The Indian government has expressed its support to the news publishing companies and called on the big tech content aggregators to share revenues with them.&nbsp;Speaking at the inaugural session of a day-long conclave organised by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra both emphasised on the “future of journalism” and financial health of the news industry.

Raising the issue of the ‘strained financial health’ of the Indian news publishing industry, Chandra said, "For the growth of the news industry, it is important that digital news platforms of all these publishers, who are the creators of original content, get a fair share of revenues from the big tech platforms which act as aggregators of content created by others," he said.

Chandra took the examples of the initiatives taken by EU, Australia and Canada, who have passed legislation and strengthened their competition commissions to ensure a fair split of revenue between news content creators and aggregators.

Echoing similar sentiments, Chandrasekhar said, "We hope to address this issue of disproportionate control and imbalance of dynamics between content creation and its monetisation and the power that ad-tech companies and platforms hold today.”

Australia’s Member of Parliament Paul Fletcher, who was the minister of communications when Australia passed the landmark News Media Bargaining Code, shared his country’s experience as to how they resisted Google and Facebook when they shared the draft of the code with them.

“There was a bit of turbulence along the way. Google, at one point, threatened to withdraw Google Search services in Australia. In response to that, the PM (then Prime Minister Scott Morrison) and I met with the global experts of&nbsp;Microsoft, who said they will be interested in expanding Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) in Australia. We didn’t hear much more of the threat (from Google),” he said.

“In the face of that, we held firm and there was a strong political leadership from Josh Frydenberg (former Treasurer of Australia) and the legislation passed Parliament. I am pleased to say that both Google and Facebook have since negotiated commercial deals with news media businesses,” he added.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE: 

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" loading="”lazy”" src="https://www.wionews.com/live-tv/embed?autoplay=1&amp;mute=1" width="100%"></iframe>

The Indian government has expressed its support to the news publishing companies and called on the big tech content aggregators to share revenues with them. Speaking at the inaugural session of a day-long conclave organised by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra both emphasised on the “future of journalism” and financial health of the news industry.

The Indian government has expressed its support to the news publishing companies and called on the big tech content aggregators to share revenues with them. Speaking at the inaugural session of a day-long conclave organised by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra both emphasised on the “future of journalism” and financial health of the news industry. Raising the issue of the ‘strained financial health’ of the Indian news publishing industry, Chandra said, "For the growth of the news industry, it is important that digital news platforms of all these publishers, who are the creators of original content, get a fair share of revenues from the big tech platforms which act as aggregators of content created by others," he said. Chandra took the examples of the initiatives taken by EU, Australia and Canada, who have passed legislation and strengthened their competition commissions to ensure a fair split of revenue between news content creators and aggregators. Echoing similar sentiments, Chandrasekhar said, "We hope to address this issue of disproportionate control and imbalance of dynamics between content creation and its monetisation and the power that ad-tech companies and platforms hold today.” Australia’s Member of Parliament Paul Fletcher, who was the minister of communications when Australia passed the landmark News Media Bargaining Code, shared his country’s experience as to how they resisted Google and Facebook when they shared the draft of the code with them. “There was a bit of turbulence along the way. Google, at one point, threatened to withdraw Google Search services in Australia. In response to that, the PM (then Prime Minister Scott Morrison) and I met with the global experts of Microsoft, who said they will be interested in expanding Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) in Australia. We didn’t hear much more of the threat (from Google),” he said. “In the face of that, we held firm and there was a strong political leadership from Josh Frydenberg (former Treasurer of Australia) and the legislation passed Parliament. I am pleased to say that both Google and Facebook have since negotiated commercial deals with news media businesses,” he added. WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Big tech should pay news publishers for content: Indian govt’s strong pushback

Amazon has said it will lay off 18,000 people. Twitter employees are carrying their own toilet paper to work. Firms are cutting costs across the board to prepare for the economic downturn. Molly Gambhir brings you the details.

WION Fineprint | Big Tech firms to lay off thousands in January

Twitter is facing allegations of having "secret blacklists." It has been accused of suppressing the voices of right-wing commentators. So, is Big Tech really bipartisan? Molly Gambhir tells you more.

Gravitas: Is Big Tech really bipartisan?

It was a brutal week for the big Tech firms. The biggest US companies have lost nearly a trillion dollars in terms of their valuation before partial rebound. Wall Street losing confidence in resilience of big tech firms?

WION Fineprint| Big Tech firms lose nearly $800 Bn in value; Meta reports slump in profit margins

Big techs are in big trouble. Lawmakers are pulling up big tech companies over unfair business practices. Are these firms abusing their market power?

World Business Watch: Big tech firms abusing their market power?

Following the US Supreme Court's ruling that overturned the landmark Roe vs Wade, online privacy has become a myth as Big Tech keep collecting the personal details of their users for tracking and surveillance. Molly Gambhir tells you more.

WION Fineprint: Why online privacy is a myth in the Post-Roe world

While global economies fear a recession is looming around the corner, the big tech companies are having a glorious day. Reportedly, both Amazon and Apple have posted more than impressive sales numbers against the backdrop of a slowdown.

Amazon's sales figure reached $121 billion in the quarter while its cloud-computing platform Amazon Web Services managed to rake in $5.7 billion in revenue, registering a 33 per cent growth.&nbsp;

The numbers are particularly impressive for the Jeff Bezos company as online sales shrank by 4 per cent, declining for the second quarter in a row.&nbsp;

Apple's revenue up by two per cent

Meanwhile, Apple announced that its June quarter revenue stood at a record $83 billion, up two per cent YoY. Apple is expected to pay a dividend of $0.3 per share to its shareholders.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Apple CEO Tim Cook was quoted as saying after the release of quarterly results, “This quarter’s record results speak of Apple’s constant efforts to innovate, to advance new possibilities, and to enrich the lives of our customers."

Apple had good news coming from India as the company doubled its revenue in the June quarter. Along with iPhone, it was the iPad that was doing surprisingly well in the Asian country.&nbsp;

US economy falters for a successive quarter

While the two tech companies based in the US are making profits, the country, on the other hand, posted a successive quarter where the economy contracted.&nbsp;

As reported extensively by WION, USA's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell at a 0.9 per cent annual rate after a 1.6 per cent decline in Q1. The report further highlighted that there was a decrease in&nbsp;government spending and residential investment.

Read More:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/fueling-recession-fears-the-us-economy-shrank-again-in-second-quarter-501488" target="_blank">Fueling recession fears, the US economy shrank again in second quarter</a>

In an effort to combat the worst inflation outbreak in four decades, the Federal Reserve hiked its benchmark interest rate by hefty three-quarters of a point on Wednesday.

However, the numbers put up by Apple and Amazon corroborate the reports that consumer spending has not dwindled, despite weak economic&nbsp;signals.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" loading="”lazy”" src="https://www.wionews.com/live-tv/embed?autoplay=1&amp;mute=1  width=&quot;100%&quot;"></iframe>

While global economies fear a recession is looming around the corner, the big tech companies are having a glorious day. Reportedly, both Amazon and Apple have posted more than impressive sales numbers against the backdrop of a slowdown.

While global economies fear a recession is looming around the corner, the big tech companies are having a glorious day. Reportedly, both Amazon and Apple have posted more than impressive sales numbers against the backdrop of a slowdown. Amazon's sales figure reached $121 billion in the quarter while its cloud-computing platform Amazon Web Services managed to rake in $5.7 billion in revenue, registering a 33 per cent growth. The numbers are particularly impressive for the Jeff Bezos company as online sales shrank by 4 per cent, declining for the second quarter in a row. Apple's revenue up by two per cent Meanwhile, Apple announced that its June quarter revenue stood at a record $83 billion, up two per cent YoY. Apple is expected to pay a dividend of $0.3 per share to its shareholders. Apple CEO Tim Cook was quoted as saying after the release of quarterly results, “This quarter’s record results speak of Apple’s constant efforts to innovate, to advance new possibilities, and to enrich the lives of our customers." Apple had good news coming from India as the company doubled its revenue in the June quarter. Along with iPhone, it was the iPad that was doing surprisingly well in the Asian country. US economy falters for a successive quarter While the two tech companies based in the US are making profits, the country, on the other hand, posted a successive quarter where the economy contracted. As reported extensively by WION, USA's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell at a 0.9 per cent annual rate after a 1.6 per cent decline in Q1. The report further highlighted that there was a decrease in government spending and residential investment. Read More: Fueling recession fears, the US economy shrank again in second quarter In an effort to combat the worst inflation outbreak in four decades, the Federal Reserve hiked its benchmark interest rate by hefty three-quarters of a point on Wednesday. However, the numbers put up by Apple and Amazon corroborate the reports that consumer spending has not dwindled, despite weak economic signals. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Apple and Amazon post impressive numbers amid an economic slowdown

In a move that experts have labelled as evasive, on Monday big-tech companies in New Zealand agreed to forego government regulation in favour of themselves reducing dangerous online content. According to Netsafe, a government-funded internet safety organisation, Twitter, Amazon.com Inc., TikTok, Meta Platforms Inc., and Alphabet-owned Google have all signed a code of conduct called Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice for Online Safety and Harms. The organisation's chief Brent Carey said that the signatory companies will follow the code as self-regulation. However, industry lobby group NZTech will be overseeing the compliance.&nbsp;"There are too many Kiwis being bullied, harassed, and abused online, which is why the industry has rallied together to protect users," said Carey.

Watch |&nbsp;Have a phobia? A new app can help fight it

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/have-a-phobia-a-new-app-can-help-fight-it-tech-it-out-500321/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

As per a Reuters report, the big-tech companies' adherence to obligations, such as decreasing harmful information online, disclosing how they do so, and allowing independent evaluation of results, would be under the supervision of industry lobbying group NZTech.

NZTech CEO Graeme Muller has expressed hope that "the governance framework will enable it to evolve alongside local conditions, while at the same time respecting the fundamental rights of freedom of expression."

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/japan-cracks-down-on-cyberbullying-the-crime-can-now-get-you-a-year-in-jail-496033">Japan cracks down on cyberbullying, makes it a punishable offence, but experts aren't too happy. Here's why</a>

However, interest groups demand more information, such as a system for public complaints and punishment for any noncompliance by the corporations.

They further emphasise that an industry organisation, not the government, is in charge of managing the accord.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/roe-v-wade-google-location-history-of-women-remains-vulnerable-youtube-to-censor-false-videos-on-abortion-499712">Roe v. Wade: Google location history of women remains vulnerable; YouTube to censor false videos on abortion</a>

Mandy Henk, CEO of Tohatoha NZ, a non-profit organisation that advocates the social impact of technology, called the move "a weak attempt to preempt regulation – in New Zealand and overseas – by promoting an industry-led model."

(With inputs from agencies)

Watch WION LIVE HERE:

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/live-tv/embed?autoplay=1&amp;mute=1" width="100%"></iframe>

You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us <a href="https://www.wionews.com/content-contribution-registration-form">here</a>.

In a move that experts have labelled as evasive, on Monday big-tech companies in New Zealand agreed to forego government regulation in favour of themselves reducing dangerous online content.

