Tag Archives: Big Tech

Saving Democracy: Exposing Big Tech censorship being pushed by Biden administration

Biden-on-censorship

Important Takeaways:

  • Internal communications of executives from Big Tech companies reveal “damning discoveries” of the Biden administration’s attempt to muzzle the platforms, a new House committee report published this week revealed.
  • Following House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) subpoena last year, tech giants like Google-parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft were investigated regarding their communications with the federal government. Jordan said at the time that he wanted to “understand how and to what extent the Executive Branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”
  • The House Judiciary Committee’s 800-page report, titled “The Censorship-industrial Complex: How Top Biden White House Officials Coerced Big Tech to Censor Americans, True Information, and Critics of the Biden Administration,” included several instances where the platforms censored information relating to COVID-19 due to top-down pressure.
  • The Biden White House’s censorship campaign also targeted true information, satire and other content not violating platform policies, according to the report.
  • The report comes as big tech companies have been under fire by both Republicans and Democrats in recent months. The Supreme Court heard arguments in March challenging the Biden administration’s alleged coordination with Big Tech to censor certain political messages.

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Big Tech layoffs to hit thousands of employees

Tech-Company-Mass-Layoff

Important Takeaways:

  • Despite tech conglomerate Cisco posting $10.3 billion in profits last year, it’s still laying off 5,500 workers as part of an effort to invest more in AI, SFGATE reports.
  • It joins a litany of other companies like Microsoft and Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, that have used AI as justification for the mass culling of its workforce.
  • The layoffs at Cisco came to light in a notice posted with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week, affecting seven percent of its staff.
  • In a short statement, CEO Chuck Robbins used the term “AI” five times, highlighting the company’s efforts to keep up in the ongoing AI race.
  • Earlier this year, Cisco also laid off 4,000 or five percent of it staff, saying that the company wanted to “realign the organization and enable further investment in key priority areas.”

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Google’s Big Tech market dominance – Judge rules illegal monopoly

Google-store-logo-NY

Important Takeaways:

  • A U.S. judge ruled on Monday that Google violated antitrust law, spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly and become the world’s default search engine, the first big win for federal authorities taking on Big Tech’s market dominance.
  • The ruling paves the way for a second trial to determine potential fixes, possibly including a breakup of Google parent Alphabet, which would change the landscape of the online advertising world that Google has dominated for years.
  • It is also a green light to aggressive U.S. antitrust enforcers prosecuting Big Tech, a sector that has been under fire from across the political spectrum.
  • “The court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, Washington, D.C., wrote. Google controls about 90% of the online search market and 95% on smartphones.
  • The “remedy” phase could be lengthy, followed by potential appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. The legal wrangling could play out into next year, or even 2026.
  • Mehta noted that Google had paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to ensure that its search engine is the default on smartphones and browsers, and to keep its dominant market share.

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Inflation impacting Big Tech industry

layoffs-unemployed-fired-job-loss-layoff-unemploy-getty-640x480

Important Takeaways:

  • Bidenomics Hits Tech: Silicon Valley Salaries Plummet amid Layoffs and Economic Uncertainty
  • The Mercury News reports that Silicon Valley, long known as the epicenter of innovation and high-paying tech jobs, is facing a harsh reality as companies tighten their belts and slash jobs and salaries. According to recent research by Women Impact Tech, a tech advocacy organization, Silicon Valley has experienced the biggest drop in pay compared to other tech hubs, falling 15 percent from 2022 to 2023.
  • The impact of these layoffs and salary cuts is felt by many, including Krista DeWeese, a 47-year-old marketing professional from Fremont. DeWeese has been laid off four times in the last eight years and is currently working as a contract worker at a health science company. Despite her education and experience, she struggles to find secure work that pays enough to keep up with the high cost of living in the Bay Area.
  • Fresh graduates are also feeling the pinch. Genevieve Richards, a San Jose native who graduated from Cornell University in 2022, applied to 300 jobs after her internship ended, only to be offered progressively lower salaries. She decided to pursue a graduate degree abroad in Dublin, Ireland, where she found a better work-life balance and more affordable living conditions.

