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The two-days long TensorFlow Dev Summit 2019 just got over, leaving in its wake major updates being made to the TensorFlow ecosystem.  The major announcement included the release of the first alpha version of most coveted release TensorFlow 2.0. Also announced were, TensorFlow Lite 1.0, TensorFlow Federated, TensorFlow Privacy and more. TensorFlow Federated In a medium blog post, Alex Ingerman (Product Manager) and Krzys Ostrowski (Research Scientist) introduced the TensorFlow Federated framework on the first day. This open source framework is useful for experimenting with machine learning and other computations on decentralized data. As the name suggests, this framework uses Federated Learning, a learning approach introduced by Google in 2017. This technique enables ML models to collaboratively learn a shared prediction model while keeping all the training data on the device. Thus eliminating machine learning from the need to store the data in the cloud. The authors note that TFF is based on their experiences with developing federated learning technology at Google. TFF uses the Federated Learning API to express an ML model architecture, and then train it across data provided by multiple developers, while keeping each developer’s data separate and local. It also uses the Federated Core (FC) API, a set of lower-level primitives, which enables the expression of a broad range of computations over a decentralized dataset. The authors conclude, “With TFF, we are excited to put a flexible, open framework for locally simulating decentralized computations into the hands of all TensorFlow users. You can try out TFF in your browser, with just a few clicks, by walking through the tutorials.” TensorFlow 2.0.0- alpha0 The event also the release of the first alpha version of the TensorFlow 2.0 framework which came with fewer APIs. First introduced last year in August by Martin Wicke, engineer at Google, TensorFlow 2.0, is expected to come with: Easy model building with Keras and eager execution. Robust model deployment in production on any platform. Powerful experimentation for research. API simplification by reducing duplication removing deprecated endpoints. The first teaser,  TensorFlow 2.0.0- alpha0 version comes with the following changes: API clean-up included removing tf.app, tf.flags, and tf.logging in favor of absl-py. No more global variables with helper methods like tf.global_variables_initializer and tf.get_global_step. Functions, not sessions (tf.Session and session.run -> tf.function). Added support for TensorFlow Lite in TensorFlow 2.0. tf.contrib has been deprecated, and functionality has been either migrated to the core TensorFlow API, to tensorflow/addons, or removed entirely. Checkpoint breakage for RNNs and for Optimizers. Minor bug fixes have also been made to the Keras and Python API and tf.estimator. Read the full list of bug fixes in the changelog. TensorFlow Lite 1.0 The TF-Lite framework is basically designed to aid developers in deploying machine learning and artificial intelligence models on mobile and IoT devices. Lite was first introduced at the I/O developer conference in May 2017 and in developer preview later that year. At the TensorFlow Dev Summit, the team announced a new version of this framework, the TensorFlow Lite 1.0. According to a post by VentureBeat, improvements include selective registration and quantization during and after training for faster, smaller models. The team behind TF-Lite 1.0 says that quantization has helped them achieve up to 4 times compression of some models. TensorFlow Privacy Another interesting library released at the TensorFlow dev summit was TensorFlow Privacy. This Python-based open source library aids developers to train their machine-learning models with strong privacy guarantees. To achieve this, it takes inspiration from the principles of differential privacy. This technique offers strong mathematical guarantees that models do not learn or remember the details about any specific user when training the user data. TensorFlow Privacy includes implementations of TensorFlow optimizers for training machine learning models with differential privacy. For more information, you can go through the technical whitepaper describing its privacy mechanisms in more detail. The creators also note that “no expertise in privacy or its underlying mathematics should be required for using TensorFlow Privacy. Those using standard TensorFlow mechanisms should not have to change their model architectures, training procedures, or processes.” TensorFlow Replicator TF Replicator also released at the TensorFlow Dev Summit, is a software library that helps researchers deploy their TensorFlow models on GPUs and Cloud TPUs. To do this, the creators assure that developers would require minimal effort and need not have previous experience with distributed systems. For multi-GPU computation, TF-Replicator relies on an “in-graph replication” pattern, where the computation for each device is replicated in the same TensorFlow graph. When TF-Replicator builds an in-graph replicated computation, it first builds the computation for each device independently and leaves placeholders where cross-device computation has been specified by the user. Once the sub-graphs for all devices have been built, TF-Replicator connects them by replacing the placeholders with actual cross-device computation. For a more comprehensive description, you can go through the research paper. These were the top announcements made at the TensorFlow Dev Summit 2019. You can go through the Keynote and other videos of the announcements and tutorials on this YouTube playlist. TensorFlow 2.0 to be released soon with eager execution, removal of redundant APIs, tffunction and more. TensorFlow 2.0 is coming. Here’s what we can expect. Google introduces and open-sources Lingvo, a scalable TensorFlow framework for Sequence-to-Sequence Modeling

