Stories from Abroad

Facebook is testing a major change that would shift non-promoted posts out of its news feed, a move that could be catastrophic for publishers relying on the social network for their audience. A new system being trialled in six countries including Slovakia, Serbia and Sri Lanka sees almost all non-promoted posts shifted over to a secondary feed, leaving the main feed focused entirely on original content from friends, and advertisements.

The change has seen users’ engagement with Facebook pages drop precipitously, by 60% to 80% . If replicated more broadly, such a change would destroy many smaller publishers, as well as larger ones with an outsized reliance on social media referrals for visitors.

With Alphabet’s engineering resources, Jigsaw translates this research into internet tools that combat hate speech, detect fake news, and defend against cyberattacks. Jigsaw CEO Jared Cohen’s eight-day visit to Pakistan in December provided firsthand insights into what methods extremists are now using to recruit new members online, which Jigsaw aims to circumvent using targeted advertising to counter terrorist propaganda. Although Cohen’s mission sounds philanthropic, Jigsaw operates as a business, no different from any of Alphabet’s moonshots. Yet Cohen says there’s no stress on the group to generate a profit. For now, its value to the enterprise is the ancillary benefits of protecting Google’s myriad other businesses—Android, Gmail, YouTube—from the world’s worst digital threats. And if, in the process, Jigsaw can help address some of the most acute unintended consequences of digital communication, all the better.

“I don’t think it’s fair to ask the government to solve all these problems—they don’t have the resources,” says Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt. “The tech industry has a responsibility to get this right.”

[Commentary] The European Union’s law “laying down measures concerning open internet access” came into force in 2016. After a year with the law on the books, telecom regulators across Europe have submitted compliance reports to the supervisory Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the European Commission. While no bad internet service providers (ISPs) or violations have emerged, a regulatory bureaucracy is growing because of the law. 

[Commentary] The European Union’s law “laying down measures concerning open internet access” came into force in 2016. After a year with the law on the books, telecom regulators across Europe have submitted compliance reports to the supervisory Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the European Commission. While no bad internet service providers (ISPs) or violations have emerged, a regulatory bureaucracy is growing because of the law.

[Roslyn Layton was a member of the Trump FCC transition team, and is a visiting researcher at Aalborg University Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies and a vice president at Strand Consult, both in Denmark.]

CIA Director Mike Pompeo declared that US intelligence agencies determined that Russia’s interference in the 2016 American presidential election did not alter the outcome, a statement that distorted spy agency findings. “The intelligence community’s assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election,” Pompeo said. His comment suggested — falsely — that a report released by US intelligence agencies in January had ruled out any impact that could be attributed to a covert Russian interference campaign that involved leaks of tens of thousands of stolen e-mails, the flooding of social media sites with false claims and the purchase of ads on Facebook.

A report compiled by the CIA and other agencies described that Russian operation as unprecedented in its scale and concluded that Moscow’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process and help elect Donald Trump. But the report reached no conclusions about whether that interference had altered the outcome — an issue that U.S. intelligence officials made clear was considered beyond the scope of their inquiry.

AT&T has secured the blessing of Brazilian regulators for its $85-billion takeover of Time Warner, moving the blockbuster deal closer to the finish line.

The company said Brazil’s antitrust authority, the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, had signed off on AT&T’s application to acquire the media company which owns CNN, HBO, TBS, Cartoon Network and Hollywood’s biggest film and television studio, Warner Bros. Now, AT&T must win approval from the US Department of Justice before it can finalize the merger. The government’s review slowed over the summer because the Senate’s approval of President Trump’s appointment of Makan Delrahim as chief of the Justice Department’s anti-trust division was made in late September. The Justice Department and AT&T continue to negotiate conditions for the merger, according to knowledgeable people who do not want to be identified discussing the sensitive process. AT&T earlier had received approval from regulators in Chile and Mexico. Brazilian regulators concluded that AT&T would not be required to divest any assets.

The European Union has given a thumbs up to the EU-US Privacy Shield in its first annual review of the framework for protecting cross-border data flows. The first annual report concluded the shield works, but could use some bolstering, including by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

"Overall the report shows that the Privacy Shield continues to ensure an adequate level of protection for the personal data transferred from the EU to participating companies in the U.S. The U.S. authorities have put in place the necessary structures and procedures to ensure the correct functioning of the Privacy Shield, such as new redress possibilities for EU individuals," the report concluded. "Complaint-handling and enforcement procedures have been set up, and cooperation with the European Data protection authorities has been stepped up," it said. "The certification process is functioning well - over 2,400 companies have now been certified by the U.S. Department of Commerce. As regards access to personal data by U.S. public authorities for national security purposes, relevant safeguards on the U.S. side remain in place."

Child advocacy and privacy groups are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate several smartwatch brands and the risks they pose to children, part of a global effort, they said. They also want them pulled from store shelves.

The groups, which include Consumers Union, Public Citizen and the Center for Digital Democracy, said in a filing with the FTC that the watches, essentially wearable smartphones, have "significant" security flaws and lack privacy protections. Privacy groups are filing similar complaints in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and the UK. While the watches are meant to allow parents to keep up with their children, the groups said research has shown that a stranger can "take control of the watch with a few simple steps, allowing them to eavesdrop on conversations the child is having with others, track and communicate with the child, and access stored data about the child’s location."

Sidewalk Labs, the smart city subsidiary of Alphabet with the stated goal of “reimagining cities from the Internet up,” now has a very big sandbox in which to conduct its high-tech experiments. The Google spinoff announced a deal with the city of Toronto to develop 800 acres of waterfront property into its own digital utopia.

Waterfront Toronto, a city agency tasked with overseeing the development along the shore of Lake Ontario, is teaming up with Sidewalk Labs to create a new venture called Sidewalk Toronto. On Oct 17, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined top executives from Alphabet, including executive chairman Eric Schmidt, to announce the deal, which includes a $50 million commitment from Sidewalk Labs for the installation and testing of the company’s smart city technology. The cost of the project, currently dubbed Quayside, is likely to run over $1 billion.

For years, the United States and others saw China’s heavy-handed censorship as a sign of political vulnerability and a barrier to China’s economic development. But as countries in the West discuss potential internet restrictions and wring their hands over fake news, hacking and foreign meddling, some in China see a powerful affirmation of the country’s vision for the internet.

Few would argue that China’s internet control serves as a model for democratic societies. China squelches online dissent and imprisons many of those who practice it. It blocks foreign news and information, including the website of The New York Times, and promotes homegrown technology companies while banning global services like Facebook and Twitter. At the same time, China anticipated many of the questions now flummoxing governments from the United States to Germany to Indonesia. Where the Russians have turned the internet into a political weapon, China has used it as a shield. In fact, when it comes to technology, China has prospered. It has a booming technology culture. Its internet companies rival Facebook and Amazon in heft. To other countries, China may offer an enticing top-down model that suggests that technology can thrive even under the government’s thumb.