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Elon warns of Big Tech companies “Lobbying with great intensity to establish a government protected cartel” and he’s the only one not joining

Elon-Musk-closeup

Important Takeaways:

  • Elon Musk has often warned of the End Times approaching, and now the X boss declared “our whole civilization is at stake” thanks to modern tech with entrepreneurs like him the “only solution”
  • The post he shared from user @pmarca read: “There is no differentiation opportunity among Big Tech or the New Incumbents in AI. These companies all share the same ideology, agenda, staffing, and plan. Different companies, same outcomes.
  • “And they are lobbying as a group with great intensity to establish a government protected cartel, to lock in their shared agenda and corrupt products for decades to come. The only viable alternatives are Elon, startups, and open source.”
  • The post was widely shared, with one user commenting: “The stakes are high, we need to fight,” to which Musk responded: “Indeed, our whole civilization is at stake.”
  • Musk has previously said population collapse could put an end to humanity, the Daily Star previously reported. Last year he wrote: “Most people think we have too many people on the planet, but actually, this is an outdated view.
  • “Assuming there is a benevolent future with AI, I think the biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse.”

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The European Commission will now be the Internet Police: Big Tech companies must “react with priority”

1984

Important Takeaways:

  • The EU’s Orwellian Internet Censorship Regime
  • The Internet is about to become a whole lot less free.
  • On Friday, August 25th, the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which it passed last year, comes into force. Among many other things, the DSA obliges large online platforms to swiftly take down illegal content, hate speech, and so-called disinformation—aiming, in the words of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, to “ensure that the online environment remains a safe space.” Very large online platforms (VLOPs) with more than 45 million monthly active users must abide by the rules from Friday; smaller platforms have until February to comply. Designated by the Commission back in April, the 19 VLOPs include all the big names—Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, YouTube and Amazon—as well as smaller fries like Wikipedia, LinkedIn, and Snapchat.
  • Under this Orwellian regime, a team of hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it. The firms themselves, faced with reputational risk and financial penalties, will have little choice other than to comply. This can be done in all manner of ways: simply by human moderators removing content, by shadow-banning problematic creators to reduce their reach, by demonetizing certain content, and by tweaking algorithms to favor or disfavor certain topics. And though, legally speaking, the DSA only applies in the EU, once installed inside Big Tech firms, this vast content-regulation apparatus will surely affect users in the rest of the world, too.

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Facebook and many other Big Tech business looking to lay off workers

Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’

Important Takeaways:

  • Wall Street Journal: Meta is planning significant layoffs
  • The job cuts are expected to impact thousands of workers and could begin as early as this week, the Journal reported
  • Meta has a headcount of more than 87,000, according to a September SEC filing.
  • Once boasting a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion last year, Meta is now valued at about $250 billion.
  • Last week, rideshare company Lyft said it was axing 13% of employees, and payment-processing firm Stripe said it was cutting 14% of its staff. The same day, e-commerce giant Amazon said it was implementing a pause on corporate hiring.
  • Twitter made sweeping cuts across the company

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Cyber threats top agenda at White House meeting with Big Tech, finance executives

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House will ask Big Tech, the finance industry and key infrastructure companies to do more to tackle the growing cybersecurity threat to the U.S. economy in a meeting with the President Joe Biden and members of his cabinet on Wednesday.

“Cybersecurity is a matter of national security. The public and private sectors must meet this moment together, and the American people are counting on us,” a senior administration official told reporters.

Cybersecurity has risen to the top of the agenda for the Biden administration after a series of high-profile attacks on network management company SolarWinds Corp, the Colonial Pipeline company, meat processing company JBS and software firm Kaseya. The attacks hurt the United States far beyond just the companies hacked, affecting fuel and food supplies.

The guest list includes Amazon.com Inc CEO Andy Jassy, Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft Corp CEO Satya Nadella, Google’s parent Alphabet Inc CEO Sundar Pichai and IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna, according to two people familiar with the event.

One official said private sector executives were expected to announce commitments across key areas, including technology and staffing.

The meeting comes as Congress weighs legislation concerning data breach notification laws and cybersecurity insurance industry regulation, historically viewed as two of the most consequential policy areas within the field.

