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Senate Democrat Floats First Serious Proposals For Regulating Big Tech (gizmodo.com)
On Monday, Senator Mark Warner published 20 proposals on how to regulate big tech platforms. What's interesting is that none of the proposals call for breaking up the pseudo-monopolies. Instead, they aim to start a substantive debate by laying out different paths to address problems posed by the platforms. Gizmodo reports: What may be more important than the individual proposals themselves is that the document is at least trying to organize a holistic way of thinking about the issues now on the table. It breaks down the areas that need addressing into the promotion of disinformation, privacy and consumer protection, and ensuring competition in the marketplace. Just to highlight a few of the good issues on the table, the white paper blessedly brings the conversation back to privacy and data ownership -- something that seems to have been lost as the conversation has turned to content moderation. The easiest recommendation is to implement what it calls "GDPR-like" data protection legislation that would give Americans similar data rights as EU citizens gained in May. The jury is still out on the long-term consequences of those reforms, but they require greater transparency and consent for a company's terms of service, along with many more tools for keeping track of what information a company collects on you.
On the competition side of things, the proposal suggests a data-transparency bill that would give users a more granular idea of how their data is being used and how much its worth to an individual platform. One concern it addresses is that platforms expand how they monetize a person's data while the user is often unaware of how much they're actually giving up, value-wise, when they agree to hand over their data in exchange for a particular service. Another benefit would be that regulators would have a better idea of what they're evaluating in antitrust enforcement cases. The proposals relating to disinformation are a little more worrisome. A requirement that platforms "clearly and conspicuously label bots" wouldn't be so bad, but it's a daunting task and opens up the potential for false positives. Likewise, demanding networks identify a user's true identity is unrealistic, and the option of anonymity online should be protected. Axios was first to publish the list of 20 proposals compiled by Warner's staff. Is there a proposal that resonates with you? If not, how would you regulate the Big Tech platforms?
On the competition side of things, the proposal suggests a data-transparency bill that would give users a more granular idea of how their data is being used and how much its worth to an individual platform. One concern it addresses is that platforms expand how they monetize a person's data while the user is often unaware of how much they're actually giving up, value-wise, when they agree to hand over their data in exchange for a particular service. Another benefit would be that regulators would have a better idea of what they're evaluating in antitrust enforcement cases. The proposals relating to disinformation are a little more worrisome. A requirement that platforms "clearly and conspicuously label bots" wouldn't be so bad, but it's a daunting task and opens up the potential for false positives. Likewise, demanding networks identify a user's true identity is unrealistic, and the option of anonymity online should be protected. Axios was first to publish the list of 20 proposals compiled by Warner's staff. Is there a proposal that resonates with you? If not, how would you regulate the Big Tech platforms?
"pseudo-monopolies."
What? Perhaps you mean oligopoly?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
There needs to be some serious thought on how to best address data migration and pseudo vendor lock-in. Data migration is easy. I should have the ability to download all my data from facebook and upload it to google plus (or some other competitor) and vice versa.
Pseudo vendor lockin is a bit trickier. If all your friends are on facebook then you can't move to a new platform without convincing all your friends to move too.
I think the solution for this is to require companies to allow interoperability between sites. If I want to create a facebook clone, I should be able to allow my users to sync their account with facebook so that posts on my new site are crossposted on facebook, etc...
There are already some marketing tools that allow this to a limited extent but it should be explicitly allowed so that people can more easily hop from platform to platform.
Currently, trying to do a true sync of facebook with a facebook clone would be against facebook's TOS.
Say hello to universal ID and Zero anonymity on the internet.
I hope you are the first person in court fighting for your life after someone steals your identity and does something illegal with it.
I hear nowadays just being accused of certain crimes destroys your future... no one will even wait until you go to trial to find out if you are innocent... you are automatically guilty... even if you eventually get a "not-guilty" verdict.
Identity theft is about to get a lot worse after someone like you gets a hold of the problem.
And no, data migration is NOT easy. Businesses spend ass loads of money on migrations all year round with many of them either resulting in failures or projects that did manage to finish but are only limping along.
Just talk to a few systems admins and engineers... they will be happy to tell you how broken a lot of shit is.
... none of the proposals call for breaking up the pseudo-monopolies. Instead, they aim to start a substantive debate by laying out different paths to address problems posed by the platforms.
Let's not propose a solution, let's not propose a method of making a *plan* for a solution, let's propose several plans for how to approach a solution, and have a debate!
Bureaucracy at its finest.
(Futurama quote: "Don't quote me the regulation! I chaired the committee that reviewed the proposal to change the color of the book that regulation is in." --Bureaucrat 1.0)
A free exchange of ideas sounds good. But it stops at lies. Journalists and advertisers are not allowed to propagate lies. (Exceptions may apply. And lies by ommission seem to be acceptable.) Now that even news agencies get their info off Twitbook, it is easier than ever to spread lies with impunity.
But there are reasons why lies are not welcome in this marketplace of ideas. We cannot hold everyone publishing on a public forum to the same standard as professional journalists and advertisers, for purely practical reasons.
But do we want this "free marketplace of of ideas" to become an arena about whose lies are less implausible? Then we may just as well forego journalism altogether and go back to church. Or succumb to the brainwashing of "scripted reality" and of "entertainment" shows emulating the presentation styles of news shows.
I read the first 4 pages and then skimmed the rest. It reads like a 2nd year college student wrote it.
"The hope is that the ideas enclosed here stir the pot and spark a wider discussion..." These colloquialisms are scattered throughout.the paper. Hard to believe that this is supposed to convince legislators.
The list headings:
Duty to clearly and conspicuously label bots
Duty to determine origin of posts and/or accounts
Duty to identify inauthentic accounts
Make platforms liable for state-law torts (defamation, false light, public disclosure of
private facts) for failure to take down deep fake or other manipulated audio/video content
Public Interest Data Access Bill
Require lnteragency Task Force for Countering Asymmetric Threats to Democratic
Institutions
Disclosure Requirements for Online Political Advertisements —
Public Initiative for Media Literacy
Increasing Deterrence Against Foreign Manipulation —
Information fiduciary
Privacy rulemaking authority at FTC
Comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation
1*‘ Party Consent for Data Collection
Statutory determination that so-called ‘dark patterns’ are unfair and deceptive trade
practices
Algorithmic auditability fairness
Data Transparency Bill
Data Portability Bill
Interoperability
Opening federal datasets to university researchers and qualified small businesses/startups
Essential Facilities Determinations
Um, no. The only thing that encumbers commercial behavior is regulation by the state (bad), and competition (good). It is always better to have options, rather than instructions.
I think you'd best have a look around. Any society and/or economy would do. And even a brief look should suffice. Then you would see that regulation by the state is absolutely essential. The alternative is all the power coalescing in a few commercial interests (bad).
The end point of unrestrained capitalism is a slave class of underlings (if there's even any point in having them alive at all) and a ruling class of capital owners. Regulation is essential to keep capitalism as a useful economic engine for the benefit of everyone.
One obvious example is our shared environment. Without regulation to prevent it, commercial interests would destroy all environmental amenity. "Externalities", they call them.
Fake news is the same as yelling fire in a crowded theater. You don't have a right to do that.
Pizzagate caused a shootout in a restaurant with children present. People could have died.
Without regulation, competition will inevitably turn into a monopoly, or at best an oligopoly with 2-3 players colluding not to compete, as stronger companies gobble up weaker or smaller ones. Once this happens you have no price pressure nor incentive to innovate or expand services.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil