Julia Angwin’s Post

Reboot Communications Ltd. This sums this up: #10. There is little hope that Meta will return to news in Canada. If Google follows suit, no Internet company will be subject to Bill C-18. Even if it does reach an agreement, it will not be enough to compensate for the lost revenue and traffic from Meta. In the meantime, investment in the sector has ground to a halt, Canadians have lost access to news on social media, and small and independent media are particularly hard hit. Avoiding the Canadian outcome is now a top policy priority in other countries looking at media legislation. #vipss @mgeist

On the war between tech companies and different governments The settlement is far less than Canada wanted — it had sought $126 million — and a small fraction of the estimated $550 million that news publishers deserve from Google. The lesson here is clear: As much as publishers may be suffering right now, they must continue to stand firm against the bullying tactics of Big Tech. These platforms gained their audience in part by sharing news content free. Now they are using their market power to force the press to continue to do business on their terms.

IN THE NEWS: The US Senate passes bill forcing TikTok’s parent company to sell or face U.S. ban The US Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban. The legislation gives ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, and a possible three-month extension if a sale is in progress. It comes after long-held fears in Washington over Chinese threats and the ownership of TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans. For years, lawmakers and administration officials have expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data, or influence Americans by suppressing or promoting certain content on TikTok. Is your brand using TikTok? If so what steps are you taking in anticipate this? Are you concerned about how this will effect your business? Let us know your thoughts below👇 Read more here: https://lnkd.in/erumVDNi #TikTok #News #SocialMedia

so TikTok officially must be sold or be banned in America. the rationale is the software's foreign ownership makes it too easy for other countries to spy on us or potentially influence our elections. but The Campaign Registry has roadmap for every text message sent by every business and political campaign in America and dictates who can send texts and who can't- and it too is foreign owned. Plus they hobknob with the dangerous globalist "Mobile Brotherhood"- Mobile Ecosystem Forum- who are not to be trusted in my view. Pretty clearly if TikTok's foreign ownership is a threat to national security so too is TCR's. Much more dangerous if you consider TCR's power to censor American speech through the critical SMS channel. Really really big deal. Hope the Federal Communications Commission is paying attention... #tiktok #tcpa #tsr #tcr #telecom #fcc #nationalsecurity #sensitive #commercial #and #political #data #in #foreign #hands #is #dangerous #deservetowin

🗓 C4DT's "Weekly Pick" series : 📝 Linus Gasser's take on the article entitled "TikTok fails ‘disinformation test’ before #EU vote, study shows" from Euractiv, 04 June 2024: "Color me surprised: as a test, 16 #ads with #disinformation have been sent to TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter. Who do you think caught all 16 ads and closed the account sending the ads? And who let every one of them slip through?" ➡ Read the article: https://lnkd.in/e7yFTuRx Each week we feature a digital trust-related article chosen and commented on by one of our team members. For more articles, check out our newsletter called C4DT’s Weekly Pick. Subscribe here : https://lnkd.in/ebjCiikp #C4DT #EPFL #digital_trust

"But a new working paper concluded that Google and Meta are vastly undercounting the value of news to their platforms. The study, by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Houston and the Brattle Group consulting firm, estimated that about 35 percent of searches on Google were “seeking news media content.” “News is to Google what sports is to cable,” said one of the study’s authors, Haaris Mateen, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Houston. “Without it, the product loses most of its value.” The study estimated that Google owes U.S. publishers 50 percent of the value created by news, which it estimated at $10 billion to $12 billion in revenue sharing annually. The study found that Facebook, whose users spend less time seeking news — about 13 percent of their time — owes $1.9 billion to U.S. news publishers. The researchers’ numbers were based on surveys of user behavior on the platforms, which do not publicly share user behavior. But even if the survey estimates are not perfectly accurate, they illustrate how publishers are fighting Big Tech over peanuts — hundreds of millions of dollars — when they could well be owed billions. That’s why Google fought so hard in Canada: It succeeded in setting the bar extremely low for global payments for news. Dr. Mateen estimated that Google owes $550 million to Canadian publishers. “The amount the Canadian publishers will get under the agreement with Google is tiny compared to what they should be getting,” he said. But it’s a start. Now other governments need to follow suit with similar efforts. The struggle is painful. But Big Tech needs to start paying up and paying fairly." #savefreepress #diversity, #quality of and #access to #information and other #essential #public #services #responsibility

