#EU#TechRegulation#TechPolicy: "Is the premise here, that without such shackles, Europe would be free to build competitors equal to the US tech giants? If that’s the presumption, that’s not true. They know this is not true. Anyone who understands the history, the business models, the deep entrenchment of these companies also knows that’s not true.
There may be frustration with regulation ‘slowing down your series B’. But I think we need to look at a definition of ‘progress’ that relies on casting off all guardrails that would govern the use and abuse of technologies that are currently being tasked with making incredibly sensitive determinations; currently being linked with mass surveillance infrastructures that are accelerating new forms of social control; that are being used to degrade and diminish labor. Is that what we want? Is that progress? Because if we don’t define our terms, I think we can get caught in these fairy tales.
Sure, some guys are going to be solidly middle-class after they cash out, and that is good for them. But let’s not conflate that with progress toward a livable future. Progress toward a socially beneficial governance structure, progress toward technology that actually serves human needs, that is actually accountable to citizens."
#EU#USA#Innovation#DigitalRights#TechPolicy#TechRegulation#DigitalEconomy : "This Article challenges the common view that more stringent regulation of the digital economy inevitably compromises innovation and undermines technological progress. This view, vigorously advocated by the tech industry, has shaped the public discourse in the United States, where the country’s thriving tech economy is often associated with a staunch commitment to free markets. US lawmakers have also traditionally embraced this perspective, which explains their hesitancy to regulate the tech industry to date. The European Union has chosen another path, regulating the digital economy with stringent data privacy, antitrust, content moderation, and other digital regulations designed to shape the evolution of the tech economy towards European values around digital rights and fairness. According to the EU’s critics, this far-reaching tech regulation has come at the cost of innovation, explaining the EU’s inability to nurture tech companies and compete with the US and China in the tech race. However, this Article argues that the association between digital regulation and technological progress is considerably more complex than what the public conversation, US lawmakers, tech companies, and several scholars have suggested to date. For this reason, the existing technological gap between the US and the EU should not be attributed to the laxity of American laws and the stringency of European digital regulation. Instead, this Article shows there are more foundational features of the American legal and technological ecosystem that have paved the way for US tech companies’ rise to global prominence—features that the EU has not been able to replicate to date."
Fun drinking game for the next 9-12 months: take a shot every time a news article uses the phrase "Section 230" or "chilling effect on free speech" -- that way you'll be in the hospital with liver poisoning instead of having to keep up with all the TikTok news and court challenges
"The simple fact is that, without some sort of threat, Apple was never going to change any of its business practices, because there was absolutely no reason to do so. Apple would happily have never offered a self-service repair program or allowed emulators or changed its policies about game streaming—we know because there were literally years of people asking for these changes without the company lifting a finger—until governments got involved."
Android Authority details all the ways Android, Search and Chrome have changed for people living in the EU as tech companies prepare for Europe's Digital Markets Act this week. https://flip.it/cOlyHr
"But Meta’s version of consent offers users a Hobson’s choice — of paying at least €9.99/month for an ad-free subscription (per each account they have on Facebook and Instagram); or agreeing to its tracking.
No other choices are available, despite the GDPR stipulating that for consent to be a valid legal basis for processing people’s information it must be freely given."
"We can reverse the enshittification of the internet. We can halt the creeping enshittification of every digital device.
We can build a better, enshittification-resistant digital nervous system, one that is fit to coordinate the mass movements we will need to fight fascism, end genocide, and save our planet and our species."
"I think we need to frame tech regulation and tech policy in terms of justice... risks and harms are really unequally distributed. You and me and - I'm assuming - many people in this room are not going to be the key targets of harm. It is always people in communities that are already marginalised or excluded. So where are the progressive political parties on these issues?"
"X's Yaccarino said the company supported the STOP CSAM Act, legislation introduced by Durbin that seeks to hold tech companies accountable for child sexual abuse material and would allow victims to sue tech platforms and app stores."
Of course they do. It would wipe out small to medium platforms and entrench the current oligopoly of big DataFarms. Don't be fooled, this is regulatory capture at work.
"To be honest, I am pulling my hair out over 'online safety' bills that pretend to be focused on helping young people when they’re really anti-tech bills that are using children for political agendas in ways that will fundamentally hurt the most vulnerable young people out there."
But... why? They have absolutely no incentive to do that.
For a start, it would undermine the pitch that their customers are publishers and their readers, and the trust they've built with them. Most likely it would lose them a huge number of each, to other ad-free subscription platforms out there.
Hey legislators, how about you start doing a proper job of regulating ad-funded spying platforms to mitigate the damage they do (ie by banning the spying)? Rather than playing whack-a-mole with the first scapegoat that comes to hand?
After all, the Chinese government seem to be able to regulate TikTok so it serves what they perceive to be their national interests, without banning it entirely. Why can't you?
The European Commission has named Google Search, WhatsApp, TikTok and 22 other tech services as "gatekeepers" that must comply with new rules set out by the Digital Markets Act within the next six months. The Verge has more.
"Even Google staff complain that they can't figure out how to turn off location tracking [in Android]. Now, in any kind of sane world, this would be a prohibited activity. Section Five of the Federal Trade Commission Act gives the agency broad latitude to intervene to prevent ‘unfair and deceptive’ practices... And yet governments have taken no action."
@davemosk
"the Christchurch Call to Action... [is] united by our shared objective to eliminate terrorist and other violent extremist content online and uphold the principle of a free, open and secure internet"
Anyone know the current status of the NZ government's plan to force tech companies to backdoor encryption, for access by law enforcement?
"This is big news, and is of direct relevance to Matrix as an end-to-end encrypted communication protocol whose core team is currently centred in the UK."
USAmericans keen on #TechRegulation might find this interesting:
"As outlined in our recommendation below, by: 1) convening an annual congressional regulation summit tasked with crafting regulations that integrate the interests all digital economy stakeholders, 2) increasing the technological literacy of lawmakers, and 3) building on the recent first round of regulatory bills, we hope to provide “wins” for each of America’s major cultural worldviews, as follows..."
Who's using face-altering filters on social media? The technology has been featuring in more videos lately, sometimes for fun and other times to present an unrealistic and airbrushed version of someone's face. And parts of Europe are looking to regulate it.
If you've followed my work for a long time, you've watched me transition from a "#linkblogger" who posts 5-15 short hits every day to an "essay-#blogger" who posts 5-7 long articles/week. I'm loving the new mode of working, but returning to linkblogging is also intensely, unexpectedly gratifying:
Or maybe that's too harsh. After all, #TechPolicy is a game that everyone can play - and more importantly, it's a game everyone should play. The contours of #TechRegulation and implementation touch rub up against nearly every aspect of our lives, and part of the reason it's such a mess is that the field has been gatekept to shit, turned into a three-way fight between #technologists, #PolicyWonks and #economists.