Category: Blog

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Europe to break up big tech if U.S. can’t

Following antitrust investigations from the U.S. Government into online giants Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple back in July 2020, the EU has now threatened to break up Silicon Valley’s big tech companies if the US can’t.

The argument revolves around monopoly and antitrust laws, put in place to stop companies from engaging in anti competitive behaviour. Whilst the U.S has been conducting investigations this December in an aim to break up Facebook and bringing seemingly incriminating emails sent from its founder to light, the EU has since released two major new drafts of regulations for tech companies. 

The two documents are the Digital Markets Act and a Digital Services Act which seek to hold companies accountable for both unfair competition and the regulation of illegal behaviour on their platforms. The documents come from the EU centre of Brussels and are the first significant revamp of policy from the EU in twenty years. Both proposals for the new acts will first need to be voted on by the Council of Ministers and European Parliament before being able to be made into law. There is, however, no timetable as of yet to when this might occur. 

The proposals include big fines for big tech companies seeking to eat up market competition. Companies will be liable for up to 10% of their worldwide revenue for acts of deliberate anti-competition, while fines for up to 6% of global revenue will be put in place for companies that fail to regulate their platforms for illegal behaviour. 

If the new laws were to come into place they would indicate one of the biggest and most significant shifts in worldwide policy making, as EU law would greatly impact US companies’ working practices. The EU laws are noted to be some of the most strict and stringent big tech companies would have to comply with.

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Blog Facebook Policy Politics

Breaking up big tech: continued scrutiny for Facebook

A world without Facebook – or any other of its online social media outlets such as Instagram and Whatsapp – seems almost unimaginable for some. In fact, an increasing number of the global population are born into a world they will never know without an ever growing digital realm. For those born between the mid- to late- 1990s until the early 2010s, this generation has even become known as Gen Z – or rather Generations Zoomers since the undeniable takeover of 2020 from the digital conference platform zoom in wake of the global coronavirus pandemic. 

Since its launch in 2004 Facebook has continually dominated our social sphere, affecting both our online and offline behaviours. It’s growing control as a media conglomerate has caused much controversy in more recent times this year, yet the social media giant is not accustomed to controversy and lawsuits. The infamous dispute between founder Mark Zuckerberg and some fellow Harvard law students was encapsulated in the 2010 film The Social Network, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and even Justin Timberlake. 
With a history of breaking up large company monopolies such as logging companies in the 1840s, Standard Oil in the 1910s, and then AT&T in the 1980s, the U.S. Government has finally taken on big tech. Following investigative court proceedings with the four online giants Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google back in July 2020, the government has once again taken on Facebook for holding too much power in the social media sphere. The government has since filed an antitrust law against Facebook, directed at the company’s tactics of buying rival competition. Whilst policy makers have described the court proceedings as likely to be an uphill battle though are keen to break up the monopoly that arguably stifles rival competition and hinders creative diversity, others have criticised the government for attempting a break up that could cause unintended and unforeseeable consequences.

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Who is Q?

“Q”, the anonymous individual behind the QAnon movement, is apparently two people—or was one person and is now another. That’s according to an analysis done by a company called OrphAnalytics. OrphAnalytics is dedicated to authenticating texts and “detecting ghostwriting issues.”

The company recently applied its genomics-based technology to 4952 QAnon posts—or “Q drops”—that had been published on 4chan and 8chan between October 2017 and November 2020.

“The whole corpus is collected in order to challenge the proposal that a single writer be the sole author of Q-drops specific to QAnon,” OrphAnalytics wrote in an abstract.

It goes on to explain (in absurdly esoteric language that would stop a fast courier in its tracks):

“The stylometry of the 7.5k concatenates of Q-drops classified chronologically reveals two clusters, characteristic of two different styles, which correspond to the two periods of publication of the Q-drops on the 4chan and 8chan forums. This observation sheds light on the background information of the media surveys.

“The signal is mostly carried by Q-drops of less than 1000 characters and clustering does not seem to interfere with the analyses. The other type of concatenation tested, concatenation by size, proves unable to cluster reasonably. A success rate was calculated by non-hierarchical clustering analysis: more than 90%. This rate is comparable to that measured in a criminal case under investigation and to that obtained on texts from a solved case.”

What the hell does that mean? Damned if I know. Apparently it means that two different people have written as “Q.”

“Our results very strongly suggest the existence of two different authors behind Q,” said OrphAnalytics’ CEO Claude Alain Roten, according to PRNewswire. “Moreover, these distinct signatures clearly correspond to separate periods in time and different online forums.”

In other words, the 4chan Q is different from the 8chan Q. The former was active from October 28, 2017 to December 1, 2017—a pretty short stint. At that point, the Q baton was passed to someone else, and that person began posting on 8chan. Roten says it’s probable—though not certain—that a single person has authored all of the Q drops since December 2017.

