Digital Content

[Commentary] Every day a new front emerges in Big Tech’s battle against fake news. Signs of trouble reared their head during the election, when hyper-partisan misinformation began materializing on Facebook. Months later it became known that many of these sites had been weaponized in a larger misinformation campaign spearheaded by external players, including the Russian government.

While they make head nods toward trying to fix the misinformation problem, the tech giants refuse to own up to these issues–citing the privacy of their clients and their own proprietary ad systems. While it may seem noble that the big tech companies are taking up the charge, their current attempts will likely produce little effect. The problem rests in the very advertising systems these companies created. No amount of content tagging or ad category de-incentivizing is going to stop the beast unless a bigger upheaval begins to take root.

[Cale is a Brooklyn-based reporter.]

The South Dakota Supreme Court has ruled that the state cannot force out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax, setting up a possible appeal to the US Supreme Court that will have national implications. The court issued its ruling just two weeks after hearing the case brought by Internet retailers Wayfair, Overstock and Newegg. Lawmakers in 2016 passed a bill requiring Internet companies with more than $100,000 in annual sales or 200 transactions to remit sales taxes to the state. The law directly conflicted with a 1992 US Supreme Court ruling, Quill v. North Dakota, that held retailers don't have to collect sales taxes in states where they don't have a physical presence.

The geeks are raiding their digital vaults to transform themselves into lords of entertainment – or at least owners of content – and in the process shape what we watch and how we watch. Traditional broadcast and cable networks, giants which for decades shaped popular culture, are scrambling to keep up.

For traditional broadcast and cable networks it’s no longer enough to make hit shows. They must make them available for streaming and downloading on multiple platforms or risk losing advertising and subscription revenues. And to grab a share of those revenues, and to differentiate their products and services, technology companies must own content – either by buying or making it.

A group of digital advertising and marketing organizations has come together to condemn Apple for what the coalition says is a “unilateral and heavy-handed approach” to user privacy on Mac. The group fears that Apple, which has started taking more extreme measures to reduce ad tracking on both the mobile and now desktop versions of Safari, is unfairly exercising its muscle in a way that could snuff out an entire segment of the ad industry.

The open letter, published by six leading advertising trade groups, is in response to a new macOS feature Apple calls Intelligent Tracking Prevention, or ITP. Introduced back at WWDC in June, ITP uses machine learning algorithms to identify tracking behavior on the company’s Safari browser, like the presence of persistent cookies from third-party ad networks, and imposes a strict 24-hour time limit on those tracking tools’ lifespans. Apple unveiled the new feature by saying, “It’s not about blocking ads, but your privacy is protected.”

Google came up on the losing end of a previously-undisclosed third showdown with the federal government over demands for data stored overseas, a federal court in Washington has revealed. The disclosure of yet another court fight over the issue comes as the US Supreme Court is preparing to decide as soon as Oct whether to weigh in on the question of whether U.S. law permits authorities to use U.S. courts to obtain electronic records kept outside of the country.

Court filings made public show that in July Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Google's challenge to a search warrant seeking company data stored abroad. Judge Howell agreed to hold the company in contempt for defying her order and to fine the firm $10,000 a day. However, the arrangement is largely symbolic, since a contempt order is needed to appeal such a ruling and she suspended the fine pending such an appeal. In fact, the firm and prosecutors jointly proposed the arrangement.

The rise of online streaming services such as Netflix and HBO Go has dramatically altered the media habits of Americans, especially young adults. About six-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 (61%) say the primary way they watch television now is with streaming services on the internet, compared with 31% who say they mostly watch via a cable or satellite subscription and 5% who mainly watch with a digital antenna, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in August. Other age groups are less likely to use internet streaming services and are much more likely to cite cable TV as the primary way they watch television. Overall, 59% of U.S. adults say cable connections are their primary means of watching TV, while 28% cite streaming services and 9% say they use digital antennas.

Facebook’s enormous audience has long been catnip to advertisers. But the company’s vast ecosystem has come under scrutiny in 2017 from major brands, which are increasingly sensitive to the possibility of inadvertently showing up next to objectionable content. In response to those concerns, Facebook released a new set of rules that outline the types of videos and articles that it will bar from running ads. It also said it would begin disclosing new information to advertisers about where their messages appear on the platform and on external apps and sites it is partners with.

The rules, which will be enforced by a mix of automation and human review, restrict ads from content that depicts, among other topics, real-world tragedies, “debatable social issues,” misappropriation of children’s show characters, violence, nudity, gore, drug use and derogatory language. Facebook is extending the guidelines immediately to videos — which the company hopes will become an increasingly lucrative part of its business — and, in the coming months, to articles.

President Donald Trump is a symptom of a media environment based on short attention spans that is making the world stupider, one of the founders of Twitter has said. Evan Williams, one of the co-founders of the network, said Trump’s election highlighted a wider issue about how social media platforms were helping to “dumb the entire world down” and undermining our sense of truth. Earlier in 2017 President Trump said he would not be president if it “wasn’t for Twitter”. Williams was asked whether President Trump’s prolific use of Twitter had given him pause for thought, during an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He replied: “The much bigger issue is not Donald Trump using Twitter that got him elected, even if he says so; it is the quality of the information we consume that is reinforcing dangerous beliefs and isolating people and limiting people’s open-mindedness and respect for truth.”

[Commentary] Generally speaking, there are two kinds of corporate players on the internet: companies that build infrastructure through which content flows, and companies that seek to curate content and create a community. Internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast, domain name servers, web hosts and security services providers like Cloudflare are all the former — or the “pipe.” They typically don’t look at the content their clients and customers are putting up, they just give them the means to do it and let it flow.

Because of the precise nature of Cloudflare’s business, and the scarcity of competitors, its role censoring internet speech is not just new, it’s terrifying. What makes Cloudflare an essential part of the internet is its ability to block malicious traffic from barraging clients’ websites with requests that take them offline. Cloudflare is one of the few companies in the world that provide this kind of reliable protection. If you don’t want your website to get taken down by extortionists, jokers, political opposition or hackers, you have to hire Cloudflare or one of its very few competitors. Social media platforms like Facebook are the latter. They encourage their users to create, share and engage with content — so they look at content all the time and decide whether they want to allow hateful material like that of neo-Nazis to stay up. While there have long been worries about internet service providers favoring access to some content over others, there has been less concern about companies further along the pipeline holding an internet on/off switch. In large part, this is because at other points in the pipeline, users have choice.

Private companies can make their own rules, and consumers can choose among them. If GoDaddy won’t register your domain, you can go to Bluehost or thousands of other companies. But the fewer choices you have for the infrastructure you need to stay online, the more serious the consequences when companies refuse service.

[Kate Klonick is a lawyer and doctoral candidate at Yale Law School who studies law and technology.]

Google is planning to end its “first click free” policy that enables users of its search engine to bypass paywalls on news websites, a move that could help publishers boost subscriptions, News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said.

Google for years has encouraged publishers to be part of the program, which allows search users to access a limited amount of content on subscription-based news sites free of charge. Some publishers say the policy has hurt subscription growth and say their sites are penalized in Google’s search rankings if they don’t participate in the program. The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, opted out of the program in 2017 and saw its traffic from Google search fall 38% and from Google News fall 89% compared with a year earlier because its stories were demoted in search results, a spokesman said. Now, Google is ready to end the first-click-free program and allow publishers to choose how users access their sites from its search results. People familiar with the situation said Google will still enable subscription-oriented publishers to give search users a free sample of their stories if they choose to, but they won’t be penalized if they don’t.