In a move that experts have labelled as evasive, on Monday big-tech companies in New Zealand agreed to forego government regulation in favour of themselves reducing dangerous online content. According to Netsafe, a government-funded internet safety organisation, Twitter, Amazon.com Inc., TikTok, Meta Platforms Inc., and Alphabet-owned Google have all signed a code of conduct called Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice for Online Safety and Harms. The organisation's chief Brent Carey said that the signatory companies will follow the code as self-regulation. However, industry lobby group NZTech will be overseeing the compliance. "There are too many Kiwis being bullied, harassed, and abused online, which is why the industry has rallied together to protect users," said Carey. Watch | Have a phobia? A new app can help fight it As per a Reuters report, the big-tech companies' adherence to obligations, such as decreasing harmful information online, disclosing how they do so, and allowing independent evaluation of results, would be under the supervision of industry lobbying group NZTech. NZTech CEO Graeme Muller has expressed hope that "the governance framework will enable it to evolve alongside local conditions, while at the same time respecting the fundamental rights of freedom of expression." Also read | Japan cracks down on cyberbullying, makes it a punishable offence, but experts aren't too happy. Here's why However, interest groups demand more information, such as a system for public complaints and punishment for any noncompliance by the corporations. They further emphasise that an industry organisation, not the government, is in charge of managing the accord. Also read | Roe v. Wade: Google location history of women remains vulnerable; YouTube to censor false videos on abortion Mandy Henk, CEO of Tohatoha NZ, a non-profit organisation that advocates the social impact of technology, called the move "a weak attempt to preempt regulation – in New Zealand and overseas – by promoting an industry-led model." (With inputs from agencies) Watch WION LIVE HERE: You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Big-tech companies agree to self-regulate harmful content in New Zealand, experts call it a 'weak attempt'

Parents who sued popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok for harming children who have become addicted to their products will not longer be able to do so in California after the introduction of the first-of-its-kind proposal in its legislature.

Now only prosecutors can file lawsuits against social media companies and they will be liable for damages of up to $250,000 per violation for using features they know can cause children to become addicted.

CalMatters reported that the legislation, which was introduced by Republican Assembly member Jordan Cunningham, was amended last month.

According to Cunningham, the change has been made to avoid opening ''the floodgates to frivolous claims.''

Also see |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/what-happens-next-in-the-musk-twitter-saga-496703">What happens next in the Musk-Twitter saga?</a>

“Lawmakers seem to be more comfortable letting this be handled by the public prosecutors, who already end up taking the lead on this kind of consumer protection type stuff,” he added.

The bill is facing opposition from tech companies that are based in California which claim it is nearly impossible to separate social media content from the features companies use to deliver it.

If the companies conduct quarterly audits of their features and remove any harmful products within 30 days of learning they cause children to become addicted, the bill would exempt social media companies from these lawsuits.

Saying the legislation would give social media companies an incentive to police themselves to avoid penalties, Cunningham highlighted that most other products are covered under consumer protection laws that allow people to sue companies for selling products they know to be dangerous. 
&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

Watch WION's live TV here:

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" loading="”lazy”" src="https://www.wionews.com/live-tv/embed?autoplay=1&amp;mute=1" width="100%"></iframe></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">×</a></div>

&nbsp;

Parents who sued popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok for harming children who have become addicted to their products will not longer be able to do so in California after the introduction of the first-of-its-kind proposal in its legislature.

Parents who sued popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok for harming children who have become addicted to their products will not longer be able to do so in California after the introduction of the first-of-its-kind proposal in its legislature. Now only prosecutors can file lawsuits against social media companies and they will be liable for damages of up to $250,000 per violation for using features they know can cause children to become addicted. CalMatters reported that the legislation, which was introduced by Republican Assembly member Jordan Cunningham, was amended last month. According to Cunningham, the change has been made to avoid opening ''the floodgates to frivolous claims.'' Also see | What happens next in the Musk-Twitter saga? “Lawmakers seem to be more comfortable letting this be handled by the public prosecutors, who already end up taking the lead on this kind of consumer protection type stuff,” he added. The bill is facing opposition from tech companies that are based in California which claim it is nearly impossible to separate social media content from the features companies use to deliver it. If the companies conduct quarterly audits of their features and remove any harmful products within 30 days of learning they cause children to become addicted, the bill would exempt social media companies from these lawsuits. Saying the legislation would give social media companies an incentive to police themselves to avoid penalties, Cunningham highlighted that most other products are covered under consumer protection laws that allow people to sue companies for selling products they know to be dangerous. (With inputs from agencies) Watch WION's live TV here: ×

California: First-of-its-kind proposal will no longer let parents sue social media companies

China is going to meet with the country's Big Tech firms, the South China Morning Post reported, citing two sources briefed on the situation.

It added that the symposium has been set to assure business executives that regulators will no longer demand rectifications or impose surprise fines and will be held after the Labour Day holiday.

According to the Xinhua news agency, officials met with the Chinese Communist Party's decision-making body.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-decoding-chinas-crackdown-on-everything-438842/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

It said that it was "necessary to promote the healthy development of the platform economy" and "complete its rectification".

The Politburo meeting was chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping and after the meeting, officials said there was a need to "respond to market concerns in a timely manner".

The news has raised hopes that Beijing will stop its long-running, sweeping regulatory clampdown on the tech sector.

As a result, Shanghai and Hong Kong led a rally across Asian and European markets on Friday.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/from-education-to-bitcoin-chinas-season-of-regulatory-crackdown-401448">Also see |&nbsp;From education to bitcoin, China's season of regulatory crackdown</a>

Financial experts have warned officials will struggle to achieve a soft landing by controlling prices while still nurturing growth and the recovery in the US economy could be thrown off course.

Carol Schleif told Bloomberg Television, "The Fed's record on soft landings is not that strong."&nbsp;

"Markets are watching very, very carefully to see if we can thread that needle," Scheif added at the BMO Family Office.

Due to China's lockdowns, the sentiment of growth remains fragile as traders are operating under the shadows of war and soaring inflation.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/live-tv/embed?autoplay=1&amp;mute=1" width="100%"></iframe>

China is going to meet with the country's Big Tech firms, the South China Morning Post reported, citing two sources briefed on the situation. It added that the symposium has been set to assure business executives that regulators will no longer demand rectifications or impose surprise fines and will be held after the Labour Day holiday.

China is going to meet with the country's Big Tech firms, the South China Morning Post reported, citing two sources briefed on the situation. It added that the symposium has been set to assure business executives that regulators will no longer demand rectifications or impose surprise fines and will be held after the Labour Day holiday. According to the Xinhua news agency, officials met with the Chinese Communist Party's decision-making body. It said that it was "necessary to promote the healthy development of the platform economy" and "complete its rectification". The Politburo meeting was chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping and after the meeting, officials said there was a need to "respond to market concerns in a timely manner". The news has raised hopes that Beijing will stop its long-running, sweeping regulatory clampdown on the tech sector. As a result, Shanghai and Hong Kong led a rally across Asian and European markets on Friday. Also see | From education to bitcoin, China's season of regulatory crackdown Financial experts have warned officials will struggle to achieve a soft landing by controlling prices while still nurturing growth and the recovery in the US economy could be thrown off course. Carol Schleif told Bloomberg Television, "The Fed's record on soft landings is not that strong." "Markets are watching very, very carefully to see if we can thread that needle," Scheif added at the BMO Family Office. Due to China's lockdowns, the sentiment of growth remains fragile as traders are operating under the shadows of war and soaring inflation. WATCH WION LIVE HERE

End of regulatory crackdown? China to hold symposium with the country's Big Tech firms

Free speech absolutism might backfire when it comes to increasing the company’s user base and profits.

The Tesla co-founder and chief executive Elon Musk is set to shortly become the new owner of a slightly used social media platform with more than 217 million daily users. He has said very little about how he plans to make the business work, but one thing is clear: He is really, really preoccupied with how we talk on the platform and appears intent on rolling back some of its moderation policies in order to allow all legal speech on Twitter.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Mr. Musk said in his announcement of the deal. He professes to have a healthy tolerance of criticism. “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” he tweeted.

But the rhetoric of free speech absolutists like Mr. Musk conflates harassment with criticism. I’ve been on the receiving end of both in my two decades of writing columns about media, finance, culture and politics — and there is a material difference between the two.

To wit: A couple of weeks ago, a former colleague of Mr. Musk’s at PayPal, Keith Rabois, called me dumb on Twitter after I suggested that eliminating moderation policies would be bad for Twitter’s business. This is not a particularly sophisticated criticism, but neither is it harassment.

However, I’ve also received rape threats, anonymous letters to my home address, threatening comments about my family and all manner of misogynistic pejoratives that are not printable in this newspaper for my stated positions on everything from abortion to hiring practices at start-ups to who the next James Bond should be. I don’t even have to write anything particularly provocative for this to happen; I once got a violent threat for a column I wrote about why I disagree with the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the Consumer Price Index.

These are not uncommon experiences for women and minorities who speak in public, on Twitter and beyond, and I’ve suffered far less harassment than others. It happens all the time. Twitter’s current moderation policies can’t completely prevent it, but they are designed to mitigate it. Twitter requires its users to comply with a terms of service agreement that bans certain types of speech — harassment, in particular. It also has moderation policies in place to combat disinformation. The value of these measures isn’t always apparent to powerful people such as Mr. Musk because if you’re a white man on the internet, you’re far less likely to get a rape threat, and you’re also heavily insulated from the possibility of real-world violence.

Mr. Musk insists that the company’s policies are too restrictive. But this is not about free speech in the sense that the First Amendment is — ensuring that the state can’t censor its citizens. What Mr. Musk seems to seek is a kind of infinite license to say almost anything, anywhere. It’s an absolutist definition of free speech that says corporations are obligated to let things that may be harmful to their users or bad for their businesses remain on their platforms because any limitation on speech is de facto censorship and censorship of any kind is worse than the consequences of hate speech, harassment and disinformation.

Of course, getting rid of policies that restrict hate speech will likely affect women and minorities much more than it does white men like Mr. Musk, and unlike him, most people on the receiving end of threats and harassment can’t afford personal security. Twitter’s rules already allow for a broad range of abuse, much of which falls into a kind of gray area between personal insult and harassment.

What exactly does he believe can’t be said on the platform right now? It certainly doesn’t take long to find discredited race science, arguments that women are intellectually inferior, antisemitism, defenses of white supremacism and transphobic comments that remain on the platform even under current policy. It is easy to assume that the banned speech that Mr. Musk is standing up for is worse even than that. As the comedian Michael Che put it on “Saturday Night Live,” the $44 billion deal shows “how badly white guys want to use the N-word.”

All of this is a moral and ethical case for keeping moderation policies in place, but what’s more baffling about Mr. Musk’s crusade is it’s hard to see how eliminating them would be good for the business. Right now, Twitter’s demographics skew male. If Twitter wants to further scale up its business and increase profitability, which is ostensibly its goal, it needs to expand its reach. Making the platform a hostile environment for women and minorities isn’t conducive to expansion, unless you believe your most valuable audience is white men who skew conservative and that they exist in ever larger numbers — and demographic trends indicate that they do not.