So where is OrphAnalytics going with this? Well, Roten says the objective is to unmask Mr Q.

“The next step is to contribute putting a name on QAnon by comparing these signatures to those of the usual suspects,” he said. “To do that, we gather and cure written material from these persons to compare it with Q messages.” 

It has been suggested that 8chan owner Jim Watkins is Q. That seems logical enough.

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US government investigating how 9 social media companies collect and use data

The Federal Trade Commission, which enforces US antitrust and consumer protection laws, has issued orders to nine social media companies demanding information about how and for what purposes they collect and store user data. The FTC is also wants to know about the companies’ advertising and user engagement practices, specifically as they relate to child and adolescent users.

The list of targeted companies is a rogues gallery of digital malefactors: Amazon, ByteDance (owner of TikTok), Discord, Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube. They have 45 days to respond to the order. I’m not sure, but I don’t believe that any of them have 1300 numbers.

On its webpage, the FTC writes that the objective is to gain a fuller understanding of:

  • how social media and video streaming services collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information;
  • how they determine which ads and other content are shown to consumers;
  • whether they apply algorithms or data analytics to personal information;
  • how they measure, promote, and research user engagement; and
  • how their practices affect children and teens.

“The FTC wants to understand how business models influence what Americans hear and see, with whom they talk, and what information they share,” explained the FTC in a press statement. “And the FTC wants to better understand the financial incentives of social media and video streaming services.”

As CNBC reports, there’s a clause in the FTC Act that enables the FTC to conduct wide-reaching probes that are separate from law enforcement. These are known as “6(b) studies.” The FTC carried one out earlier this year in which it reviewed various takeovers by some of the major US monopolies, namely, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft.

Of course, Bill Gates’ Microsoft was the subject of a major antitrust lawsuit in 2001. In that case, Microsoft was confirmed as a corporate outlaw operating in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Now Facebook finds itself faced with a similar lawsuit filed just this month by the FTC along with 48 attorneys general. In that suit, Facebook is alleged to have taken over Instagram and WhatsApp after determining that, if left alone, they could pose a threat to Facebook’s hegemony.

Thus, Facebook is accused of unlawfully crushing competition and subsequently harming consumers by limiting their range of options, particularly with regard to privacy. Facebook plans to use the fact that the FTC approved its takeovers of Instagram and WhatsApp as the main pillar of its defense.

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Instagram vs the harlots

Strumpets et alia are reportedly up in arms over Instagram’s new (but not really new) terms of use and community guidelines, which make it difficult to advertise sexual services on the image sharing platform. As I understand it (but maybe my understanding is flawed; I’ve spent the last 24 hours shopping for a cashmere cardigan for Christmas, so my eyes and brain are little impaired), Instagram recently reiterated and rephrased its terms of use without actually changing them. But its prostitute users are still angry, claiming that the update was in fact a shot across the bow at them.

Instagram enforces the same “sexual solicitation” restrictions as Facebook. That is, it prohibits content that “facilitates, encourages or coordinates sexual encounters or commercial sexual services between adults such as prostitution or escort services.” Nor is “sexually explicit language” permitted.

More specifically, users cannot post porn, “strip club shows,” “erotic dances,” or sexual massages. They cannot solicit any of those things either. Also banned are “suggestive elements” including “sexual emojis” (I gotta get me some of them), “sexualised slang,” and my personal favorite, references to “wetness or erection.”

Sounds pretty puritanical to me. Historically, most puritans are closet perverts and/or paraphiliacs. Just a thought.

On Instagram, no images of intercourse, genitals or “close-ups of fully-nude buttocks” are allowed. Which sort of defeats the whole purpose of an image sharing app, no? What do people post on there if not close-ups of fully-nude buttocks?

There’s a little bit of latitude with regard to female nipples, including “photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding.” Why anyone would feel the need to post a photo of themselves breastfeeding is a little bit beyond me, but whatever blows your hair back, I guess.

Anyway, as I said, prostitutes have their g-strings in a bunch over all of this. A sex educator called Taylor Sparks spoke about the outrage to Mashable: “Instagram and Facebook guidelines will have sex educators, tantric coaches and professional Dommes walking on eggshells because you don’t know if those monitoring your page will consider the word penis or dick more offensive.”

Good point. Better stick with “johnson” or “ramrod.” Those usually slide past the censors and into their destination. “Tallywhacker” also works.

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Apps Blog Messaging Privacy WhatsApp

Here’s all the data WhatsApp collects from users

Remember when WhatsApp had a reputation for privacy and security? Then it sold out to Facebook, and people who are concerned about privacy and security moved to another app like Signal. Facebook still likes to boast about WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption—which isn’t so end-to-end after all—but the company has very little to say about the app’s data collection in general.