Executives for energy utility firm Southern Co and financial giant JPMorgan Chase & Co are also expected to attend the event.

The event will feature top cybersecurity officials from the Biden administration, including recently confirmed National Cybersecurity Director Chris Inglis, as well as Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, to lead different conversations with industry representatives.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Christopher Bing; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Big Tech CEOs told ‘time for self-regulation is over’ by U.S. lawmakers

By Diane Bartz and Elizabeth Culliford

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter appeared before Congress on Thursday to answer questions about extremism and misinformation on their services in their first appearances since rioters assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg; Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet Inc; and Twitter Inc CEO Jack Dorsey are testifying before the joint hearing by two subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Lawmakers began the hearing by criticizing the social media platforms for their role in the riot and in the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, as well as concerns about children’s mental health.

“You failed to meaningfully change after your platform has played a role in fomenting insurrection and abetting the spread of the virus and trampling American civil liberties,” said Democratic Representative Frank Pallone, chair of the Energy and Commerce committee.

“Your business model itself has become the problem and the time for self-regulation is over. It’s time we legislate to hold you accountable,” he added.

Some lawmakers are calling for Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability over user content, to be scrapped or rejigged. There are several pieces of legislation from Democrats to reform Section 230 that are doing the rounds in Congress, though progress has been slow. Several Republican lawmakers have also been pushing separately to scrap the law entirely.

In written testimony released on Wednesday, Facebook argued that Section 230 should be redone to allow companies immunity from liability for what users put on their platforms only if they follow best practices for removing damaging material.

Facebook’s Zuckerberg said polarization in the country was not the fault of social media: “I believe that the division we see today is primarily the result of a political and media environment that drives Americans apart.”

Republicans on the panel also criticized the tech giants for what they see as efforts to stifle conservative voices.

Former President Donald Trump was banned by Twitter over inciting violence around Jan. 6, while Facebook has asked its independent oversight board to rule on whether to bar him permanently. He is still suspended from YouTube.

The three CEOs have all appeared in front of Congress before, with Facebook’s Zuckerberg clocking up seven appearances since 2018.

Lawmakers’ scrutiny of misinformation on major online platforms intensified after U.S. intelligence agencies said Russia used them to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington and Elizabeth Culliford in New York; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Lisa Shumaker)

Biden beefs up White House staff, including Big Tech critic Tim Wu

By Susan Heavey and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday rounded out his White House staff with a top adviser who has advocated for breaking up Big Tech companies along with a host of new appointments focused on COVID-19, criminal justice and the economy.

The White House announced six additional staffers to its National Economic Council, including Columbia University professor Tim Wu, who coined the term “net neutrality” and has warned against an economy dominated by a few giant firms.

Wu authored “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age” in 2018, in which he warned about the inequalities created by extreme economic concentration.

“I think breakups or undoing of mergers are actually called for more than we have appreciated in the last few decades,” Wu has said previously about Big Tech companies.

Wu served as senior enforcement counsel to the New York Attorney General and as adviser at the Federal Trade Commission and the National Economic Council.

“Putting this twitter feed on hold for now — so long!” Wu, said in a post on Friday.

His appointment is a win for progressives, who have pushed for tougher scrutiny of Big Tech firms such as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Google and is likely to shape the White House’s approach on tougher antitrust enforcement.

Google and Facebook have been sued by federal and state regulators for using their dominance to hurt rivals whereas Amazon and Apple are still under investigation.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Committee, said Wu’s appointment shows the administration is serious about promoting competition in the United States. “America has a major monopoly problem that must be urgently addressed,” she said.

Congressional Democrats have already begun talks with the White House on ways to crack down on tech companies, including holding them accountable for disinformation and addressing their market power.

Several Republicans have also sought to hit back at Big Tech, including efforts to scrap a law known as Section 230 that shields online companies for liability over users’ posted content.

In the White House statement on new staff, Biden also named 13 additions to his Domestic Policy Council and two more staffers to the White House COVID-19 response team.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Nandita Bose; Editing by Frances Kerry, Aurora Ellis and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)