If anything, Twitter’s history indicates that when you make the platform more hospitable to a range of people, the user base grows. When the biggest Twitter troll of all, former president Donald Trump, was removed from the platform in January of 2021, research suggested that the percentage of adults on social media who said they used Twitter increased by 21 percent. (Mr. Trump has said that he has no plans to rejoin Twitter, but this column is not long enough to catalog all of the things he has said he would not do that he later did anyway, so some skepticism is in order.) If the former president is invited back, it’s entirely plausible that some of the newer post-Trump users would leave.

Mr. Musk has said he is not buying Twitter to make money, but as a successful entrepreneur, he presumably wants to make the company, which has long struggled with profitability, a success. The company’s revenue is currently very advertising-dependent, and in my experience as a former media entrepreneur and newspaper editor in chief, advertisers generally don’t like to promote their brands alongside provocative content; even everyday political news is sometimes too much. If Mr. Musk allows Twitter to become a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation, he’ll test the risk adversity of the platform’s advertisers, and it’s likely that he’ll find himself with fewer brands that are willing to take the risk of appearing in people’s polluted feeds.

There’s also, of course, the risk — both moral and to the business — that allowing more harassment and disinformation on the platform will result in real-world physical harm. The 2016 Pizzagate conspiracy theory, a precursor to QAnon, spread largely over social media and resulted in a man firing an AR-15 rifle in a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor. When people feel entitled to harm others because hateful rhetoric is normalized online, it increases the ease with which conspiracy theories metastasize into acts of violence. A platform that spreads that kind of rhetoric and takes a laissez-faire approach to disinformation doesn’t just create an unpleasant experience for users; it can get someone killed.

It’s entirely possible that Mr. Musk hasn’t thought about these things very thoroughly. His public bid for Twitter began only a few weeks ago, and since then his stated intentions have changed repeatedly, accompanied by a late and misleading securities filing and contradictory statements. He enjoys online trolling, and this may have started as a joke, which was then taken so seriously by the market, Twitter shareholders and the public that Mr. Musk himself began to consider it.

If that’s what happened, he may be the dog that caught the car. Tesla stock fell in the wake of the purchase announcement, potentially a reflection of shareholder sentiment that Mr. Musk may not be able to effectively run yet another company in addition to the four (Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company) he already leads.

Sophisticated moderation policies are difficult to develop and enforce, and Twitter has already spent years tinkering and trying to come up with something that works. The current terms of service are not perfect, but if Mr. Musk chooses to partly or fully dismantle them, he may experience Twitter in a new way himself: The aspects of the platform that are weaponized against women and minorities may not be so friendly to him, either. And if the company can’t expand its user base, his worst critics may be the only growth area of Twitter.

Free speech absolutism might backfire when it comes to increasing the company’s user base and profits. The Tesla co-founder and chief executive Elon Musk is set to shortly become the new owner of a slightly used social media platform with more than 217 million daily users.

Free speech absolutism might backfire when it comes to increasing the company’s user base and profits. The Tesla co-founder and chief executive Elon Musk is set to shortly become the new owner of a slightly used social media platform with more than 217 million daily users. He has said very little about how he plans to make the business work, but one thing is clear: He is really, really preoccupied with how we talk on the platform and appears intent on rolling back some of its moderation policies in order to allow all legal speech on Twitter. “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Mr. Musk said in his announcement of the deal. He professes to have a healthy tolerance of criticism. “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” he tweeted. But the rhetoric of free speech absolutists like Mr. Musk conflates harassment with criticism. I’ve been on the receiving end of both in my two decades of writing columns about media, finance, culture and politics — and there is a material difference between the two. To wit: A couple of weeks ago, a former colleague of Mr. Musk’s at PayPal, Keith Rabois, called me dumb on Twitter after I suggested that eliminating moderation policies would be bad for Twitter’s business. This is not a particularly sophisticated criticism, but neither is it harassment. However, I’ve also received rape threats, anonymous letters to my home address, threatening comments about my family and all manner of misogynistic pejoratives that are not printable in this newspaper for my stated positions on everything from abortion to hiring practices at start-ups to who the next James Bond should be. I don’t even have to write anything particularly provocative for this to happen; I once got a violent threat for a column I wrote about why I disagree with the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the Consumer Price Index. These are not uncommon experiences for women and minorities who speak in public, on Twitter and beyond, and I’ve suffered far less harassment than others. It happens all the time. Twitter’s current moderation policies can’t completely prevent it, but they are designed to mitigate it. Twitter requires its users to comply with a terms of service agreement that bans certain types of speech — harassment, in particular. It also has moderation policies in place to combat disinformation. The value of these measures isn’t always apparent to powerful people such as Mr. Musk because if you’re a white man on the internet, you’re far less likely to get a rape threat, and you’re also heavily insulated from the possibility of real-world violence. Mr. Musk insists that the company’s policies are too restrictive. But this is not about free speech in the sense that the First Amendment is — ensuring that the state can’t censor its citizens. What Mr. Musk seems to seek is a kind of infinite license to say almost anything, anywhere. It’s an absolutist definition of free speech that says corporations are obligated to let things that may be harmful to their users or bad for their businesses remain on their platforms because any limitation on speech is de facto censorship and censorship of any kind is worse than the consequences of hate speech, harassment and disinformation. Of course, getting rid of policies that restrict hate speech will likely affect women and minorities much more than it does white men like Mr. Musk, and unlike him, most people on the receiving end of threats and harassment can’t afford personal security. Twitter’s rules already allow for a broad range of abuse, much of which falls into a kind of gray area between personal insult and harassment. What exactly does he believe can’t be said on the platform right now? It certainly doesn’t take long to find discredited race science, arguments that women are intellectually inferior, antisemitism, defenses of white supremacism and transphobic comments that remain on the platform even under current policy. It is easy to assume that the banned speech that Mr. Musk is standing up for is worse even than that. As the comedian Michael Che put it on “Saturday Night Live,” the $44 billion deal shows “how badly white guys want to use the N-word.” All of this is a moral and ethical case for keeping moderation policies in place, but what’s more baffling about Mr. Musk’s crusade is it’s hard to see how eliminating them would be good for the business. Right now, Twitter’s demographics skew male. If Twitter wants to further scale up its business and increase profitability, which is ostensibly its goal, it needs to expand its reach. Making the platform a hostile environment for women and minorities isn’t conducive to expansion, unless you believe your most valuable audience is white men who skew conservative and that they exist in ever larger numbers — and demographic trends indicate that they do not. If anything, Twitter’s history indicates that when you make the platform more hospitable to a range of people, the user base grows. When the biggest Twitter troll of all, former president Donald Trump, was removed from the platform in January of 2021, research suggested that the percentage of adults on social media who said they used Twitter increased by 21 percent. (Mr. Trump has said that he has no plans to rejoin Twitter, but this column is not long enough to catalog all of the things he has said he would not do that he later did anyway, so some skepticism is in order.) If the former president is invited back, it’s entirely plausible that some of the newer post-Trump users would leave. Mr. Musk has said he is not buying Twitter to make money, but as a successful entrepreneur, he presumably wants to make the company, which has long struggled with profitability, a success. The company’s revenue is currently very advertising-dependent, and in my experience as a former media entrepreneur and newspaper editor in chief, advertisers generally don’t like to promote their brands alongside provocative content; even everyday political news is sometimes too much. If Mr. Musk allows Twitter to become a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation, he’ll test the risk adversity of the platform’s advertisers, and it’s likely that he’ll find himself with fewer brands that are willing to take the risk of appearing in people’s polluted feeds. There’s also, of course, the risk — both moral and to the business — that allowing more harassment and disinformation on the platform will result in real-world physical harm. The 2016 Pizzagate conspiracy theory, a precursor to QAnon, spread largely over social media and resulted in a man firing an AR-15 rifle in a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor. When people feel entitled to harm others because hateful rhetoric is normalized online, it increases the ease with which conspiracy theories metastasize into acts of violence. A platform that spreads that kind of rhetoric and takes a laissez-faire approach to disinformation doesn’t just create an unpleasant experience for users; it can get someone killed. It’s entirely possible that Mr. Musk hasn’t thought about these things very thoroughly. His public bid for Twitter began only a few weeks ago, and since then his stated intentions have changed repeatedly, accompanied by a late and misleading securities filing and contradictory statements. He enjoys online trolling, and this may have started as a joke, which was then taken so seriously by the market, Twitter shareholders and the public that Mr. Musk himself began to consider it. If that’s what happened, he may be the dog that caught the car. Tesla stock fell in the wake of the purchase announcement, potentially a reflection of shareholder sentiment that Mr. Musk may not be able to effectively run yet another company in addition to the four (Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company) he already leads. Sophisticated moderation policies are difficult to develop and enforce, and Twitter has already spent years tinkering and trying to come up with something that works. The current terms of service are not perfect, but if Mr. Musk chooses to partly or fully dismantle them, he may experience Twitter in a new way himself: The aspects of the platform that are weaponized against women and minorities may not be so friendly to him, either. And if the company can’t expand its user base, his worst critics may be the only growth area of Twitter.

Making Twitter more of a cesspool makes no business sense

Amid the ongoing tussle between the European Union and tech giants, Alphabet & Meta to strengthen their security policies. EU Vice President lauded the decision by tech giants.

Alphabet & Meta to strengthen their security policies, EU Vice President lauds the decision

Calling for a self-reliant, or 'atmanirbhar' internet for India, India's Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has accused big tech platforms of weaponsing the internet during the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

His comments came just days after YouTube blocked WION over its coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Chandrasekhar said this highlights the sweeping powers of social media giants and how they preside over the ''splinter-net.'' He said the “Atmanirbhar internet,”&nbsp;will reduce dependency on services being provided by these global firms.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-plus-why-the-west-is-winning-the-information-war-461710/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Chandrasekhar said there is a need to rethink local laws in order to de-risk Indian internet and make it harder for Big Tech businesses to be weaponised in any circumstance. India is readying a new cybersecurity and data governance framework.

According to Chandrasekhar, “If we were depending on SWIFT alone, we are gone. But we have UPI, fintech platforms in India that have reduced our reliance on a SWIFT type of an international money transfer platform. We are seeing through our thinking of Atmanirbhar Bharat that we should not depend on Indian internet being controlled or influenced by these big tech platforms alone.”&nbsp;

“Two phenomenon are very visible: one is weaponisation of the internet of which we were aware of in some sense. The second is the phenomenon of the splinter-net. The internet is increasingly being splintered, driven by power of some Western countries. These platforms have now become dominant and in the event of a conflict between two sovereigns, they are being weaponised and there are no laws that would prevent this.”

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/ukraine-war-coverage-youtube-backs-down-wion-is-back-on-the-platform-465601">Also read |&nbsp;After 12 hours of campaign and 25K posts in support, tech giant YouTube unblocks WION</a>

“It is disturbing that internet intermediaries aren’t doing enough to combat cybercrime and hacking attacks. The use of sanctions to cut off access to internet is disturbing. It is quite a troubling precedent. These recent events strengthen India’s case for data localisation, national champions, resilient internet network architecture, native open APIs (application programming interface) and a strong cyber security command centre,” Chandrasekhar told The Indian Express. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/opinions-blogs/youtube-blocking-wion-high-time-for-indian-tech-minds-to-beat-tech-giants-465844">OPINION | YouTube blocking WION: High time for Indian tech minds to beat tech giants</a>

“It is validating our thinking in terms of a new digital law, the need for a data governance framework. We will basically create a framework which will have the data protection law, a digital law and other cyber security statutes. Architecturally, we want to build the cyberspace jurisprudence rather than doing it piecemeal or in catch up mode,” he added.

