Guardian, The

[Commentary] It’s a fact: while Americans have countless tools with which to connect with one another, we are also watching fragmentation, polarization, and de-diversification happen en masse. The American public is self-segregating, tearing at the social fabric of the country. Many in the tech world imagined that the internet would connect people in unprecedented ways, allow for divisions to be bridged and wounds to heal – a Kumbaya dream of sorts.

Today, those same dreamers find it quite unsettling to watch as the tools that were designed to bring people together are used by people to magnify divisions and undermine social solidarity. These tools were built in a bubble, and that bubble has burst.

[Danah Boyd is the founder of Data & Society]

Messaging services such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Gmail will face tough new rules on the tracking of users under a revision to the ePrivacy Directive proposed by the European Commission.

The new legislation seeks to reinforce the right to privacy and control of data for European citizens, with messaging, email and voice services – such as those provided by Facebook, Google and Microsoft – forced to guarantee the confidentiality of conversations and metadata around the time, place and other factors of those conversations. Listening to, tapping, intercepting, scanning or the storing of communications will not be allowed without the consent of the user, unless it is critical for billing or other purposes. Companies will have to ask for the explicit consent of users before being able to use their data for advertising purposes, which most use to fund services provided for free to end-users.

Andrus Ansip, vice-president for the digital single market said: “Our proposals will deliver the trust in the Digital Single Market that people expect. I want to ensure confidentiality of electronic communications and privacy. Our draft ePrivacy Regulation strikes the right balance: it provides a high level of protection for consumers, while allowing businesses to innovate.”

The European Commission (EC) has filed charges against Facebook for providing “misleading” information in the run-up to the social network’s acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp after its data-sharing change in August.

The charges will not have an affect on the approval of the $22 billion merger and is being treated completely separately to other European cases against Facebook, but could lead to Facebook being fined up to 1% of its global turnover in 2014 when the merger was approved, which was greater than $10 billion for the first time. The European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said, “Our timely and effective review of mergers depends on the accuracy of the information provided by the companies involved. In this specific case, the commission’s preliminary view is that Facebook gave us incorrect or misleading information during the investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp. Facebook now has the opportunity to respond.” The commission said that Facebook informed regulators that it would not be able to perform automated matching between user-held Facebook accounts and WhatsApp accounts. However, Facebook’s privacy policy change for WhatsApp in August, for which the EC was notified in January, specifically enabled automated matching and data sharing after technical changes, including one for Apple and its iOS, allowed the matching of the majority of accounts not using a phone number with Facebook.''

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler came to the position after leading two separate lobbying instruments for the cable industry: the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), where he was president and CEO, respectively. Both groups, representing AT&T, Comcast, and dozens of other telecommunication companies, sued the FCC over net neutrality during Chairman Wheeler’s leadership. The regulator passed broad rules reclassifying internet service under the same category as telephone service, preventing web providers from forcing subscribers into “slow lanes” unless they paid more. The industry groups lost the lawsuit in June.

Tech-savvy rightwingers have been able to ‘game’ the algorithms of internet giants and create a new reality where Hitler is a good guy, Jews are evil and… Donald Trump becomes president.

Facebook has agreed to invest $20 million in affordable housing initiatives after facing intense criticism for failing to help low-income residents in Silicon Valley where the technology boom has exacerbated displacement and gentrification. The corporation, which is pushing forward with a massive campus expansion in northern California, announced a partnership with community organizations aimed at funding affordable housing construction and assisting tenants facing eviction. Housing activists who have long been critical of Facebook and its role in accelerating income inequality in the region said the investment marked an “unprecedented” collaboration between Silicon Valley corporations and advocacy groups and that the project could push neighboring tech companies to better address local poverty.

[Commentary] In the first decade after the Internet we use today was switched on, in January 1983, cyberspace was a brave new world – a glorious sandpit for geeks and computer science researchers. But from 1993 onwards, all that began to change. The main catalysts were the world wide web, the Mosaic browser and AOL. The web provided non-geeks with an answer to the question: what is this Internet thing for? Mosaic, the first modern browser, showed them what the web could do and, more importantly, what it could become. Demand for access to the Internet exploded. AOL met the demand by providing a reliable, easy-to-configure, dial-up service for millions of people, and so brought the “redneck hordes” – ie people unfamiliar with the mores and customs of the netizen era – on to the Internet.

Scenting profits, companies and pornographers scrambled for a piece of the action, closely followed by scammers and spammers and all kinds of other undesirables. The result was that the parallel universes gradually merged, and we wound up with the composite networked world we now inhabit – a world that has the affordances of both cyberspace and meatspace. Which helps to explain why we are having such trouble coming to terms with it.

[John Naughton is professor of the public understanding of technology at the Open University. ]

President-elect Donald Trump brought up cybersecurity many times, often referring to it as “cyber”, very much emphasizing his priority of increasing the security of government systems. “To enhance the defense of the other agencies of government, including our law enforcement agencies, we will put together a team of the best military, civilian and private sector cybersecurity experts to comprehensively review all of our cybersecurity systems and technology,” he promised on Oct 3, speaking to veterans in Virginia. “This will include the various methods of internal monitoring, attack and penetration, investigation of suspected hackers or rogue employees, and identity protection for government employees.”

Civil rights organisations have been quick to seize on the potential impact of President-elect Trump’s policies on personal privacy. Neema Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said President-elect Trump should “categorically reject proposals to mandate encryption backdoors and supports reforming surveillance programs that have violated the rights of millions of Americans”. That, however, is unlikely. Given that so many in the technology industry either publicly or privately backed Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton in the election, there is some concern that President-elect Trump might try to “punish” Silicon Valley. “He has a lot of people criticizing him and if he spent his whole time getting back at people, he wouldn’t get anything done,” said Atkinson. “Trump is going to need the tech sector. You can’t make America great again if you don’t have a great tech industry.

Controversial Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel will be a member of Donald Trump’s transition team, the campaign has confirmed. Thiel’s involvement in a Trump Administration has been the subject of frenzied speculation in Silicon Valley, where the businessman was the sole prominent advocate for the divisive Republican candidate. Thiel said that he would not move to Washington or seek a seat on the supreme court, but said: “I’ll try to help the president in any way I can.” It is not known what role Thiel will play in the transition team. It is likely that he will be expected to help the president-elect build bridges with Silicon Valley, a place where President Barack Obama is hugely popular and where many people regard President-elect Trump with either distrust or outright disdain.

Facebook has agreed to “pause” its plan to use data from UK users of messaging service WhatsApp for advertising and product improvement purposes across the rest of its business, after an intervention from the UK information commissioner.

Elizabeth Denham wrote to Facebook in September to express her concerns over a new plan to share more data between the social network and Whatsapp. When it announced its plans back in August, Whatsapp said it wanted to explore ways for users to “communicate with businesses that matter to you too, while still giving you an experience without third-party banner ads and spam”. The plans involved using the phone number associated with a WhatsApp account to aid Facebook in targeting adverts on the user’s main Facebook profile. But, Denham wrote, she had concerns that consumers weren’t being properly protected, and that “it’s fair to say the enquiries my team have made haven’t changed that view.