2018 has thrown up a huge range of examples of the unintended consequences of algorithms. From the ACLU’s research in July which showed how the algorithm in Amazon’s facial recognition software incorrectly matched images of congress members with mugshots, to the same organization’s sexist algorithm used in the hiring process, this has been a year where the damage that algorithms can cause has become apparent. But this week, an open letter by Gillian Brockell, who works at The Washington Post, highlighted the traumatic impact algorithmic personalization can have. In it, Brockell detailed how personalized ads accompanied her pregnancy, and speculated how the major platforms that dominate our digital lives. “...I bet Amazon even told you [the tech companies to which the letter is addressed] my due date… when I created an Amazon registry,” she wrote. But she went on to explain how those very algorithms were incapable of processing the tragic death of her unborn baby, blind to the grief that would unfold in the aftermath. “Did you not see the three days silence, uncommon for a high frequency user like me”. https://twitter.com/STFUParents/status/1072759953545416706 But Brockell’s grief was compounded by the way those companies continued to engage with her through automated messaging. She explained that although she clicked the “It’s not relevant to me” option those ads offer users, this only led algorithms to ‘decide’ that she had given birth, offering deals on strollers and nursing bras. As Brockell notes in her letter, stillbirths aren’t as rare as many think, with 26,000 happening in the U.S. alone every year. This fact only serves to emphasise the empathetic blind spots in the way algorithms are developed. “If you’re smart enough to realize that I’m pregnant, that I’ve given birth, then surely you’re smart enough to realize my baby died.” Brockell’s open letter garnered a lot of attention on social media, to such an extent that a number of the companies at which Brockell had directed her letter responded. Speaking to CNBC, a Twitter spokesperson said, “We cannot imagine the pain of those who have experienced this type of loss. We are continuously working on improving our advertising products to ensure they serve appropriate content to the people who use our services.” Meanwhile, a Facebook advertising executive, Rob Goldman responded, “I am so sorry for your loss and your painful experience with our products.” He also explained how these ads could be blocked. “We have a setting available that can block ads about some topics people may find painful — including parenting. It still needs improvement, but please know that we’re working on it & welcome your feedback.” Experian did not respond to requests for comment. However, even after taking Goldman’s advice, Brockell revealed she was then shown adoption adverts: https://twitter.com/gbrockell/status/1072992972701138945 “It crossed the line from marketing into Emotional Stalking,” said one Twitter user. While the political impact of algorithms has led to sustained commentary and criticism in 2018, this story reveals the personal impact algorithms can have. It highlights that as artificial intelligence systems become more and more embedded in everyday life, engineers will need an acute sensitivity and attention to detail to the potential use cases and consequences that certain algorithms may have. You can read Brockell’s post on Twitter. Facebook’s artificial intelligence research team, FAIR, turns five. But what are its biggest accomplishments? FAT Conference 2018 Session 3: Fairness in Computer Vision and NLP FAT Conference 2018 Session 4: Fair Classification

On 4th November, the New York Times published a scathing report on Facebook that threw the tech giant under scrutiny for its leadership morales. The report pointed out how Facebook has been following the strategy of 'delaying, denying and deflecting’ the blame for all the controversies surrounding it. One of the recent scandals it was involved in was hiring a PR firm- called Definers- who did opposition research and shared content that criticized Facebook’s rivals Google and Apple, diverting focus from the impact of Russian interference on Facebook. They also pushed the idea that liberal financier George Soros was behind a growing anti-Facebook movement. Now, in a memo sent by Elliot Schrage (Facebook’s outgoing Head of Communications and Policy) to Facebook employees and obtained by TechCrunch, he takes the blame for hiring The Definers. Elliot Schrage, who