“The platforms are now controlling the access to the internet in many ways, be it through monopolies of search engines, duopolies of app stores, or devices.”

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

Calling for a self-reliant, or 'atmanirbhar' internet for India, India's Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has accused big tech platforms of weaponsing the internet during the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Calling for a self-reliant, or 'atmanirbhar' internet for India, India's Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has accused big tech platforms of weaponsing the internet during the Russia-Ukraine crisis. His comments came just days after YouTube blocked WION over its coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Chandrasekhar said this highlights the sweeping powers of social media giants and how they preside over the ''splinter-net.'' He said the “Atmanirbhar internet,” will reduce dependency on services being provided by these global firms. Chandrasekhar said there is a need to rethink local laws in order to de-risk Indian internet and make it harder for Big Tech businesses to be weaponised in any circumstance. India is readying a new cybersecurity and data governance framework. According to Chandrasekhar, “If we were depending on SWIFT alone, we are gone. But we have UPI, fintech platforms in India that have reduced our reliance on a SWIFT type of an international money transfer platform. We are seeing through our thinking of Atmanirbhar Bharat that we should not depend on Indian internet being controlled or influenced by these big tech platforms alone.” “Two phenomenon are very visible: one is weaponisation of the internet of which we were aware of in some sense. The second is the phenomenon of the splinter-net. The internet is increasingly being splintered, driven by power of some Western countries. These platforms have now become dominant and in the event of a conflict between two sovereigns, they are being weaponised and there are no laws that would prevent this.” Also read | After 12 hours of campaign and 25K posts in support, tech giant YouTube unblocks WION “It is disturbing that internet intermediaries aren’t doing enough to combat cybercrime and hacking attacks. The use of sanctions to cut off access to internet is disturbing. It is quite a troubling precedent. These recent events strengthen India’s case for data localisation, national champions, resilient internet network architecture, native open APIs (application programming interface) and a strong cyber security command centre,” Chandrasekhar told The Indian Express. OPINION | YouTube blocking WION: High time for Indian tech minds to beat tech giants “It is validating our thinking in terms of a new digital law, the need for a data governance framework. We will basically create a framework which will have the data protection law, a digital law and other cyber security statutes. Architecturally, we want to build the cyberspace jurisprudence rather than doing it piecemeal or in catch up mode,” he added. “The platforms are now controlling the access to the internet in many ways, be it through monopolies of search engines, duopolies of app stores, or devices.” (With inputs from agencies)

Russia-Ukraine crisis: Indian minister accuses big tech platforms of weaponsing internet

EU floats landmark law against big tech in an attempt to ease accountability in the digital market sphere. Europe will get stronger monitoring power.

EU floats landmark law against big tech in an attempt to ease accountability in digital market

Lawmakers in the European Union are giving final touches to a new law that would impact big tech companies like Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon.

AFP quoted sources to say that talks between negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states on Thuesday may result in an agreement on the legislation.

"We really expect that we can reach an agreement on Thursday, that we can endorse the Digital Markets Act," said French MEP Stephanie Yon-Courtin, a key backer of the law.

This is a "a historic text that will clearly change the rules of the game," she added.

Once adopted, it would give regulators in Brussels unparallelled power to take a close and up-to-the-minute look at business decisions by the giants, especially when they acquire promising startups.

The rules would also set a list of do’s and don’ts including forcing Apple to open up its app store to competing payment systems -- a demand the iPhone maker has resisted arduously in courts for years.

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) could also force Google and Meta-owned Facebook to reveal precious information from their world-dominating ad platforms, potentially leaving them vulnerable to new rivals.

In their final push, lawmakers from the European Parliament would also like to impose interoperability between messaging systems such as WhatsApp, Signal or Apple’s iMessage.

Violation of the rules could lead to fines as high as 10 percent of annual global sales with some MEPs calling for even tougher penalties for repeat offenders.

The big tech companies have lobbied hard against the new rules.

(With inputs from agencies)

Lawmakers in the European Union are giving final touches to a new law that would impact big tech companies like Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon. AFP quoted sources to say that talks between negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states on Thuesday may result in an agreement on the legislation.

Lawmakers in the European Union are giving final touches to a new law that would impact big tech companies like Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon. AFP quoted sources to say that talks between negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states on Thuesday may result in an agreement on the legislation. "We really expect that we can reach an agreement on Thursday, that we can endorse the Digital Markets Act," said French MEP Stephanie Yon-Courtin, a key backer of the law. This is a "a historic text that will clearly change the rules of the game," she added. Once adopted, it would give regulators in Brussels unparallelled power to take a close and up-to-the-minute look at business decisions by the giants, especially when they acquire promising startups. The rules would also set a list of do’s and don’ts including forcing Apple to open up its app store to competing payment systems -- a demand the iPhone maker has resisted arduously in courts for years. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) could also force Google and Meta-owned Facebook to reveal precious information from their world-dominating ad platforms, potentially leaving them vulnerable to new rivals. In their final push, lawmakers from the European Parliament would also like to impose interoperability between messaging systems such as WhatsApp, Signal or Apple’s iMessage. Violation of the rules could lead to fines as high as 10 percent of annual global sales with some MEPs calling for even tougher penalties for repeat offenders. The big tech companies have lobbied hard against the new rules. (With inputs from agencies)

EU gives final touches to law on Big Tech 

Australia’s media regulator will be able to force internet companies to share data regarding their handling of misinformation and disinformation under the laws passed by the government.<o:p></o:p>

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will also have the power to enforce an internet industry code on platforms which refuse to cooperate with the proceedings. The government said in their statement that this move is intended to reduce the spread of fake news.

<o:p>Also read |&nbsp;</o:p><a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/in-pics-in-a-historic-move-australia-returns-29-antiques-to-india-464233" hreflang="en">In Pics: In a historic move, Australia returns 29 antiques to India</a>

The laws came after an ACMA investigation which found that four out of five Australian adults have encountered some misinformation regarding COVID-19 and almost 76 per-cent believe that online platforms should take more responsibility in cutting down the amount of false content.<o:p></o:p>

The laws are somewhat similar to the standards imposed by Europe to curb false online content which will come into effect by the end of 2022. However, the European Union are looking at tougher measures in order to combat the misinformation campaign from Russia, according to Reuters.<o:p></o:p>

“Digital platforms must take responsibility for what is on their sites and take action when harmful or misleading content appears,” Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said in a statement.

<o:p>Also read |&nbsp;</o:p><a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/white-house-us-president-biden-to-visit-poland-on-europe-trip-this-week-464181">Ukraine-Russia conflict: US President Biden to visit Poland this week</a>

The authorities noted in the recent past that disinformation continue to target Australians and Facebook had removed four disinformation campaigns in Australia from 2019 to 2020, it said.<o:p></o:p>

A spokesperson for Labor’s shadow communications minister, Michelle Rowland, told Reuters the opposition supported the expanded powers but the government had taken too long to introduce them since they were recommended in 2019.<o:p></o:p>

Australia’s media regulator will be able to force internet companies to share data regarding their handling of misinformation and disinformation under the laws passed by the government.

Australia’s media regulator will be able to force internet companies to share data regarding their handling of misinformation and disinformation under the laws passed by the government. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will also have the power to enforce an internet industry code on platforms which refuse to cooperate with the proceedings. The government said in their statement that this move is intended to reduce the spread of fake news. Also read | In Pics: In a historic move, Australia returns 29 antiques to India The laws came after an ACMA investigation which found that four out of five Australian adults have encountered some misinformation regarding COVID-19 and almost 76 per-cent believe that online platforms should take more responsibility in cutting down the amount of false content. The laws are somewhat similar to the standards imposed by Europe to curb false online content which will come into effect by the end of 2022. However, the European Union are looking at tougher measures in order to combat the misinformation campaign from Russia, according to Reuters. “Digital platforms must take responsibility for what is on their sites and take action when harmful or misleading content appears,” Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said in a statement. Also read | Ukraine-Russia conflict: US President Biden to visit Poland this week The authorities noted in the recent past that disinformation continue to target Australians and Facebook had removed four disinformation campaigns in Australia from 2019 to 2020, it said. A spokesperson for Labor’s shadow communications minister, Michelle Rowland, told Reuters the opposition supported the expanded powers but the government had taken too long to introduce them since they were recommended in 2019.

Australia to battle misinformation with new regulations for big tech companies

From meatless meat to Web 3.0: Here are the tech trends that can dominate in 2022

Tech giants have announced&nbsp;an investment of billions of dollars to strengthen cybersecurity defenses and to train skilled workers.

It comes after the White House asked Big Tech, the finance industry, and key infrastructure companies to do more to tackle the growing&nbsp;cybersecurity&nbsp;threat&nbsp;in a meeting with President Joe Biden and members of his cabinet.

“The reality is most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone,” Biden said.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-plus-future-of-war-cyber-is-the-new-nuclear-397239/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

"The federal government can't meet this challenge alone," Biden told the masked executives, all seated at tables in the East Room.

Cybersecurity has risen to the top of the agenda for the Biden administration after a series of high-profile attacks on network management company SolarWinds Corp, the Colonial Pipeline company, meat processing company JBS and software firm Kaseya.

The attacks hurt the United States far beyond just the companies hacked, affecting fuel and food supplies.

Biden touched on ransomware attacks and said he had pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold people responsible for attacks when he met him earlier this year.

The guest list included Amazon.com Inc CEO Andy Jassy, Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft Corp CEO Satya Nadella, Google's parent Alphabet Inc CEO Sundar Pichai, and IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna.

Microsoft said it will invest $20 billion over five years, a four-fold increase from current rates, to speed up its&nbsp;cyber&nbsp;security work.

It will make available $150 million in technical services to help federal, state, and local governments to help keep their security systems up to date.

The meeting comes as Congress weighs legislation concerning data breach notification laws and&nbsp;cybersecurity insurance industry regulation, historically viewed as two of the most consequential policy areas within the field.

Executives for energy utility firm Southern Co and financial giant JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co are also expected to attend the event.

The event featured top&nbsp;cybersecurity officials from the Biden administration, including recently confirmed National&nbsp;Cybersecurity Director Chris Inglis, as well as Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, to lead different conversations with industry representatives.

(With inputs from agencies)

Tech giants have announced an investment of billions of dollars to strengthen cybersecurity defenses and to train skilled workers. It comes after the White House asked Big Tech, the finance industry, and key infrastructure companies to do more to tackle the growing cybersecurity threat in a meeting with President Joe Biden and members of his cabinet.

