google, a $1 Trillion company:

'For some, it is one of the greatest success stories of free-market capitalism of the 21st century. For others, it is one of the greatest failures: an out-of-control and insidious leviathan whose original aim of providing people with information has been perverted by profit-seeking towards a new objective of instead taking people’s information.’

SONAR 2019: New emerging risk insights

SwissRe 22.05.19

Insurance companies won’t insure 5G:

‘The top five emerging risks in our SONAR 2019 report are digital technology's clash with legacy hardware, potential threats from the spread of 5G mobile networks, increasingly limited fiscal and monetary flexibility by central banks, genetic testing's implications on life insurers, and the impact of climate change on the life and health sector.’

The Evil List

Slate 15.01.20

A list of the most evil internet players around, according to Slate magazine.

Facebook defies China headwinds with new ad sales push

Reuters 08.01.20

Facebook reaps billions from China in ads:

‘Facebook sells more than $5 billion a year worth of ad space to Chinese businesses and government agencies looking to promote their messages abroad, analysts estimate. That makes China Facebook’s biggest country for revenue after the United States, which delivered $24.1 billion in advertising sales in 2018.’ 

Top tech firms sued over DR Congo cobalt mining deaths

BBC 16.12.19

Tech companies being sued for deaths in Congolese mines:

‘Apple, Google, Tesla and Microsoft are among firms named in a lawsuit seeking damages over deaths and injuries of child miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  The case has been filed by the International Rights Advocates on behalf of 14 Congolese families.They accuse the   companies of knowing that cobalt used in their products could be linked to child labour.  DR Congo produces 60% of the world's supply of cobalt.’

Ex-Google exec Ross LaJeunesse savages firm on human rights

BBC 02.01.20

Google and human rights:

‘"I then realized that the company had never intended to incorporate human rights principles into its business and product decisions. Just when Google needed to double down on a commitment to human rights, it decided to instead chase bigger profits and an even higher stock price.”’

If you use your personal phone for work, say goodbye to your privacy

Fast Company 09.12.19

Google wipes out company personal android phone:

‘But they can also spy on you, or wipe out all your data—whether deliberately or negligently. That’s why mixing work networks and personal devices is a bad idea. If a company says you have to be online, they should provide the gear to do it. Annoying as it is to lug two gadgets around, the annoyance (and danger) of surrendering your own device to corporate control is a lot worse.’

Virgin Media links up with Google for smart home package

Irish Times 03.12.19

Virgin partners with Google to offer smart devices:

‘Virgin is hoping to tackle those issues by offering the equipment to customers for either a monthly fee over 12 months or an up-front cost, and providing its engineers to install the equipment. Packages start at €15 per month for the entertainment package, €45 for the home automation package and €55 for the complete package, which includes Google’s Home Hub.’

Google Fires Four Workers, Including Staffer Tied to Protest

Bloomberg 25.11.19

Google fires union workers:

‘Some Google staff have been protesting and organizing in the past two years over issues including the company’s work with the military, a censored search service in China and its handling of executives accused of sexual harassment.  Some supporters of the fired workers said the organizing activities led to their dismissals.  “With these firings, Google is ramping up its illegal retaliation,” according to a statement from workers who are organizing at the company. “This is classic union busting dressed up in tech industry jargon, and we won’t stand for it.”’ 

The problem with Google’s health care ambitions is that no one knows where they end

The Verge 11.12.19

Google poses unknown threats:

‘It doesn’t help that the company’s past health care initiatives have had a problem with boundaries. An early deal between the UK’s National Health Service and Google’s London AI subsidiary, DeepMind, broke local data-sharing laws, and Google is currently being sued for work with the University of Chicago Medical Center allegedly involving inappropriate access to medical records. Some reports about the Ascension deal say that this, too, could be breaching federal law, though the facts on this are not at all clear.  Speaking to The Guardian, a purported whistleblower involved in Project Nightingale said: “Most Americans would feel uncomfortable if they knew their data was being haphazardly transferred to Google without proper safeguards and security in place. This is a totally new way of doing things. Do you want your most personal information transferred to Google? I think a lot of people would say no.”  Ultimately, health care is just too big for Google to ignore. The market is worth $3.5 trillion in the US alone, which is why tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple are all piling in, hoping to become leaders in a new era of digital health care. As a company that specializes in search, Google seems particularly well-positioned to profit from this gold rush, which is going to rely primarily on organizing and analyzing information.’ 

Nokia is having one of the worst days in its history, thanks to 5G

QUARTZ 24.10.19

Nokia’s profits are down:

‘Decades of consolidation of what should be a globalized supply chain makes it hard for the telecom industry to shed old technologies. Pretty much all of the world still runs on older generations—4G, 3G, and even 2G. Telecom companies can’t just ditch those consumers, or browbeat them into buying fancier smartphones.’

What will 5G mean for you? A reality check on the hype

Fast Company 23.10.19

Optimism unfounded for 5G at mobile conference:

‘The first thing to know is that the fastest flavor of 5G is also the first to fade. Millimeter-wave 5G, the foundation of AT&T and Verizon’s early 5G deployment, can deliver download and upload speeds competitive with fiber-optic links. But that high-band spectrum can’t deliver them more than a block or two.’

Google Accused of Creating Spy Tool to Squelch Worker Dissent

Bloomberg 23.10.19

Google spying on employees:

‘Earlier this month, employees said they discovered that a team within the company was creating the new tool for the custom Google Chrome browser installed on all workers’ computers and used to search internal systems… The tool would automatically report staffers who create a calendar event with more than 10 rooms or 100 participants, according to the employee memo. The most likely explanation, the memo alleged, “is that this is an attempt of leadership to immediately learn about any workers organization attempts.”’

Huawei cyber security evaluation centre oversight board: annual report 2019 

UK Government 28.03.19

UK government report on Huawei.

The FCC's 5G FAST Plan

Federal Communications Commission (US)

All about the FCC’s plans for 5G.

Captured Agency - How the Federal Communications Commission Is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates 

Harvard University - Norm Alster

‘That‘s a term that comes up time and time again with the FCC. Captured agencies are essentially controlled by the industries they are supposed to regulate. A detailed look at FCC actions—and non-actions—shows that over the years the FCC has granted the wireless industry pretty much what it has wanted. Until very recently it has also granted cable what it wants. More broadly, the FCC has again and again echoed the lobbying points of major technology interests.  Money—and lots of it- has played a part.’