after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, announced in June that he was leaving, admitted that his team asked Definers to push negative narratives about Facebook's competitors. He also stated that Facebook asked Definers to conduct research on liberal financier George Soros. His argument was that after George Soros attacked Facebook in a speech at Davos, calling them a “menace to society”, they wanted to determine if he had any financial motivation. According to the TechCrunch report, Elliot denied that the company asked the PR firm to distribute or create fake news. "I knew and approved of the decision to hire Definers and similar firms. I should have known of the decision to expand their mandate," Schrage said in the memo. He further stresses on being disappointed that a lot of the company’s internal discussion has become public. According to the memo, “This is a serious threat to our culture and ability to work together in difficult times.” Saving Mark and Sheryl from additional finger pointing, Schrage further added "Over the past decade, I built a management system that relies on the teams to escalate issues if they are uncomfortable about any project, the value it will provide or the risks that it creates. That system failed here and I'm sorry I let you all down. I regret my own failure here." As a follow-up note to the memo, Sheryl Sandberg (COO, Facebook) also shares accountability of hiring Deniers. She says “I want to be clear that I oversee our Comms team and take full responsibility for their work and the PR firms who work with us” Conveniently enough, this memo comes after the announcement that Elliot is stepping down from his post at Facebook. Elliot’s replacement, Facebook’s new head of global policy and former U.K. Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg will now be reviewing its work with all political consultants. The entire scandal has led to harsh criticism from the media circle like Kara Swisher and from academics like Scott Galloway. On an episode of Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway,  Kara comments that “Sheryl Sandberg ... really comes off the worst in this story, although I still cannot stand the ability of people to pretend that this is not all Mark Zuckerberg’s responsibility,” She further followed up with a jarring comment stating “He is the CEO. He has 60 percent. He’s an adult, and they’re treating him like this sort of adult boy king who doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s ridiculous. He knows exactly what’s going on.” Galloway added that since Sheryl had “written eloquently on personal loss and the important discussion around gender equality”, these accomplishments gave her “unfair” protection, and that it might also be true that she will be “unfairly punished.” He raises questions on both, Mark and Sheryl’s leadership saying “Can you think of any individuals who have made so much money doing so much damage? I mean, they make tobacco executives look like Mister Rogers.” On 19th November, he tweeted a detailed theory on why Sandberg is yet a part of Facebook; because “The Zuck can't be (fired)” and nobody wants to be the board who "fires the woman". https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1064559077819326464 Here’s another recent tweet thread from Scott which is a sarcastic take on what a “Big Tech” company actually is: https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1065315074259202048 Head over to CNBC to know more about this news. What is Facebook hiding? New York Times reveals Facebook’s insidious crisis management strategy NYT Facebook exposé fallout: Board defends Zuckerberg and Sandberg; Media call and transparency report Highlights BuzzFeed Report: Google’s sexual misconduct policy “does not apply retroactively to claims already compelled to arbitration”  

Microsoft has invested $1 billion in OpenAI with the goal of building next-generation supercomputers and a platform within Microsoft Azure which will scale to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). This is a multiyear partnership with Microsoft becoming OpenAI’s preferred partner for commercializing new AI technologies. Open AI will become a big Azure customer, porting its services to run on Microsoft Azure. The $1 billion is a cash investment into OpenAI LP, which is Open AI’s for-profit corporate subsidiary. The investment will follow a standard capital commitment structure which means OpenAI can call for it, as they need it. But the company plans to spend it in less than five years. Per the official press release, “The companies will focus on building a computational platform in Azure for training and running advanced AI models, including hardware technologies that build on Microsoft’s supercomputing technology. These will be implemented in a safe, secure and trustworthy way and is a critical reason the companies chose to partner together.” They intend to license some of their pre-AGI technologies, with Microsoft becoming their preferred partner. “My goal in running OpenAI is to successfully create broadly beneficial A.G.I.,” Sam Altman, who co-founded Open AI with Elon Musk, said in a recent interview. “And this partnership is the most important milestone so far on that path.” Musk