Tech giants have announced an investment of billions of dollars to strengthen cybersecurity defenses and to train skilled workers. It comes after the White House asked Big Tech, the finance industry, and key infrastructure companies to do more to tackle the growing cybersecurity threat in a meeting with President Joe Biden and members of his cabinet. “The reality is most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone,” Biden said. "The federal government can't meet this challenge alone," Biden told the masked executives, all seated at tables in the East Room. Cybersecurity has risen to the top of the agenda for the Biden administration after a series of high-profile attacks on network management company SolarWinds Corp, the Colonial Pipeline company, meat processing company JBS and software firm Kaseya. The attacks hurt the United States far beyond just the companies hacked, affecting fuel and food supplies. Biden touched on ransomware attacks and said he had pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold people responsible for attacks when he met him earlier this year. The guest list included Amazon.com Inc CEO Andy Jassy, Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft Corp CEO Satya Nadella, Google's parent Alphabet Inc CEO Sundar Pichai, and IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna. Microsoft said it will invest $20 billion over five years, a four-fold increase from current rates, to speed up its cyber security work. It will make available $150 million in technical services to help federal, state, and local governments to help keep their security systems up to date. The meeting comes as Congress weighs legislation concerning data breach notification laws and cybersecurity insurance industry regulation, historically viewed as two of the most consequential policy areas within the field. Executives for energy utility firm Southern Co and financial giant JPMorgan Chase & Co are also expected to attend the event. The event featured top cybersecurity officials from the Biden administration, including recently confirmed National Cybersecurity Director Chris Inglis, as well as Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, to lead different conversations with industry representatives. (With inputs from agencies)

Tech giants pledge billions for security against cyber threats

The last 20 months of this pandemic have been emotionally & financially crippling for millions around the world. But for tech titans, they've brought a dramatic reversal in fortunes.

COVID-19: Big tech gets bigger during pandemic

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit us thousands of businesses were thrown into chaos. The disruption was massive. But big tech has grown bigger. Apple revealed that it earned 21.7 billion dollars in last 3 months. Other big techs are having an amazing time as well.

Big tech grows bigger during pandemic times, Apple earns 21.7 billion dollars in 3 months

With the aim to&nbsp;tackle&nbsp;vaccine misinformation,&nbsp;White House&nbsp;has increased pressure over the Big Tech companies in the&nbsp;Silicon Valley.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The&nbsp;White House has&nbsp;singled out 12 people, who are&nbsp;being dubbed as the 'disinformation dozen’&nbsp;as they seem to have been&nbsp;responsible for a great deal of misinformation&nbsp;being circulated&nbsp;about COVID-19.&nbsp;

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said,&nbsp;"There's about 12 people,&nbsp;who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms."&nbsp;&nbsp;

The&nbsp;non-profit Centre&nbsp;for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has released the statistics&nbsp;in a report published in March, which said&nbsp;about a dozen people were super-spreaders of anti-vaccine misinformation.&nbsp;At the time, the CCDH had&nbsp;asked&nbsp;Facebook and Twitter to shut down all pages run by these people.&nbsp;

Earlier, Twitter was looking to deploy human monitors to crack down on disinformation as COVID-19 shots were being rolled out across the world.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

The microblogging platform&nbsp;was thinking of&nbsp;labelling&nbsp;tweets that include misleading information about coronavirus vaccines.&nbsp;

Twitter said it has started using human reviewers to assess whether tweets violate its policy against Covid vaccine misinformation. Eventually, the work will be done by a combination of humans and automation, it said.&nbsp;

It will be using a&nbsp;'strike system'&nbsp;to eventually remove accounts that repeatedly violate its rules.&nbsp;

"Through the use of the strike system, we hope to educate people on why certain content breaks our rules so they have the opportunity to further consider their&nbsp;behaviour&nbsp;and their impact on the public conversation," Twitter said in a blog post on Monday.&nbsp;

"We believe the strike system will help to educate the public on our policies and further reduce the spread of potentially harmful and misleading information on Twitter, particularly for repeated moderate and high-severity violations of our rules," the company said.&nbsp;

(With&nbsp;inputs from agencies)&nbsp;&nbsp;

With the aim to tackle vaccine misinformation, White House has increased pressure over the Big Tech companies in the Silicon Valley. The White House has singled out 12 people, who are being dubbed as the 'disinformation dozen’ as they seem to have been responsible for a great deal of misinformation being circulated about COVID-19.

With the aim to tackle vaccine misinformation, White House has increased pressure over the Big Tech companies in the Silicon Valley. The White House has singled out 12 people, who are being dubbed as the 'disinformation dozen’ as they seem to have been responsible for a great deal of misinformation being circulated about COVID-19. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, "There's about 12 people, who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms." The non-profit Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has released the statistics in a report published in March, which said about a dozen people were super-spreaders of anti-vaccine misinformation. At the time, the CCDH had asked Facebook and Twitter to shut down all pages run by these people. Earlier, Twitter was looking to deploy human monitors to crack down on disinformation as COVID-19 shots were being rolled out across the world. The microblogging platform was thinking of labelling tweets that include misleading information about coronavirus vaccines. Twitter said it has started using human reviewers to assess whether tweets violate its policy against Covid vaccine misinformation. Eventually, the work will be done by a combination of humans and automation, it said. It will be using a 'strike system' to eventually remove accounts that repeatedly violate its rules. "Through the use of the strike system, we hope to educate people on why certain content breaks our rules so they have the opportunity to further consider their behaviour and their impact on the public conversation," Twitter said in a blog post on Monday. "We believe the strike system will help to educate the public on our policies and further reduce the spread of potentially harmful and misleading information on Twitter, particularly for repeated moderate and high-severity violations of our rules," the company said. (With inputs from agencies)

White House increases pressure on Big Tech firms to act on vaccine misinformation 

Whatever else might be said about the curious lawsuits filed last week by former President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>, in which he accused three Big Tech companies of violating his First Amendment rights by denying him access to their platforms, it is fitting that he sued in Florida.

The state has long been on the cutting edge, and on the losing end, of efforts to force private companies to publish political messages to which they object.

Almost 50 years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a Florida law that would have allowed politicians a "right to reply"&nbsp;to newspaper articles critical of them. And late last month, a federal judge in Florida blocked a new state law that would have imposed large fines on some tech companies (but not those that own theme parks in the state, such as Disney) that "willfully deplatform a candidate for office."

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/three-real-nice-guys-donald-trump-to-sue-facebook-google-and-twitter-ceo-396572" hreflang="en">'Three real nice guys': Donald Trump to sue Facebook, Google and Twitter CEO</a>

Together, the two decisions, one from the Nixon era and the other issued June 30, demonstrate that the lawsuits Trump filed in Miami on Wednesday against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube face steep odds. The First Amendment applies to government censorship and not private activities, courts have said, and it protects publishers’ editorial judgments, including ones that decline to give politicians a forum.

The case that gave rise to the 1974 Supreme Court decision was brought by Pat Tornillo, who was displeased by colorful editorials in the Miami Herald opposing his candidacy for the Florida House of Representatives. The newspaper said Tornillo, a labor union official, had engaged in "shakedown statesmanship."

Tornillo invoked a Florida law that required newspapers to give candidates they criticized free space for a reply "in as conspicuous a place and in the same kind of type." The newspaper refused, lost in the state’s highest court and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/since-leaving-office-in-january-trump-charged-50000-from-secret-service-agents-protecting-him-396907" hreflang="en">Since leaving office in January, Trump charged $50,000 from secret service agents protecting him</a>

Tornillo and his supporters said, in Chief Justice Warren Burger’s summary, that “a communications revolution” and "the specter of a 'wired' nation" justified the law, as did "the vast accumulations of unreviewable power in the modern media empires."

All of that may be so, Burger wrote for a unanimous court. But the First Amendment, he wrote, does not permit the government to usurp the role of editors in deciding what ought to be published.

"A responsible press is an undoubtedly desirable goal," he wrote, "but press responsibility is not mandated by the Constitution, and like many other virtues it cannot be legislated."

Justice Byron White, who was often hostile to the news media, wrote in a concurring opinion that an unregulated and unruly press is better than the alternative of government control.

"Of course, the press is not always accurate, or even responsible, and may not present full and fair debate on important public issues," he wrote. "But the balance struck by the First Amendment with respect to the press is that society must take the risk that occasionally debate on vital matters will not be comprehensive and that all viewpoints may not be expressed."

Less than two weeks ago, Judge Robert Hinkle of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee blocked another Florida law, this one enacted in May and animated by some of the same ideas rejected by the Supreme Court in 1974. The law would impose fines on some social media platforms for exercising editorial judgments in declining to amplify the views of politicians who ran afoul of their standards.

In a statement issued when he signed the bill, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said the point of the law was to promote conservative viewpoints. "If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable," he said.

Hinkle cited the Tornillo decision but wrote that there are significant differences between newspapers and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

"Newspapers, unlike social media providers," he wrote, "create or select all their content, including op-eds and letters to the editor," he wrote. By contrast, he wrote, "something well north of 99 per cent&nbsp;of the content that makes it onto a social media site never gets reviewed further."

But the new law, Hinkle wrote, was aimed at "ideologically sensitive cases,"&nbsp;ones in which the platforms used discretion much as newspapers do.

"Those are the very cases on which the platforms are most likely to exercise editorial judgment," he wrote. "Indeed, the targets of the statutes at issue are the editorial judgments themselves."

Perhaps the oddest part of the law was its exclusion of social media providers under common ownership with large theme parks. That discrimination, an apparent favor to powerful local businesses, was reason enough to subject the law to the most demanding form of constitutional scrutiny, Hinkle wrote.

DeSantis has said the state will appeal, and there is at least one member of the Supreme Court who seems open to considering whether new technologies require new rules. In April, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a concurring opinion when the court turned down a case on whether Trump had violated the First Amendment by blocking people from his Twitter account, saying it was moot.

Thomas used the occasion to muse on a larger question, one pertinent to both the Florida law and Trump’s lawsuits.

"Today’s digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors,” he wrote. “Also unprecedented, however, is the concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties. We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms."

Whatever else might be said about the curious lawsuits filed last week by former President Donald Trump, in which he accused three Big Tech companies of violating his First Amendment rights by denying him access to their platforms, it is fitting that he sued in Florida.

