{"id":41128,"date":"2018-08-02T15:12:37","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T05:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=41128"},"modified":"2018-08-02T15:12:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T05:12:37","slug":"a-roadmap-for-reining-in-big-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-roadmap-for-reining-in-big-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"A roadmap for reining in big tech"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Anyone watching Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s testimony to Congress in April following the Cambridge Analytica scandal would be forgiven for thinking US politicians shouldn\u2019t be allowed anywhere near tech policy.<\/p>\n

The questions the mostly grey-haired representatives fielded to the 33-year-old Facebook CEO ranged from the basic to the bizarre. \u2018How do you sustain a business model in which users don\u2019t pay for your service?\u2019, asked Orrin Hatch. \u2018Senator, we run ads\u2019, was Zuckerberg\u2019s reply.<\/p>\n

Other gems included<\/a>: \u2018Why am I suddenly seeing chocolate ads all over Facebook?\u2019, \u2018Is Facebook spying on the emails I send via WhatsApp?\u2019 and \u2018Do I have as many friends as I think I do?\u2019.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, a policy white paper<\/a> released on Monday by Democratic Senator Mark Warner, himself a former tech executive, has belatedly offered a framework for politicians to use when representatives from the big tech firms return to Washington in September.<\/p>\n

The document lists 20 proposals compiled by Warner\u2019s staff that they hope will \u2018stir the pot and spark a wider discussion\u2019 in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Russian hacking of the 2016 US election, as well as a general unease about the growing power of the big tech firms.<\/p>\n

The proposals span three major areas: dealing with the epidemic of disinformation, strengthening privacy and consumer protection, and ensuring competition in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

Some of the ideas, including the introduction of a so-called \u2018Blade Runner law\u2019, which would require bots to be clearly and conspicuously labelled, represent technical tweaks that the platforms would likely find achievable and that some are already working towards implementing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other ideas call for fundamental changes to the business models of the big social media companies, and are unlikely to be met with much enthusiasm from Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

One such proposal involves introducing media-style rules on fairness and libel. Specifically, it suggests changing section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act to make it possible for people to sue tech platforms that don\u2019t take down defamatory material posted by users.<\/p>\n

This change would take the onus away from victims to search for, and report, material that defames, threatens or falsely accuses them. Instead, that responsibility would fall to the platforms, which are better placed and resourced to prevent the spread of such material. In effect, the rule change would treat Facebook as a media company, not just a platform\u2014something it has long resisted.<\/p>\n

Another major proposal entails introducing legislation similar to the EU\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that would significantly toughen privacy laws and prevent the use of personal data without the unambiguous and individualised consent of the user.<\/p>\n

The proposals, which include \u2018data portability, the right to be forgotten, 72-hour data breach notification, 1st party consent, and other major data protections\u2019, would, in total, give users more transparency over and control of their own data.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most radical idea in the white paper is a proposal to require platforms to calculate the value of each user\u2019s data. Such a requirement, the paper argues, would stimulate competition by providing \u2018price transparency\u2019 to consumers. It could also educate users about the true value of their data and attract new competitors with more favourable privacy provisions built into their products.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see how such a change might encourage users to get behind even more radical ideas that would require big tech companies to pay them<\/em> to use their services and to hand over valuable data\u2014something advocates of \u2018data as labour\u2019 have been calling for elsewhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The paper found that calculating the value of each user\u2019s data could even help guide antitrust policy. Regulators could consider actions that increase the value of user data to be anticompetitive since they would be equivalent to a \u2018price\u2019 increase for users.<\/p>\n

Another proposal would see tech platforms labelled as \u2018information fiduciaries\u2019, which means they would need to follow similar rules to legal or financial institutions.<\/p>\n

The white paper drills down to underhanded tricks employed by tech firms known as \u2018dark patterns\u2019, which are used to corral users into accepting terms that invade their privacy and greatly benefit the service provider.<\/p>\n

It even looks ahead at emerging problems that are likely to make fighting false information online even harder, such as \u2018deepfake\u2019 technology, which will make detecting fake news even more difficult.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to see why the big tech companies would baulk at many of the ideas included in the white paper\u2014given that the major policy proposals would require a complete overhaul of their business models.<\/p>\n

Facebook lost a million users in Europe after the GDPR was introduced. Just last week, its stock plummeted, wiping more than US$120 billion off its market capitalisation. The next day, Twitter lost 15.5% of its market value.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for the major market correction is that the social media platforms have been harassed into actually doing something about the harmful externalities their services are creating.<\/p>\n

Facebook is on a media blitz<\/a> to show that it\u2019s on the front foot in dealing with Russian disinformation campaigns that use its platform, and Twitter has been culling<\/a> fake accounts and bots.<\/p>\n

The companies have calculated that some short-term pain from Wall Street is worth it if it staves off any heavy-handed regulatory action from Washington.<\/p>\n

But how long will they continue to make that calculation before they give in to the stock market\u2019s perverse incentives of growing engagement and user numbers at any cost?<\/p>\n

Tech firms have been happy to turn a blind eye as long as they were making profits hand over fist. The US legislature, having so far demonstrated staggering incompetence, now has a set of ideas it can use to finally move the conversation along in a more substantive way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone watching Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s testimony to Congress in April following the Cambridge Analytica scandal would be forgiven for thinking US politicians shouldn\u2019t be allowed anywhere near tech policy. The questions the mostly grey-haired representatives fielded …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":714,"featured_media":41130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[391,1756,224,1279],"class_list":["post-41128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-cyber","tag-facebook","tag-social-media","tag-twitter"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA roadmap for reining in big tech | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-roadmap-for-reining-in-big-tech\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A roadmap for reining in big tech | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anyone watching Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s testimony to Congress in April following the Cambridge Analytica scandal would be forgiven for thinking US politicians shouldn\u2019t be allowed anywhere near tech policy. 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