Category: Digital Culture

Ethics & Platform Governance – A Conversation with Dr. Michael Katell

In February, legal scholar and journalist Kate Klonick wrote a detailed exposé for The New Yorker about Facebook’s Oversight Board, which some are calling the platform’s “Supreme Court.” In theory, the Board will have the authority, even over Mark Zuckerberg, to write a set of principles by which content is allowed (or not) to remain on the platform.

As any reader knows, I am unapologetically cynical about the premise that social media was ever particularly good for democratic societies in the first place. And that cynicism certainly does not wane with the prospect of Facebook’s Oversight Board. But to discuss some of the issues raised by Klonick’s article, and the subject of platform governance in general, I hosted this podcast interview with Dr. Michael Katell of the Public Policy Program at the Alan Turing Institute in London. Follow him on Twitter.

Show Contents

  • 00:59 – Dr. Katell’s areas of study and expertise.
  • 05:34 – The Facebook oversight board.
  • 10:44 – Neutrality is not an option.
  • 18:38 – Social media aggravating flaws in human nature.
  • 27:14 – Social media and human nature continued.
  • 32:08 – Why don’t we quit social media?
  • 35:53 – Will people be penalized for not using social media?
  • 40:44 – Do social platforms have the power of governments?
  • 45:39 – Toward a state of technological feudalism?
  • 54:12 – Regulation without faith in democracy.
  • 58:09 – Living in alternate realities.

EFF, Public Knowledge, et al Celebrate Defeat of SOPA/PIPA Out of the Blue

Rumors have come to my attention—okay it was splashed all over Twitter—that an event was held yesterday called The Untold Story of SOPA/PIPA. “Defeating SOPA/PIPA didn’t happen overnight,” says the EFF’s promotional page for the event. “Advocacy groups like Public Knowledge fought long and hard for years to raise the alarms about these censorship efforts.”

Where does one begin? By commenting on the offensive or the pathetic? Perhaps the most poignant and direct offense speaks for itself. Because just this morning, I happened to see the following post by a Facebook musician friend:

So our new album, which was just released Monday and cost us tens of thousands of dollars to make and promote (which was borrowed), is already on “file sharing” sites…

Online piracy, including by foreign actors, even almost a decade since the great defeat of SOPA/PIPA, is still a major problem that still costs thousands of independent creators their livelihoods. But don’t let that spoil the party being thrown by a bunch of ivory-tower “activists,” who were in the trenches in 2011 working their index fingers raw, Tweeting and sharing batshit crazy memes and other disinformation about those bills. Or don’t forget to say a prayer for the digital-age powder monkeys of 4Chan who helped spread the word. And as for investments! Well, what about the money (whose money?) spent on SPAM bots to spread the word that SOPA/PIPA would break the internet? Sock puppets have to eat, too, y’know! (Actually, no I guess they don’t.)

The tragedy is that the real “untold story of SOPA/PIPA” is that the public was lied to about how those bills actually worked; lied to that the bills’ opponents “were all for stopping piracy, but not this way;” and lied to about how organic and grassroots the effort was to defeat the bills.  Does anyone today actually believe it was a coincidence that the Internet Association was founded concurrently with the fight against that legislation, or that Google’s lobbying expenditures went from negligible to record-setting during the same period?

Stop SOPA was one of the most successful and well-funded disinformation campaigns in internet history and, as I have said many times, it scared the hell out of me. And not because of the piracy problem. That was just an unfortunate failure for people like my friend quoted above. No, the scary part about the manner in which the legislation was defeated were the lessons the campaign taught to other powerful institutions. It was clear by the mechanisms employed that anyone with enough money could alter the course of history with a few simple lies and mediocre graphic design. I know, right? What was I thinking? That rampant disinformation might threaten democracy itself? Just my hysterical nature, I guess. Because let’s be clear: SOPA/PIPA was not defeated with information or, heaven forbid, debate in Washington. Those bills were defeated by this:

I come from an advertising and marketing background, and that right there is advertising. Very effective advertising. Plenty of my friends shared memes like this one for weeks leading up to the defeat of SOPA/PIPA. But when advertising is designed to frighten the consumer, it should be confronted with skepticism—critical thinking that social media seems especially well designed to weaken among users. How many of my friends read or had the background to understand the legislation? Almost none.

And, yeah, I know. There were articles written about those bills, too. And you could hardly see the puppet strings of collusion despite the uncanny consistency in the language being used—generalized, ominous, and populist, without bothering to mention that the key mechanisms proposed already existed in the law. Like the tweak to injunctive power against foreign piracy sites, which would not have had any effect on the ordinary function of internet activity. And since 2012, SOPA-like enforcement measures (e.g. site blocking) have been implemented in markets around the world, and still no breaking of the internet has occurred.