Whatever else might be said about the curious lawsuits filed last week by former President Donald Trump, in which he accused three Big Tech companies of violating his First Amendment rights by denying him access to their platforms, it is fitting that he sued in Florida. The state has long been on the cutting edge, and on the losing end, of efforts to force private companies to publish political messages to which they object. Almost 50 years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a Florida law that would have allowed politicians a "right to reply" to newspaper articles critical of them. And late last month, a federal judge in Florida blocked a new state law that would have imposed large fines on some tech companies (but not those that own theme parks in the state, such as Disney) that "willfully deplatform a candidate for office." Also read | 'Three real nice guys': Donald Trump to sue Facebook, Google and Twitter CEO Together, the two decisions, one from the Nixon era and the other issued June 30, demonstrate that the lawsuits Trump filed in Miami on Wednesday against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube face steep odds. The First Amendment applies to government censorship and not private activities, courts have said, and it protects publishers’ editorial judgments, including ones that decline to give politicians a forum. The case that gave rise to the 1974 Supreme Court decision was brought by Pat Tornillo, who was displeased by colorful editorials in the Miami Herald opposing his candidacy for the Florida House of Representatives. The newspaper said Tornillo, a labor union official, had engaged in "shakedown statesmanship." Tornillo invoked a Florida law that required newspapers to give candidates they criticized free space for a reply "in as conspicuous a place and in the same kind of type." The newspaper refused, lost in the state’s highest court and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Also read | Since leaving office in January, Trump charged $50,000 from secret service agents protecting him Tornillo and his supporters said, in Chief Justice Warren Burger’s summary, that “a communications revolution” and "the specter of a 'wired' nation" justified the law, as did "the vast accumulations of unreviewable power in the modern media empires." All of that may be so, Burger wrote for a unanimous court. But the First Amendment, he wrote, does not permit the government to usurp the role of editors in deciding what ought to be published. "A responsible press is an undoubtedly desirable goal," he wrote, "but press responsibility is not mandated by the Constitution, and like many other virtues it cannot be legislated." Justice Byron White, who was often hostile to the news media, wrote in a concurring opinion that an unregulated and unruly press is better than the alternative of government control. "Of course, the press is not always accurate, or even responsible, and may not present full and fair debate on important public issues," he wrote. "But the balance struck by the First Amendment with respect to the press is that society must take the risk that occasionally debate on vital matters will not be comprehensive and that all viewpoints may not be expressed." Less than two weeks ago, Judge Robert Hinkle of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee blocked another Florida law, this one enacted in May and animated by some of the same ideas rejected by the Supreme Court in 1974. The law would impose fines on some social media platforms for exercising editorial judgments in declining to amplify the views of politicians who ran afoul of their standards. In a statement issued when he signed the bill, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said the point of the law was to promote conservative viewpoints. "If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable," he said. Hinkle cited the Tornillo decision but wrote that there are significant differences between newspapers and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. "Newspapers, unlike social media providers," he wrote, "create or select all their content, including op-eds and letters to the editor," he wrote. By contrast, he wrote, "something well north of 99 per cent of the content that makes it onto a social media site never gets reviewed further." But the new law, Hinkle wrote, was aimed at "ideologically sensitive cases," ones in which the platforms used discretion much as newspapers do. "Those are the very cases on which the platforms are most likely to exercise editorial judgment," he wrote. "Indeed, the targets of the statutes at issue are the editorial judgments themselves." Perhaps the oddest part of the law was its exclusion of social media providers under common ownership with large theme parks. That discrimination, an apparent favor to powerful local businesses, was reason enough to subject the law to the most demanding form of constitutional scrutiny, Hinkle wrote. DeSantis has said the state will appeal, and there is at least one member of the Supreme Court who seems open to considering whether new technologies require new rules. In April, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a concurring opinion when the court turned down a case on whether Trump had violated the First Amendment by blocking people from his Twitter account, saying it was moot. Thomas used the occasion to muse on a larger question, one pertinent to both the Florida law and Trump’s lawsuits. "Today’s digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors,” he wrote. “Also unprecedented, however, is the concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties. We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms."

Trump suits against tech giants face steep first amendment hurdles

Jaishankar’s remarks came against the backdrop of a tussle between social media giant Twitter and the Indian government following the implementation of controversial new digital media rules.

Jaishankar calls for debate on responsibility, accountability of Big Tech firms

The&nbsp;House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved five antitrust bills, three of them aimed at Big Tech, and will take up the last and most aggressive proposed legislation on Thursday, a bill that could require platforms to sell off lines of business.

In a marathon session that adjourned in the early morning hours, House Judiciary Committee members approved five of six bills that take aim at the business practices of Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/apple-google-come-under-fire-at-senate-antitrust-hearing-379173/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

One of the measures would ban online platforms from favoring their own products and services -- responding to complaints that dominant tech firms discriminate against, and crush rivals.

In a session marked by numerous attempts to amend or water down the legislation, the committee also approved an "interoperability" requirement for platforms that would make it easier for users to switch services while keeping their data, and a separate bill banning takeovers of rivals by large tech firms.

When the committee resumes work, it will take up what some call the "break 'em up" bill. This would require a platform, again like Amazon, to sell any business that competes with other businesses using its platform.

There has been vociferous opposition to that bill and others, including from the US&nbsp;Chamber of Commerce, Amazon, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/in-focus-big-tech-firms-facing-antitrust-investigations-across-world-393413" hreflang="en">In focus: Big Tech firms facing antitrust investigations across world</a>

Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler said the package of bills is aimed at "a small set of online platforms (which) have become gatekeepers for much of the digital marketplace" and argued that "in many cases, businesses and consumers no longer have meaningful alternatives online."

The bills head to the full House of Representatives where a contentious debate is expected, amid fierce opposition from the tech sector and allies. Any bills would need passage of both the House and Senate and the president's signature.

The legislation would restrict how online platforms operate, and potentially set the stage for a breakup by limiting their ability to offer services on the marketplaces they run.

Republican Representative Darrell Issa noted that the committee was considering "radical" reforms worthy of weeks of hearings rather than one marathon session.

"I believe many of these bills are going to die in the Senate if they ever get out of the House," Issa said.

Clash points included whether it is right to target laws at four big tech companies and whether government agencies will hobble them instead of letting them adapt to the competition.

Republican Representative Ken Buck, a supporter of the overhaul, said the legislation "represents a scalpel, not a chainsaw, to deal with the most important aspects of antitrust reform," in dealing with "these monopolists (who) routinely use their gatekeeper power to crush competitors, harm innovation and destroy the free market."

But Republican Jim Jordan criticized the effort, renewing his argument that Big Tech firms suppress conservative voices.

"These bills don't fix that problem -- &nbsp;they make it worse," Jordan said. "They don't break up Big Tech. They don't stop censorship."

Steve Chabot, another Republican, called the initiative "an effort for big government to take over Big Tech."

Tech firms and others warned of negative consequences for popular services people rely on, potentially forcing Apple to remove its messaging apps from the iPhone or Google to stop displaying results from YouTube or Maps.

Apple released a report arguing that one likely impact -- opening up the iPhone to apps from outside platforms -- could create security and privacy risks for users.

Forcing Apple to allow "sideloading" of apps would mean "malicious actors would take advantage of the opportunity by devoting more resources to develop sophisticated attacks targeting iOS users," the report said.

Amazon vice president Brian Huseman likewise warned of "significant negative effects," both for sellers and consumers using the e-commerce platform, and reduced-price competition.

"It will be much harder for these third-party sellers to create awareness for their business," Huseman said.&nbsp;

"Removing the selection of these sellers from Amazon's store would also create less price competition for products, and likely end up increasing prices for consumers. The committee is moving unnecessarily fast in pushing these bills forward."

(With inputs from agencies)

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved five antitrust bills, three of them aimed at Big Tech, and will take up the last and most aggressive proposed legislation on Thursday, a bill that could require platforms to sell off lines of business.

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved five antitrust bills, three of them aimed at Big Tech, and will take up the last and most aggressive proposed legislation on Thursday, a bill that could require platforms to sell off lines of business. In a marathon session that adjourned in the early morning hours, House Judiciary Committee members approved five of six bills that take aim at the business practices of Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook. One of the measures would ban online platforms from favoring their own products and services -- responding to complaints that dominant tech firms discriminate against, and crush rivals. In a session marked by numerous attempts to amend or water down the legislation, the committee also approved an "interoperability" requirement for platforms that would make it easier for users to switch services while keeping their data, and a separate bill banning takeovers of rivals by large tech firms. When the committee resumes work, it will take up what some call the "break 'em up" bill. This would require a platform, again like Amazon, to sell any business that competes with other businesses using its platform. There has been vociferous opposition to that bill and others, including from the US Chamber of Commerce, Amazon, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google. Also read| In focus: Big Tech firms facing antitrust investigations across world Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler said the package of bills is aimed at "a small set of online platforms (which) have become gatekeepers for much of the digital marketplace" and argued that "in many cases, businesses and consumers no longer have meaningful alternatives online." The bills head to the full House of Representatives where a contentious debate is expected, amid fierce opposition from the tech sector and allies. Any bills would need passage of both the House and Senate and the president's signature. The legislation would restrict how online platforms operate, and potentially set the stage for a breakup by limiting their ability to offer services on the marketplaces they run. Republican Representative Darrell Issa noted that the committee was considering "radical" reforms worthy of weeks of hearings rather than one marathon session. "I believe many of these bills are going to die in the Senate if they ever get out of the House," Issa said. Clash points included whether it is right to target laws at four big tech companies and whether government agencies will hobble them instead of letting them adapt to the competition. Republican Representative Ken Buck, a supporter of the overhaul, said the legislation "represents a scalpel, not a chainsaw, to deal with the most important aspects of antitrust reform," in dealing with "these monopolists (who) routinely use their gatekeeper power to crush competitors, harm innovation and destroy the free market." But Republican Jim Jordan criticized the effort, renewing his argument that Big Tech firms suppress conservative voices. "These bills don't fix that problem -- they make it worse," Jordan said. "They don't break up Big Tech. They don't stop censorship." Steve Chabot, another Republican, called the initiative "an effort for big government to take over Big Tech." Tech firms and others warned of negative consequences for popular services people rely on, potentially forcing Apple to remove its messaging apps from the iPhone or Google to stop displaying results from YouTube or Maps. Apple released a report arguing that one likely impact -- opening up the iPhone to apps from outside platforms -- could create security and privacy risks for users. Forcing Apple to allow "sideloading" of apps would mean "malicious actors would take advantage of the opportunity by devoting more resources to develop sophisticated attacks targeting iOS users," the report said. Amazon vice president Brian Huseman likewise warned of "significant negative effects," both for sellers and consumers using the e-commerce platform, and reduced-price competition. "It will be much harder for these third-party sellers to create awareness for their business," Huseman said. "Removing the selection of these sellers from Amazon's store would also create less price competition for products, and likely end up increasing prices for consumers. The committee is moving unnecessarily fast in pushing these bills forward." (With inputs from agencies)

'Break them up': US House panel approves five antitrust bills aimed at Big Tech

US&nbsp;President Joe Biden believes steps are needed to safeguard privacy, bolster innovation and deal with other problems created by big technology platforms, the White House said on Tuesday, signaling his support for legislation concerning Big Tech. 
 
Biden is encouraged by bipartisan work underway in Congress to tackle these issues, the official said, a day before the US&nbsp;House Judiciary Committee votes on a package of antitrust bills, some of which target the market power of large tech firms. 
 
"These platforms have transformed our daily lives, and showcase our country's ingenuity and potential, but also create real problems for users, small businesses, and tech startups," said the White House official. 
 
"The president believes we need to address the problems these platforms create to protect privacy, generate more innovation, and make sure the great tech companies of the future can emerge and grow right here in the US," the official said. 
 
The House Judiciary Committee will vote on Wednesday on a package of six antitrust bills, including two that address the issue of giant companies, such as Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google, creating a platform for other businesses and then competing against those same businesses. 
 
The legislation drew fire on Tuesday from the US&nbsp;Chamber of Commerce, the largest US&nbsp;business group, which warned it would have 'dangerous consequences for America'. 
 
It said antitrust laws 'should not be rigged against a small number of companies'. 
 
The White House hoped the bipartisan proposals would move forward in the legislative process and looked forward to working with Congress on the issue, the official added. 
 
In a separate development, the Federal Trade Commission, whose new chairwoman has been critical of Amazon, has decided to review the company`s planned purchase of US&nbsp;movie studio MGM, a source familiar with the matter said. 
 