Thanks to Apple (never thought I’d say that; then again, I never thought I’d be shopping for Equipment Hunt: Trucks and Excavators, but that’s what I’m doing these days), we now have a pretty good idea of what WhatsApp is doing with our data. As I wrote in a recent post, Apple is changing its system so that users are better informed about how their private and personal data is being exploited by the apps they download. Facebook is very angry about this, so much so that they’ve waged a public jihad against Apple under the ridiculous pretense of “standing up for small businesses.”

But I digress. We were discussing WhatsApp. If you go to Apple’s App Store and select WhatsApp, you’re shown a notification with a list of data points gathered and stored by the app. “The developer,” the notification reads, “indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below.”

Under the heading “Data Linked to You” is written “The following data may be collected and linked to your identity.” And below that is a list including:

Purchases

Location

Contacts

Identifiers

Diagnostics

Financial info

Contact info

User content

Usage data

That’s what WhatsApp collects from your device. That’s a lot of data. Essentially, WhatsApp uses everything except actual text messages to track you and learn about your behavior, preferences, location, etc. In other words, there is really nothing “private” or “secure” about WhatsApp. Which should come as no surprise, given that it’s owned by Facebook, one of the most expansive surveillance operations in human history.

On the other hand, Signal, the app I mentioned before, is not nearly as intrusive. According to Apple, it collects far less data, and any data that it does collect is not linked to the user.

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New York Times admits its ‘Caliphate’ podcast was a full-blown hoax

When the New York Times reports on foreign affairs, it’s at best tendentious. Sometimes it’s just flat-out false. Fake news, as the MAGA people say. Most of the time the “paper of record” never bothers to correct the record. But occasionally it does. Today is one of those rare occasions, with the Times admitting that its award-winning “Caliphate” podcast from 2018 was pure fiction.

Hosted by “journalist” Rukmini Callimachi, the podcast revolved around interviews with a Canadian man named Shehroze Chaudhry. Calling himself Abu Huzayfah, Chaudhry claimed to have been an ISIS fighter in Syria and described in graphic detail the atrocities he supposedly participated in. Callimachi played the role of credulous listener, taking for granted that everything Chaudhry told her was true.

As it happens, everything he told her was made up. This became clear back in September, when Chaudhry was arrested in Canada for perpetuating a “terrorist hoax.” As news of Chaudhry’s arrest made the rounds and people began asking questions, the Times defended its reporting using a rather curious argument, namely, that they never claimed their journalism was accurate.

“The uncertainty about Abu Huzayfah’s story is central to every episode of ‘Caliphate’ that featured him,” the paper said.

Ah, the classic “unreliable narrator” device. Common to fiction, but traditionally frowned-upon in journalism, to put it mildly. Then again, the Times has made it a sort of specialty in recent years, quoting all kinds of anonymous intelligence officials to persuade the American public that Russia, Iran and Venezuela are behind every iniquitous act under the sun.

Anyway, the Times evidently decided that “Caliphate” was a little to fraudulent for comfort. So the paper performed a review of the podcast and concluded that it “did not meet the standards for Times journalism.” That’s debatable, but OK.

“The Times found that ‘Caliphate’ gave too much credence to the false or exaggerated accounts of one of its main subjects, Shehroze Chaudhry, a resident of Canada who claimed to have taken part in Islamic State executions.”

How embarrassing. I didn’t study journalism in school, but if I had, I imagine The Importance of Vetting Primary Sources would have been among the first lessons taught.

As for Rukmini Callimachi, the terrorist conman’s willing dupe (chatbots in Australia would have done a better job running the podcast), the Times says she’s going to be allowed to keep her job. “She’s going to take on a new beat, and she and I are discussing possibilities,” said executive editor Dean Baquet. “I think it’s hard to continue covering terrorism after what happened with this story. But I think she’s a fine reporter.”

That someone like Callimachi can be seriously described as a “fine reporter” is a damning reflection of the extreme low to which journalistic standards have sunk.

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How will Brexit affect digital privacy in the UK?

Brexit has been one big chaotic mess, but there are some beneficiaries of the madness. Facebook is one of them. It was reported yesterday that the tech corporation—which is currently getting hammered from all directions by major lawsuits—is going to move all of its UK users into agreements with its corporate headquarters in California.

Previously, users in Britain were set up with the company’s Euro headquarters in Ireland, which meant they were under the purview of the European Union and its robust privacy laws. As Ireland is still a member of the EU, many of the legal agreements it had with the UK are changing or ending altogether, and Facebook is taking advantage of that. (So is Google, for that matter. I haven’t used Google in ages. There are plenty of alternatives. For instance, when I’m looking for an NDIS provider finder, I use DuckDuckGo.)