left the company in February 2019, to focus on Tesla and because he didn’t agree with some of what OpenAI team wanted to do. What does this partnership mean for Microsoft and Open AI OpenAI may benefit from this deal by keeping their innovations private which may help commercialization, raise more funds and get to AGI faster. For OpenAI this means the availability of resources for AGI, while potentially allowing founders and other investors with the opportunity to either double-down on OpenAI or reallocate resources to other initiatives However, this may also lead to them not disclosing progress, papers with details, and open source code as much as in the past. https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1153380118582054912 As for Microsoft, this deal is another attempt in quietly taking over open source. First, with the acquisition of GitHub and the subsequent launch of GitHub Sponsors, and now with becoming OpenAI’s ‘preferred partner’ for commercialization. Last year at an Investor conference, Nadella said, “AI is going to be one of the trends that is going to be the next big shift in technology. It's going to be AI at the edge, AI in the cloud, AI as part of SaaS applications, AI as part of in fact even infrastructure. And to me, to be the leader in it, it's not enough just to sort of have AI capability that we can exercise—you also need the ability to democratize it so that every business can truly benefit from it. That to me is our identity around AI.” Partnership with OpenAI seems to be a part of this plan. This deal can also possibly help Azure catch up with Google and Amazon both in hardware scalability and Artificial Intelligence offerings. A hacker news user comments, “OpenAI will adopt and make Azure their preferred platform. And Microsoft and Azure will jointly "develop new Azure AI supercomputing technologies", which I assume is advancing their FGPA-based deep learning offering. Google has a lead with TensorFlow + TPUs and this is a move to "buy their way in", which is a very Microsoft thing to do.” https://twitter.com/soumithchintala/status/1153308199610511360 It is also likely that Microsoft is investing money which will eventually be pumped back into its own company, as OpenAI buys computing power from the tech giant. Under the terms of the contract, Microsoft will eventually become the sole cloud computing provider for OpenAI, and most of that $1 billion will be spent on computing power, Altman says. OpenAI, who were previously into building ethical AI will now pivot to build cutting edge AI and move towards AGI. Sometimes even neglecting ethical ramifications, wanting to deploy tech at the earliest which is what Microsoft would be interested in monetizing. https://twitter.com/CadeMetz/status/1153291410994532352 I see two primary motivations: For OpenAI—to secure funding and to gain some control over hardware which in turn helps differentiate software. For MSFT—to elevate Azure in the minds of developers for AI training. - James Wang, Analyst at ARKInvest https://twitter.com/jwangARK/status/1153338174871154689 However, the news of this investment did not go down well with some experts in the field who saw this as a pure commercial deal and questioned whether OpenAI’s switch to for-profit research undermines its claims to be “democratizing” AI. https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/1153489165595504640 “I can't really parse its conversion into an LP—and Microsoft's huge investment—as anything but a victory for capital” - Robin Sloan, Author https://twitter.com/robinsloan/status/1153346647339876352 “What is OpenAI? I don't know anymore.” - Stephen Merity, Deep learning researcher https://twitter.com/Smerity/status/1153364705777311745 https://twitter.com/SamNazarius/status/1153290666413383682 People are also speculating whether creating AGI is really even possible. In a recent survey experts estimated that there was a 50 percent chance of creating AGI by the year 2099. Pet New York Times, most experts believe A.G.I. will not arrive for decades or even centuries. Even Altman admits OpenAI may never get there. But the race is on nonetheless. Then why is Microsoft delivering the $1 billion over five years considering that is neither enough money nor enough time to produce AGI. Although, OpenAI has certainly impressed the tech community with its AI innovations. In April, OpenAI’s new algorithm that is trained to play the complex strategy game, Dota 2, beat the world champion e-sports team OG at an event in San Francisco, winning the first two matches of the ‘best-of-three’ series. The competition included a human team of five professional Dota 2 players and AI team of five OpenAI bots. In February, they released a new AI model GPT-2, capable of generating coherent paragraphs of text without needing any task-specific training. However experts felt that the move signalled towards ‘closed AI’ and propagated the ‘fear of AI’ for its ability to write convincing fake news from just a few words. Github Sponsors: Could corporate strategy eat FOSS culture for dinner? Microsoft is seeking membership to Linux-distros mailing list for early access to security vulnerabilities OpenAI: Two new versions and the output dataset of GPT-2 out!

