This is a thread about how Australia has become the battleground for a power struggle between governments and Big Tech, as explained in today’s Download newsletter. mailchi.mp/technologyrevi…
Australians woke up on Thursday to Facebook timelines devoid of any news.
Faced with the option of either paying to link back to publishers to comply with an incoming Australian law, or entirely pulling the plug on hosting news, it chose the latter.
As it stands, Facebook users in Australia can't use the platform to see or share content from any news outlets anywhere in the world, and no one can post links to Australian publishers, wherever they are.
Users say government websites like fire services and meteorology departments have been caught up in the ban too, most likely due to issues with the machine learning
system Facebook uses to enforce it.
Users and officials in Australia reacted furiously, with the country's prime minister, @ScottMorrisonMP, describing Facebook's actions "as arrogant as they were disappointing" and insisting "we will not be intimidated by Big Tech." facebook.com/scottmorrison4…
Why? Lawmakers are in the final stages of passing a proposed new Media Bargaining law. The law would require the tech platforms to have to pay publishers to host their content. If they couldn’t agree a price, Australia would create an arbitration panel which would set one.
Google has taken the opposite approach to Facebook, and has cut numerous deals with publishers in Australia, including @newscorpaus, to ensure it can comply with the law if it passes, and continue linking to their services. apnews.com/article/austra…
What's next? Australia has essentially become the latest battleground for the years-long fight between governments, publishers, and Big Tech.
Facebook's move is a big, ugly power flex, but Australia's law seems pretty crude and unattractive too. about.fb.com/news/2021/02/c…
Facebook’s move doesn't require publishers to plough any of the money they receive into journalists' salaries or original reporting, and could help to further entrench Australia's already highly concentrated media market.
In short, the current situation is unsustainable and undesirable for everyone.
Australia’s Treasurer @JoshFrydenberg is in talks with Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the pressure is on for them to come up with a better solution.
This analysis was originally written by @charlottejee for The Download newsletter, your daily dose of what’s up in emerging technology. You can read today’s edition here: mailchi.mp/technologyrevi…
To see how the innovation economy has left much of the US behind, we traveled to the small town of Bryan, in northwestern Ohio's Williams County. This is a thread about how to fix what the innovation economy broke about America. technologyreview.com/2021/02/17/101…
This is Valerie. She’s 46 and has worked all her life—three jobs currently—yet she has just $65 in her checking account. Her husband works full time at a metal fastener plant.
Altogether, after health insurance premiums but before taxes, Valerie and her husband make about $45,000 a year.
We spoke to @BillGates about his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” the limits of his optimism, and how his thinking on climate change has evolved. This is a thread about that conversation. technologyreview.com/2021/02/14/101…
Question: In the past, it seemed you would distance yourself from the policy side of climate change. Was there a shift in your thinking, or was it a deliberate choice to lay out the policy side in your book?
Q: How do you feel about our chances of making real political progress, particularly in the US, in the moment we find ourselves in?
On January 24, while Southern California’s ICU was at 0% capacity, a group of businessmen were on their way to a pandemic year rarity: an indoor, in-person, mostly unmasked business conference called the Abundance 360 Summit (A360). technologyreview.com/2021/02/13/101…
A360 was created by Peter Diamandis, the founder of the XPrize Foundation and Singularity University, and co-founder and board member of covid-19 vaccine developer Covaxx. xprize.org/about/people/p…
While deepfakes have received enormous attention for their potential political dangers, the vast majority of them are used to target women. technologyreview.com/2019/10/10/132…
.@sensityai, a research company that has tracked online deepfake videos since December of 2018, has consistently found that between 90% and 95% of them are nonconsensual porn. sensity.ai/how-to-detect-…
@lakshmihanspal of @Box adds that during the pandemic they saw an acceleration of identity, data, and "seamless access to tools" when any "company is only secure as its most insecure links." #FutureCompute#TechReviewEvents