In a statement to Reuters, Facebook’s UK branch confirmed that it was shifting British users to the California framework, but insisted rather unconvincingly that user privacy would not be affected.

“Like other companies, Facebook has had to make changes to respond to Brexit and will be transferring legal responsibilities and obligations for UK users from Facebook Ireland to Facebook Inc,” Facebook said. “There will be no change to the privacy controls or the services Facebook offers to people in the UK.”

Users in the UK will still be governed by that country’s privacy regime, which is similar to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But “people familiar with the company” told Reuters that Facebook is motivated by a desire to get out from under the GDPR’s restrictions. Among other things, the GDPR places limitations on how much data can be shared between Europe and the US.

The concern now is that London, in order to secure an attractive trade deal with Washington, will relax its own privacy laws to enable a freer exchange of information, opening up users to all manner of violations. Jim Killock, executive director of the UK-based Open Rights Group, remarked upon the danger inherent in such a development. “The bigger the company,” he explained, “the more personal data they hold, the more they are likely to be subject to surveillance duties or requirements to hand over data to the US government.”

The shift goes into effect next year; shortly after, Facebook will notify users via an update to its terms of service.

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Australia sues Facebook for spying on users sans consent

Facebook has been sued by a regulatory body in Australia for allegedly (but we all know it’s true) gathering personal data from users without their knowledge or consent. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says Zuckerberg’s corporation used the Onavo Protect VPN app to spy on Australian users in 2016 and 2017, collecting and storing their data in order to boost Facebook’s profits. Facebook did this, the filing asserts, while telling users that the app would protect their data and keep it safe.

That is what a VPN (virtual private network) is meant to do: keep your data secure and prevent you from being monitored by nefarious actors like Facebook. But you really can’t trust any digital technology these days, especially if it’s being promoted by Facebook. If you want privacy you’d better just stick to face-to-face conversations, or maybe 2 way radios.

“Through Onavo Protect, Facebook was collecting and using the very detailed and valuable personal activity data of thousands of Australian consumers for its own commercial purposes, which we believe is completely contrary to the promise of protection, secrecy and privacy that was central to Facebook’s promotion of this app,” said a statement from ACCC chair Rod Sims.

He added:

“Consumers often use VPN services because they care about their online privacy, and that is what this Facebook product claimed to offer. In fact, Onavo Protect channelled significant volumes of their personal activity data straight back to Facebook.

“We believe that the conduct deprived Australian consumers of the opportunity to make an informed choice about the collection and use of their personal activity data by Facebook and Onavo.”

The ACCC is seeking pecuniary penalties, though it did not specify how much.

Whether Facebook did what the ACCC accuses it of doing isn’t really up for debate. In 2018 the British parliament published internal Facebook documents that detailed how the company used data from the Onavo app to gather valuable information about user activity—as well as valuable information about competitors. For example, the app allowed Facebook to identify WhatsApp as a competitive threat, at which point Facebook moved to take it over. Classic predatory monopolistic behavior, and a clear violation of US antitrust legislation.

Where’s Ted Roosevelt when you need him?

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Facebook doesn’t like that Apple is going to inform its users that they’re being spied on by Facebook

Few things are more tiresome than a squabble between miscreant corporations, especially when they’re as scummy as Facebook and Apple. But here we are. Facebook—the surveillance/data-stealing monopoly—is lashing out at Apple for changing its operating system in a way that Facebook says will make it harder for businesses to assault users with targeted advertisements.

In a blog post, Facebook asserts that Apple’s new transparency policy is “about profit, not privacy.” As though Facebook isn’t motivated exclusively and pathologically by profit. Facebook accusing another predatory corporation of greed is like the US government condemning one of its enemies for war crimes. It’s just hypocrisy of the worst sort. All this garbage does make me tired; if only I had an electric adjustable bed to tumble into right now.

“Facebook is speaking up for small businesses,” writes Dan Levy, VP of Ads and Business Products, and Apple is “hurting small businesses and publishers who are already struggling in a pandemic.” Pretty rich coming from the company that, according to a lawsuit filed recently by the federal government, is actually a predatory trust that systematically crushes or takes over any business that it fears might eventually become a competitor and threaten its absolute domination of the social media and digital advertising markets. That company cares about small businesses. Sure.

What Apple will do is this: Whenever an iPhone user opens an app, the system will alert them to the fact that their data is being tracked for advertising purposes. The user can then opt out of the surveillance program if they wish.

That’s what has Facebook all steamed up right now. The company is so vexed that it took out full-page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. The ad reads in part: “Without personalised ads, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend.”

“Facebook data,” eh? I’m sure that’s completely reliable. Definitely not skewed to Facebook’s advantage. My personal internal data shows that Facebook is full of shit. I trust that yours shows the same.