Lina Khan was sworn in as FTC chair on June 15 in what was broadly seen as a victory for progressives seeking tougher antitrust enforcement. 
 
(With inputs from agencies)

US President Joe Biden believes steps are needed to safeguard privacy, bolster innovation and deal with other problems created by big technology platforms, the White House said on Tuesday, signaling his support for legislation concerning Big Tech.

US President Joe Biden believes steps are needed to safeguard privacy, bolster innovation and deal with other problems created by big technology platforms, the White House said on Tuesday, signaling his support for legislation concerning Big Tech. Biden is encouraged by bipartisan work underway in Congress to tackle these issues, the official said, a day before the US House Judiciary Committee votes on a package of antitrust bills, some of which target the market power of large tech firms. "These platforms have transformed our daily lives, and showcase our country's ingenuity and potential, but also create real problems for users, small businesses, and tech startups," said the White House official. "The president believes we need to address the problems these platforms create to protect privacy, generate more innovation, and make sure the great tech companies of the future can emerge and grow right here in the US," the official said. The House Judiciary Committee will vote on Wednesday on a package of six antitrust bills, including two that address the issue of giant companies, such as Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google, creating a platform for other businesses and then competing against those same businesses. The legislation drew fire on Tuesday from the US Chamber of Commerce, the largest US business group, which warned it would have 'dangerous consequences for America'. It said antitrust laws 'should not be rigged against a small number of companies'. The White House hoped the bipartisan proposals would move forward in the legislative process and looked forward to working with Congress on the issue, the official added. In a separate development, the Federal Trade Commission, whose new chairwoman has been critical of Amazon, has decided to review the company`s planned purchase of US movie studio MGM, a source familiar with the matter said. Lina Khan was sworn in as FTC chair on June 15 in what was broadly seen as a victory for progressives seeking tougher antitrust enforcement. (With inputs from agencies)

Biden sees work needed to address problems created by big tech firms: White House

Tech companies both large and small&nbsp;have found themselves dependent on the arbitrary whim of Big Tech, one algorithm tweak away from ruin.

The&nbsp;decisions made by tech giants are largely unaccountable, opaque, and result in sweeping consequences, the dominant platforms effectively serve as private regulators.

To break up their monopoly, regulatory battles have broken out across the world to curb the rising influence and diminishing responsibility of these tech giants.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon&nbsp;and Apple are a part of the&nbsp;'hit list'&nbsp;that will be facing new and tougher rules aimed at curbing their dominant market position and its misuse.

They are facing the biggest threat from&nbsp;the European Union and the United States Congress, which are introducing&nbsp;rules that will force the companies to share data with rivals and be more transparent on how they gather information.

Democrats from a US&nbsp;House of Representatives subcommittee issued a report&nbsp;detailing tactics they said four of the biggest technology companies used to gain dominant positioning in online search, advertising, social networking shopping, and other businesses.

AMAZON 
Amazon.com Inc sells its own products as well as goods from independent merchants on a single platform. The Congressional report alleged that Amazon has "monopoly power" over many of these merchants, which "do not have a viable alternative to Amazon for reaching online consumers."

US&nbsp;Senator Amy Klobuchar said that the company&nbsp;needs to offer more details about how its&nbsp;smart-home devices and virtual assistants will support competition and user privacy.

The&nbsp;House Judiciary Committee is all set&nbsp;take up a package of six antitrust bills on Wednesday.

Before the beginning of the session,&nbsp;Amazon's Brian Huseman, vice president of public policy, said&nbsp;the company believed that the bills "would have significant negative effects on the hundreds of thousands of American small- and medium-sized businesses that sell in our store, and tens of millions of consumers who buy products from&nbsp;Amazon."

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) launched an investigation in January last year after a complaint accused Flipkart and&nbsp;Amazon&nbsp;of promoting select sellers on their e-commerce platforms and using deep discounts to stifle competition.

Amazon was accused of favoring big sellers on its India platform – and used them to maneuver around rules meant to protect the country's small retailers from getting crushed by e-commerce giants.

India proposed banning flash sales on e-commerce websites and said their affiliate entities should not be listed as sellers on their platforms, in a proposed tightening of rules that could hit Amazon and Flipkart, owned by Walmart.

APPLE 
Apple has a monopoly on distributing software onto the iPhone. Apple used that monopoly power to charge above-market prices to developers in the form of a 30 per cent&nbsp;commission on App Store sales, to exclude rival apps and services, and to misappropriate data from developers and use it to create competing services and features.

A former App Store employee told lawmakers that the App Store costs Apple merely an estimated $100 million per year to run, while it generates billions of dollars in revenue.

Meanwhile, Apple boss Tim Cook took aim on Wednesday at proposed European rules aimed at curbing the power of US tech giants, saying they could pose security and privacy risks to iPhones.

Cook, in his first public comments about the Digital Markets Act (DMA) proposed by EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, said parts of it were good but others were not.

He said he feared the draft rules would lead to more installing of apps that do not come via Apple's App Store, or "side-loading".

"You take an example here where I don't think it's in the best interest (of the user): the current DMA language that is being discussed would force side-loading on the iPhone," the Apple CEO, speaking remotely, said at VivaTech, France´s biggest tech conference.

"And so this would be an ultimate way of getting apps onto the iPhone," he said. "It would destroy the security of the iPhone, and a lot of the privacy initiatives that we've built into the App Store or the privacy intrusion labels and app-tracking transparency," he added.

Earlier this month, EU lawmaker Andreas Schwab, who is leading the European Parliament scrutiny of the draft rules, said he wanted to beef up the legislation and narrow its scope to just big companies like Google Amazon, Apple, and Facebook.

Apple would take part in the debate and try to find a way forward, Cook said.

FACEBOOK 
Facebook holds monopoly power in the “social networking” market, which it distinguished from the market for more content-centric social media products like YouTube and TikTok.

Facebook secured its dominance in that highly concentrated market by identifying nascent rivals and copying, acquiring or killing them off before they could mature into competitive threats, the US Congressional report said.

The company’s two biggest acquisitions, of Instagram and WhatsApp, fit that pattern. The US report&nbsp;also accused Facebook of selectively enforcing its platform policies to defuse a threat from video-sharing app Vine, which Twitter shut down in 2016.

Regulatory experts stopped short of recommending a breakup of Facebook, but propose boosting the budgets of antitrust enforcers and allowing them more leeway to stop companies from purchasing would-be rivals.

That could strengthen regulators’ hands in current investigations into Facebook’s alleged anti-competitive practices and make future transactions trickier.

GOOGLE 
Google has used restrictive customer and partner contracts and other means to ensure its own services are favored over those of competitors in search, phone and tablet software, advertising technology, and mapping technology.

For instance, the House Judiciary Committee&nbsp;found in internal Google documents that top executives such as now-Chief Executive Sundar Pichai approved stiff-arming partners to make sure Google search, in the company’s own words, was “front and centre” on mobile devices.

When one hardware manufacturer in 2014 complained about its devices being overloaded with required Google apps, the search giant blamed it for not making gadgets with more memory.

The US Congress is planning to pass nondiscrimination and bargaining laws requiring big service providers such as Google to provide fair access to their systems.

Such a rule could give a leg-up to device makers, ad tech companies, and app developers that want to shift from Google tools.

Also in the US, reports emerged that a group of state attorneys general may file a lawsuit against Alphabet Inc's&nbsp;Google&nbsp;as early as next week, accusing the search and advertising giant of violating antitrust law in running Google Play, its mobile app store.

The European Commission, meanwhile, is&nbsp;investigating whether&nbsp;Google&nbsp;distorts competition by restricting third party access to user data for advertising purposes on websites and apps, while reserving such data for its own use.

"We are concerned that&nbsp;Google&nbsp;has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

YOUTUBE

About 1.6 million views on YouTube out of every 1 billion are of a video that violates its content policies, about even a year ago, the streaming service owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google said in a new disclosure.

The “violative view rate” (VVR) has dropped over 70 per cent&nbsp;since it was first tracked in the fourth quarter of 2017, YouTube said, and demonstrates its progress in blocking hate speech and other videos it considers dangerous before they go viral.

Critics have said inadequate policing by YouTube and other social media companies enables false and hateful rhetoric to spread, fomenting deadly violence such as the US&nbsp;Capitol attack in January.

YouTube’s VVR was steady over the last six quarters measured, according to the new data, which run through 2020.

Jennifer O’Connor, a product director at YouTube, told reporters that she hoped releasing the estimate each quarter “continues to hold us accountable.”

She said the rate, like other enforcement data YouTube releases, could fluctuate as its technology, rules and users evolve. For instance, YouTube removed nearly 171,000 channels for hate speech in the fourth quarter, three times more than the preceding period. It attributed the jump to improved detection technology.

The VVR comprises all policy violations and is derived from a sampling of videos. It does not include comments on videos.

Tech companies both large and small have found themselves dependent on the arbitrary whim of Big Tech, one algorithm tweak away from ruin. The decisions made by tech giants are largely unaccountable, opaque, and result in sweeping consequences, the dominant platforms effectively serve as private regulators.