But I think the most galling aspect about this sad attempt to relive the glory day of January 18, 2012 (you probably forgot, right?) is that nothing about the Republic-shattering events of the last several years has chastened the “free speech” rhetoric of the EFF, Public Knowledge, Sen. Wyden, et al. That they are still eager to call SOPA/PIPA “censorship bills” with straight faces is astounding. Never mind that piracy is not a form of protected speech; but have these organizations learned nothing since 2016? Did they miss the giant sticky note that says the laissez-faire approach to platform governance has been an abysmal failure worldwide? Specifically, do they lack the introspection to recognize the methodological similarity between …

this …

… and this?

If Russian troll farms didn’t read the Stop SOPA Playbook as the ultimate guide to manipulation through social media, they certainly could have. But, again, don’t let events like the U.S. Capitol assault of January 6th ruin all the self-congratulatory fun being had at EFF and Public Knowledge. Though I do have to ask why March 17, 2021? Why the nine year and two-month anniversary of the defeat of SOPA/PIPA? Odd no? Maybe not. Are EFF and PK trying to send a signal to the IP Subcommittee that if it tries to update the failed notice-and-takedown provisions of the DMCA, they will unleash Godzilla once again? Can’t say for sure. Maybe they just couldn’t get hold of any St. Patrick’s decorations and decided to have a different kind of party.

Facebook Blocks Oz. But Why Shouldn’t Platforms Pay for News?

This week, Facebook made good on its threat to block Australian news media on its platform. “Australian users cannot share Australian or international news. International users outside Australia also cannot share Australian news,” MSN reports. The move by the social giant is a hardline tactic designed to make the Australian government blink on proposed legislation that requires both Facebook and Google to pay for Australian news media that are shared across the platforms. Google reportedly has entered into agreements in recent days. For an in-depth analysis, especially from a global trade perspective, see Hugh Stephens’s post.

But acknowledging that the details are somewhere between opaque and invisible in the Facebook v. Oz story, I fail to see why the principle itself is terrribly flawed. Why shouldn’t the major online platforms pay for news media?

Google and Facebook (and potentially other platforms) derive substantial value from all those news stories that are shared across their platforms, but which others produce—often at great cost. Nevertheless, Facebook asserts that it does not need the news media as badly as the news media needs its platform. Perhaps that’s true. But in a statement released this week about the blocking decision, Facebook stated, “This is not our first choice – it is our last. But it is the only way to protect against an outcome that defies logic and will hurt, not help, the long-term vibrancy of Australia’s news and media sector.”

Combine that remark with the familiar generalization that the Australian proposal “misunderstands the internet,” and we are left to wonder if those are Facebook’s best arguments against the proposal. Because if the platform giants have ever been the least bit concerned with the “long-term vibrancy” of the news or any other media producing sectors, they must have been tripping balls when they built their business models. The underlying principle of every major online provider since roughly 2000 has been to monetize the flow of content produced by parties other than the platforms themselves.

Whether it’s someone making a joke or sharing a news story from the Washington Post, it’s all just data flow to Facebook. Very valuable data flow. And while we ordinary users may have volunteered to share personal comments or photos on the platform, the journalists whose salaries depend primarily on advertising revenues, did not voluntarily enter into the arrangement. While I recognize that the devil is in the details as to where the money will end up (i.e. does it pay journalists?), the underlying principle still seems sound.

Is really such a radical proposal that Facebook and Google (and potentially others if they achieve certain scale) pay negotiated fees to news producers? Certainly, the existing model has not done journalism much good, so why must we conclude that more of the same is necessary for the “long-term vibrancy” of the industry, as Facebook puts it? I noticed that Techdirt’s Mike Masnick tweeted his endorsement of Facebook’s rebuke to Australia, opining that the proposed legislation is just corporate welfare for Rupert Murdoch.

Admittedly, I find it difficult to defend journalism so broadly that it encompasses the work product of the Murdoch empire, but Masnick’s response is not wholly satisfactory to the question. What Facebook in particular has done to news—including where it has siphoned off revenue streams—has largely exacerbated the plague of alternate realities now threatening to unravel democratic societies worldwide. More specifically, to the extent that Masnick’s comment represents Facebook’s view, it obscures a much bigger truth:  that the major platforms have long been subsidized by the creators of works in nearly every field. That’s corporate welfare.

If the quotes listed on Yahoo! Finance, or the comments in this BBC piece are any indication, Facebook’s decision is not earning the company any goodwill—particularly in the middle of a global pandemic and brushfire season in Australia. And that’s on top of the fact that Zuckerberg & Co. have so reliably equivocated in its responding to demands to remove toxic disinformation and propaganda. “Well, that’s a tantrum. Facebook has exponentially increased the opportunity for misinformation, dangerous radicalism and conspiracy theories to abound on its platform,” said Lisa Davies, Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, in response to the Facebook block.

Assuming the Australian proposal is a first test, it will be one to watch. There should be little doubt that if the platforms have to start paying for news in Australia and then the EU, we will see proposals to do likewise in the U.S. And that probably scares the hell out of Facebook and, perhaps Google as well. Presumably, Facebook will argue that the portal they built is so essential that they should not have to pay for any of the content that flows through it. But that seems about as irrational as saying that journalism itself is so important it should be free. Besides, I seem to remember a saying about great power coming with something. What was it again?