Compliance by Facebook with an Australian Government demand it compensates the nation’s media for using its material is being seen as another sign of a global ‘techlash’.
The controversial social media company has been forced to strike deals with the nation’s media companies over the use of news stories on its site, one of a number of events that have occurred since 2020.
The move which saw Facebook forced into an embarrassing climbdown after initially blocking all news stories from its Australian service only to restore them two days later is being interpreted by tech experts as part of a rejection of the business models of ‘big tech’.
It marks a growing disenchantment with technology, increasingly being described as a techlash, that is seeing calls to regulate offensive content and to promote greater participation in advanced internet and AI technologies from women and other ethnic groups.
The subject of March’s PassW0rd radio show, ‘The Techlash’, according to the show’s presenter, Peter Warren, it has come about because of a whole host of issues that the internet and the companies associated with it have created since it took off in 1996.
“They’re accused of propagating terrorism and extremism, stifling free speech, killing quality journalism, institutionalising racism, sexism and other biases. Then there is throwing people out of work, encouraging self-harm, eating disorders and suicides, invading privacy, interfering in elections, facilitating state surveillance and making huge profits without paying fair taxes. I could go on, there are so many more criticisms.”
Big tech facing criticism
As a result, big technology companies across the world are facing scrutiny and criticism, from civil liberties groups and governments attempting to control the activities of what they call GAFA, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
One such group leading the techlash is ‘None Of Your Business’, set up by Max Schrems, a noted opponent of Facebook, it is aiming to push for more accountability on the tech giants through the courts.
“The companies are usually violating the law explicitly and knowingly,” said Romain Robert, NOYB’s lawyer
Robert added that the only choice with big tech companies is which will get your data.
“I think the free choice is just to have providers and companies complying with the law. That’s why NOYB’s here. To make complaints, to do class actions or seek judicial redress. Just to make sure that the law is complied with. If the consumers feel that they are protected by the Data Breach Assessments and the courts, they are wrong,” said Robert, who added that NOYB was seeking to pull together a number of other privacy groups to pursue big tech because keeping it under control is too difficult for the average consumer.
“People can’t understand this privacy policy, they don’t have two days to read the last terms and conditions of Facebook. The idea is to have experts who are happy to do it for you, to communicate to you and to give you advice,” he told PassW0rd.
Others are increasingly worried that technology is being used to run our lives rather than adding to them.
Techlash across the board.
Gabriela Ramos, the United Nations Education Science and Culture Organisation’s, Assistant Director General of Social and Human Sciences, who leads the development of UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI has also called for radical changes to the structure of the AI industry, which she says is currently deeply flawed.
“Right now, I think there is a very strong cry that we need to counter the downsides of these technologies, that we need to counter the discriminatory bias, that we need to counter the meddling with the democratic processes. We need to counter the misinformation, the hate speech, the echo chambers that trigger emotions that are not conducive to anything good,” said Ramos adding, that a significant under-representation of women in the AI industry also had to be corrected.
According to World Economic Forum data, 22% of AI professionals globally are women. While recruitment specialists for AI and data science jobs say fewer than 1% of the applications they receive are from women. Women and girls are also four times less likely to programme computers, and 13 times less likely to file for technology patents. They are also less likely to occupy leadership positions in tech companies.
“Artificial Intelligence is driven by male only teams,” said Ramos. “I would like to make it mandatory to have a share of the teams integrated with women, because in that sense, what you’re doing is you’re breaking these biases by having more diverse themes. I would not only say women, I would say also minority groups, I would say some other people from different walks of life, because that’s your best shot at not translating your own beliefs and your own way of life into these systems so you can avoid problematic outcomes.”
Pressure on big tech from all sides
The pressure on the technology companies is coming from all sides. In the UK, a coalition of more than 40 charities, representing causes from Help for Heroes to the Vegan Society, called on MPs to urge social media platforms to do more to tackle online hate and abuse. Charities Against Hate is releasing a list of 16 product recommendations as well as a toolkit to enable people affected to write to their MP.
The techlash against the Big Tech companies has also seen rival social networks being established in Poland and Hungary. China has Weibo, Russia vKontakt and the Indians are working on Aatnmanirbhar, a new secure iteration of the internet. A negative move that is being interpreted by some observers as an attempt to control online content by authoritarian regimes.
Fears of growing splinternet
A development that has led to fears of a break-up of the big tech monopolies and the global internet into what is being called the ‘splinternet’ something that Daniel Castro, vice-president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a free market think tank that supports US technology firms thinks is dangerous.
“We can agree that we all disagree, the problem is, are we going to take out that disagreement by enacting punitive laws on these companies? That’s the big problem. Some of the motivation for going after these companies is because they’re American companies, so a lot of foreign nations don’t have a problem stepping in and trying to punish them for what they’re doing.
“I think one of the primary motivations is that a lot of countries are seeing this as a gravy train, these companies are very profitable and it’s an opportunity to get revenue, and that’s motivated Australia and a lot of other countries, to look at the copyright laws. In Spain and France, it’s motivated attempts to impose digital taxes outside the OECD rules,” said Castro who warned creating borders in cyberspace could raise global tensions
“One of the big risks about different countries enacting different rules, is that countries impose national borders in the internet and state this is the type of content that’s allowed here which means making a set of rules to make data stay within their borders. That means it will be more difficult to do business outside their borders. This will create a very isolated global economy and one of the benefits of globalisation, is supposed to be that it helps reduce the risk of conflict.”