Tech companies both large and small have found themselves dependent on the arbitrary whim of Big Tech, one algorithm tweak away from ruin. The decisions made by tech giants are largely unaccountable, opaque, and result in sweeping consequences, the dominant platforms effectively serve as private regulators. To break up their monopoly, regulatory battles have broken out across the world to curb the rising influence and diminishing responsibility of these tech giants. Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon and Apple are a part of the 'hit list' that will be facing new and tougher rules aimed at curbing their dominant market position and its misuse. They are facing the biggest threat from the European Union and the United States Congress, which are introducing rules that will force the companies to share data with rivals and be more transparent on how they gather information. Democrats from a US House of Representatives subcommittee issued a report detailing tactics they said four of the biggest technology companies used to gain dominant positioning in online search, advertising, social networking shopping, and other businesses. AMAZON Amazon.com Inc sells its own products as well as goods from independent merchants on a single platform. The Congressional report alleged that Amazon has "monopoly power" over many of these merchants, which "do not have a viable alternative to Amazon for reaching online consumers." US Senator Amy Klobuchar said that the company needs to offer more details about how its smart-home devices and virtual assistants will support competition and user privacy. The House Judiciary Committee is all set take up a package of six antitrust bills on Wednesday. Before the beginning of the session, Amazon's Brian Huseman, vice president of public policy, said the company believed that the bills "would have significant negative effects on the hundreds of thousands of American small- and medium-sized businesses that sell in our store, and tens of millions of consumers who buy products from Amazon." The Competition Commission of India (CCI) launched an investigation in January last year after a complaint accused Flipkart and Amazon of promoting select sellers on their e-commerce platforms and using deep discounts to stifle competition. Amazon was accused of favoring big sellers on its India platform – and used them to maneuver around rules meant to protect the country's small retailers from getting crushed by e-commerce giants. India proposed banning flash sales on e-commerce websites and said their affiliate entities should not be listed as sellers on their platforms, in a proposed tightening of rules that could hit Amazon and Flipkart, owned by Walmart. APPLE Apple has a monopoly on distributing software onto the iPhone. Apple used that monopoly power to charge above-market prices to developers in the form of a 30 per cent commission on App Store sales, to exclude rival apps and services, and to misappropriate data from developers and use it to create competing services and features. A former App Store employee told lawmakers that the App Store costs Apple merely an estimated $100 million per year to run, while it generates billions of dollars in revenue. Meanwhile, Apple boss Tim Cook took aim on Wednesday at proposed European rules aimed at curbing the power of US tech giants, saying they could pose security and privacy risks to iPhones. Cook, in his first public comments about the Digital Markets Act (DMA) proposed by EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, said parts of it were good but others were not. He said he feared the draft rules would lead to more installing of apps that do not come via Apple's App Store, or "side-loading". "You take an example here where I don't think it's in the best interest (of the user): the current DMA language that is being discussed would force side-loading on the iPhone," the Apple CEO, speaking remotely, said at VivaTech, France´s biggest tech conference. "And so this would be an ultimate way of getting apps onto the iPhone," he said. "It would destroy the security of the iPhone, and a lot of the privacy initiatives that we've built into the App Store or the privacy intrusion labels and app-tracking transparency," he added. Earlier this month, EU lawmaker Andreas Schwab, who is leading the European Parliament scrutiny of the draft rules, said he wanted to beef up the legislation and narrow its scope to just big companies like Google Amazon, Apple, and Facebook. Apple would take part in the debate and try to find a way forward, Cook said. FACEBOOK Facebook holds monopoly power in the “social networking” market, which it distinguished from the market for more content-centric social media products like YouTube and TikTok. Facebook secured its dominance in that highly concentrated market by identifying nascent rivals and copying, acquiring or killing them off before they could mature into competitive threats, the US Congressional report said. The company’s two biggest acquisitions, of Instagram and WhatsApp, fit that pattern. The US report also accused Facebook of selectively enforcing its platform policies to defuse a threat from video-sharing app Vine, which Twitter shut down in 2016. Regulatory experts stopped short of recommending a breakup of Facebook, but propose boosting the budgets of antitrust enforcers and allowing them more leeway to stop companies from purchasing would-be rivals. That could strengthen regulators’ hands in current investigations into Facebook’s alleged anti-competitive practices and make future transactions trickier. GOOGLE Google has used restrictive customer and partner contracts and other means to ensure its own services are favored over those of competitors in search, phone and tablet software, advertising technology, and mapping technology. For instance, the House Judiciary Committee found in internal Google documents that top executives such as now-Chief Executive Sundar Pichai approved stiff-arming partners to make sure Google search, in the company’s own words, was “front and centre” on mobile devices. When one hardware manufacturer in 2014 complained about its devices being overloaded with required Google apps, the search giant blamed it for not making gadgets with more memory. The US Congress is planning to pass nondiscrimination and bargaining laws requiring big service providers such as Google to provide fair access to their systems. Such a rule could give a leg-up to device makers, ad tech companies, and app developers that want to shift from Google tools. Also in the US, reports emerged that a group of state attorneys general may file a lawsuit against Alphabet Inc's Google as early as next week, accusing the search and advertising giant of violating antitrust law in running Google Play, its mobile app store. The European Commission, meanwhile, is investigating whether Google distorts competition by restricting third party access to user data for advertising purposes on websites and apps, while reserving such data for its own use. "We are concerned that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. YOUTUBE About 1.6 million views on YouTube out of every 1 billion are of a video that violates its content policies, about even a year ago, the streaming service owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google said in a new disclosure. The “violative view rate” (VVR) has dropped over 70 per cent since it was first tracked in the fourth quarter of 2017, YouTube said, and demonstrates its progress in blocking hate speech and other videos it considers dangerous before they go viral. Critics have said inadequate policing by YouTube and other social media companies enables false and hateful rhetoric to spread, fomenting deadly violence such as the US Capitol attack in January. YouTube’s VVR was steady over the last six quarters measured, according to the new data, which run through 2020. Jennifer O’Connor, a product director at YouTube, told reporters that she hoped releasing the estimate each quarter “continues to hold us accountable.” She said the rate, like other enforcement data YouTube releases, could fluctuate as its technology, rules and users evolve. For instance, YouTube removed nearly 171,000 channels for hate speech in the fourth quarter, three times more than the preceding period. It attributed the jump to improved detection technology. The VVR comprises all policy violations and is derived from a sampling of videos. It does not include comments on videos.

In focus: Big Tech firms facing antitrust investigations across world

From fines to guidelines, governments are moving to end Big Tech's unregulated run. How will this rivalry shape our society? Will Big Tech yield to government pressure?

Gravitas: Governments move to end Big Tech's free run

Social media has been accused of manipulating the narrative in the Gaza conflict, muffling voices and amplifying fake news. On The West Asia Post, Ghadi Francis decodes how Big Tech is controlling this conflict.

The West Asia Post | Big Tech takes sides in Gaza conflict

Germany's competition authority has opened inquiry into retail giant Amazon over potential 'anti-competitive practices'. The inquiry has been opened using a new law that gives regulators more teeth to control big t ech companies.

Federal Cartel Office head Andreas Mundt said his office is examining whether Amazon has "an almost unchallengeable position of economic power" and whether it "operates across various markets".

If so, it could be deemed of "paramount significance", said Mundt, adding that the regulator could "take early action against and prohibit possible anti-competitive practices by Amazon".

"This could apply to Amazon with its online marketplaces and many other, above all digital offers," he added.

In a statement to AFP, an Amazon spokesperson said the company "cannot comment on ongoing proceedings and will fully cooperate with the FCO".

Under the amendment to Germany's competition law passed in January, the watchdog said it now has more power to "intervene earlier and more effectively" against big tech companies, rather than simply punishing them for abuses of their dominant market position.

Reforms in Germany coincided with new European Union draft legislation that was unveiled in December. The draft legislation was aimed at curbing the power of the tech companies. This can potentially shake-up the way Silicon Valley operates in the European Union.

The push to tighten legislation comes as big tech companies are facing increasing scrutiny around the globe, including in the United States, where Google and Facebook are facing antitrust suits.&nbsp;

The Amazon probe is only the second time that Germany's Federal Cartel Office has made use of its new powers, after first employing them to widen the scope of an investigation into Facebook over its integration of virtual reality headsets.

The watchdog already has two traditional abuse control proceedings open against Amazon.

(With inputs from agencies)

Germany's competition authority has opened inquiry into retail giant Amazon over potential 'anti-competitive practices'. The inquiry has been opened using a new law that gives regulators more teeth to control big t ech companies.

Germany's competition authority has opened inquiry into retail giant Amazon over potential 'anti-competitive practices'. The inquiry has been opened using a new law that gives regulators more teeth to control big t ech companies. Federal Cartel Office head Andreas Mundt said his office is examining whether Amazon has "an almost unchallengeable position of economic power" and whether it "operates across various markets". If so, it could be deemed of "paramount significance", said Mundt, adding that the regulator could "take early action against and prohibit possible anti-competitive practices by Amazon". "This could apply to Amazon with its online marketplaces and many other, above all digital offers," he added. In a statement to AFP, an Amazon spokesperson said the company "cannot comment on ongoing proceedings and will fully cooperate with the FCO". Under the amendment to Germany's competition law passed in January, the watchdog said it now has more power to "intervene earlier and more effectively" against big tech companies, rather than simply punishing them for abuses of their dominant market position. Reforms in Germany coincided with new European Union draft legislation that was unveiled in December. The draft legislation was aimed at curbing the power of the tech companies. This can potentially shake-up the way Silicon Valley operates in the European Union. The push to tighten legislation comes as big tech companies are facing increasing scrutiny around the globe, including in the United States, where Google and Facebook are facing antitrust suits. The Amazon probe is only the second time that Germany's Federal Cartel Office has made use of its new powers, after first employing them to widen the scope of an investigation into Facebook over its integration of virtual reality headsets. The watchdog already has two traditional abuse control proceedings open against Amazon. (With inputs from agencies)

Germany: Antitrust probe opened into Amazon using tougher law

A senator from the United States wants to ban all future purchases from Big Tech. Josh Hawley, a Republican on Monday introduced a bill banning all mergers and acquisitions by any big company which is valued over $100 billion.

The over $100 billion category includes five big US tech companies. Hawley has accused big social media companies of clipping conservative voices along with criticism of pharmaceuticals, which he felt held too much market power.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/us-house-antitrust-chairman-plans-multiple-bills-to-go-after-big-tech-372191/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

The new bill would ban companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Facebook from making future deals and would also stop them from favouring and prioritising their own products over different platforms.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/technology/us-lawmakers-press-big-tech-for-internal-research-on-kids-mental-health-374497" hreflang="en">US lawmakers press Big Tech for internal research on kids' mental health</a>

Earlier, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar had introduced a similar bill. The antitrust bill was introduced in February and included similar measures.

Hawley, while referring to Klobuchar’s bill said the following - "I'm willing to work with her and anybody of any party and any background. I like a lot of what Senator Klobuchar has proposed."

He also referred to his bill as "significantly tougher."

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/biden-campaign-received-usd-15-million-in-donations-from-big-tech-employees-report-365201" hreflang="en">Biden campaign received USD 15 million in donations from big tech employees: Report</a>

In the House of Representatives, David Cicilline has put forward plans to introduce a series of antitrust bills. Reuters also reported that Hawley remains undecided on his support for Lina Khan, who had been nominated to be a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, which works with the US Justice Department to keep antitrust laws running.

Hawley, while referring to her said that he “very impressed”, but also said that “he has not made a final decision”.

A senator from the United States wants to ban all future purchases from Big Tech. Josh Hawley, a Republican on Monday introduced a bill banning all mergers and acquisitions by any big company which is valued over $100 billion.

A senator from the United States wants to ban all future purchases from Big Tech. Josh Hawley, a Republican on Monday introduced a bill banning all mergers and acquisitions by any big company which is valued over $100 billion. The over $100 billion category includes five big US tech companies. Hawley has accused big social media companies of clipping conservative voices along with criticism of pharmaceuticals, which he felt held too much market power. The new bill would ban companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Facebook from making future deals and would also stop them from favouring and prioritising their own products over different platforms. Also read: US lawmakers press Big Tech for internal research on kids' mental health Earlier, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar had introduced a similar bill. The antitrust bill was introduced in February and included similar measures. Hawley, while referring to Klobuchar’s bill said the following - "I'm willing to work with her and anybody of any party and any background. I like a lot of what Senator Klobuchar has proposed." He also referred to his bill as "significantly tougher." Also read: Biden campaign received USD 15 million in donations from big tech employees: Report In the House of Representatives, David Cicilline has put forward plans to introduce a series of antitrust bills. Reuters also reported that Hawley remains undecided on his support for Lina Khan, who had been nominated to be a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, which works with the US Justice Department to keep antitrust laws running. Hawley, while referring to her said that he “very impressed”, but also said that “he has not made a final decision”.

US senator introduces bill to ban Big Tech from foreign acquisitions

Hawley’s bill tackles some of the same problems as an antitrust bill introduced by Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar in February and contains some similar measures.

Republican senator wants to ban Big Tech from buying anything ever again

big-tech

Big Tech, News on Big Tech, stories on Big Tech, articles on Big Tech, Big Tech stories at Wion, Big Tech news, Big Tech latest news