California's proposed bill mandates that #techgiants pay for news content, prompting Google to block local news in protest. Blocking access to news is a step too far. Read more via The Washington Post: https://wapo.st/449V0ym #CaliforniaBill #LinkTax #GoogleNewsBan #Meta #DigitalRights #NewsIndustry #TechPolicy #JournalismSupport #OpenInternet #SocialMediaRegulations

Backdown or Bailout?: What Comes Next for the Government’s Epic Bill C-18 Miscalculation - Michael Geist: Meta's decision to block news links in Canada on Facebook and Instagram due to the mandated payments for links approach of Bill C-18 has sparked a flurry of commentary. News outlets and the government have expressed doubt about the approach. The government may back down, pursue amendments, negotiate with Google, or face the possibility of Google blocking news links in Canada. Punishing Google or considering additional measures are options the government might consider. Using public money to compensate for losses caused by Bill C-18 would be a concerning course of action. - IP topics: Intellectual Property topics! #ip #intellectualproperty #copyright

"Canada’s efforts to 'defend democracy,' as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put it, have turned out to be a counterproductive fiasco," writes Senior Fellow Peter Menzies. Although the government hoped the Online News Act would salvage a struggling legacy news industry and become a model to be copied globally, Menzies contends that it is the most spectacular legislative failure in Canada’s living political memory. #canada #news #internet #facebook #meta #google

BREAKING Trump Blames Biden For Potential TikTok Ban—Still Claiming It Would Boost Rival Facebook: Brian Bushard Forbes Staff I cover breaking news for Forbes Apr 22, 2024,03:55pm EDT TOPLINE Former President Donald Trump renewed on Monday his new-found opposition to a potential TikTok ban—which he had sought as president—blaming President Joe Biden for its possible passage and claiming it would only boost Facebook. US-IT-CHINA-POLITICS-TIKTOK Former President Donald Trump blamed his 2024 [+] AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES KEY FACTS: ■ Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that “Crooked Joe Biden” is “responsible” for a potential TikTok ban, claiming Biden “is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant.” ■ Facebook parent company Meta and spokespeople for Biden’s re-election campaign did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment. ■ Trump’s comments come two days after the House of Representatives passed a foreign aid package paving the way for a potential TikTok ban while also providing funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan—which TikTok blasted as “unfortunate,” saying the bill would “trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans” who use the app. ■ If signed into law, the bill would give TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance nine months to sell the company or else face a ban in the U.S.—a previous version of the bill gave ByteDance just six months to divest the app. ■ While Trump pursued a TikTok ban when he was in office, he has been more critical in recent months of an outright ban: Last month, Trump claimed a ban on TikTok would result in rival Facebook becoming “bigger,” slamming the Meta-owned platform as the “enemy of the people” in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” and claimed days later that TikTok is “less of a danger to the USA than Meta.” ■ Trump’s opposition to a TikTok ban could also stem from his connection to Republican mega donor Jeff Yass, a TikTok investor and billionaire who Trump praised at a donor retreat last month as “fantastic,” and who met with Trump at his Florida estate Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago. WHAT TO WATCH FOR Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he plans to take up the House-approved foreign aid package—including the TikTok ban—on Tuesday. While the Senate could opt to vote on the foreign aid measures separate from a TikTok ban, that route would require the House to once again approve the foreign funding, an issue House Republicans have debated for months. If approved by the Senate, Biden has indicated he would sign the bill. SURPRISING FACT Trump’s opposition to a potential TikTok ban marks a 180-degree policy reversal for the 2024 GOP nominee, who while in the Oval Office led the charge to ban TikTok and said he would use his “emergency powers” to do so. In his last months as president, Trump signed an executive order to block “any transactions by any person” with ByteDance, ....Contd.