Virtual assistants like Alexa and smart speakers are being increasingly used in today’s time because of the convenience they come packaged with. It is good to have someone play a song or restock your groceries just on your one command, or probably more than one command. You get the point! But, how comfortable will you be if these assistants can provide you some medical advice? Amazon has teamed up with UK’s National Health Service (NHS) to make Alexa your new medical consultant. The voice-enabled digital assistant will now answer your health-related queries by looking through the NHS website vetted by professional doctors. https://twitter.com/NHSX/status/1148890337504583680 The NHSX initiative to drive digital innovation in healthcare Voice search definitely gives us the most “humanized” way of finding information from the web. One of the striking advantages of voice-enabled digital assistants is that the elderly, the blind and those who are unable to access the internet in other ways can also benefit from them. UK’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, believes that “embracing” such technologies will not only reduce the pressure General Practitioners (GPs) and pharmacists face but will also encourage people to take better control of their health care. He adds, "We want to empower every patient to take better control of their healthcare." Partnering with Amazon is just one of many steps by NHS to adopt technology for healthcare. The NHS launched a full-fledged unit named NHSX (where X stands for User Experience) last week. Its mission is to provide staff and citizens “the technology they need” with an annual investment of more than $1 billion a year. This partnership was announced last year and NHS plans to partner with other companies such as Microsoft in the future to achieve its goal of “modernizing health services.” Can we consider Alexa’s advice safe Voice assistants are very fun and convenient to use, but only when they are actually working. Many a time it happens that the assistant fails to understand something and we have to yell the command again and again, which makes the experience outright frustrating. Furthermore, the track record of consulting the web to diagnose our symptoms has not been the most accurate one. Many Twitter users trolled this decision saying that Alexa is not yet capable of doing simple tasks like playing a song accurately and the NHS budget could have been instead used on additional NHS staff, lowering drug prices, and many other facilities. The public was also left sore because the government has given Amazon a new means to make a profit, instead of forcing them to pay taxes. Others also talked about the times when Google (mis)-diagnosed their symptoms. https://twitter.com/NHSMillion/status/1148883285952610304 https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1148857265946079232 https://twitter.com/TechnicallyRon/status/1148862592254906370 https://twitter.com/withorpe/status/1148886063290540032 AI ethicists and experts raise data privacy issues Amazon has been involved in several controversies around privacy concerns regarding Alexa. Earlier this month, it admitted that a few voice recordings made by Alexa are never deleted from the company's server, even when the user manually deletes them. Another news in April this year revealed that when you speak to an Echo smart speaker, not only does Alexa but potentially Amazon employees also listen to your requests. Last month, two lawsuits were filed in Seattle stating that Amazon is recording voiceprints of children using its Alexa devices without their consent. Last year, an Amazon Echo user in Portland, Oregon was shocked when she learned that her Echo device recorded a conversation with her husband and sent the audio file to one of his employees in Seattle. Amazon confirmed that this was an error because of which the device’s microphone misheard a series of words. Another creepy, yet funny incident was when Alexa users started hearing an unprompted laugh from their smart speaker devices. Alexa laughed randomly when the device was not even being used. https://twitter.com/CaptHandlebar/status/966838302224666624 Big tech including Amazon, Google, and Facebook constantly try to reassure their users that their data is safe and they have appropriate privacy measures in place. But, these promises are hard to believe when there is so many news of data breaches involving these companies. Last year, a German computer magazine c’t reported that a user received 1,700 Alexa voice recordings from Amazon when he asked for copies of the personal data Amazon has about him. Many experts also raised their concerns about using Alexa for giving medical advice. A Berlin-based tech expert Manthana Stender calls this move a “corporate capture of public institutions”. https://twitter.com/StenderWorld/status/1148893625914404864 Dr. David Wrigley, a British medical doctor who works as a general practitioner also asked how the voice recordings of people asking for health advice will be handled. https://twitter.com/DavidGWrigley/status/1148884541144219648 Director of Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo told BBC,  "Any public money spent on this awful plan rather than frontline services would be a breathtaking waste. Healthcare is made inaccessible when trust and privacy is stripped away, and that's what this terrible plan would do. It's a data protection disaster waiting to happen." Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, of the Royal College of GPs, believes that the move has "potential", especially for minor ailments. She added that it is important individuals do independent research to ensure the advice given is safe or it could "prevent people from seeking proper medical help and create even more pressure". She further said that not everyone is comfortable using such technology or could afford it. Amazon promises that the data will be kept confidential and will not be used to build a profile on customers. A spokesman shared with The Times, "All data was encrypted and kept confidential. Customers are in control of their voice history and can review or delete recordings." Amazon is being sued for recording children’s voices through Alexa without consent Amazon Alexa is HIPAA-compliant: bigger leap in the health care sector Amazon is supporting research into conversational AI with Alexa fellowships

Updated: On July 10, 2019, Dougherty announced the relaunch of Maker Faire and Maker Media with the new name “Make Community“. Maker Media Inc., the company behind Maker Faire, the popular event that hosts arts, science, and engineering DIY projects for children and their parents, has laid off all its employees--22 employees--and have decided to shut down due to financial troubles. In January 2005, the company first started off with MAKE, an American bimonthly magazine focused on do it yourself and/or DIWO projects involving computers, electronics, robotics, metalworking, woodworking, etc. for both adults and children. In 2006, the company first held its Maker Faire event, that lets attendees wander amidst giant, inspiring art and engineering installations. Maker Faire now includes 200 owned and licensed events per year in over 40 countries. The Maker movement gained momentum and popularity when MAKE magazine first started publishing 15 years ago.  The movement emerged as a dominant source of livelihood as individuals found ways to build small businesses using their creative activity. In 2014, The WhiteHouse blog posted an article stating, “Maker Faires and similar events can inspire more people to become entrepreneurs and to pursue careers in design, advanced manufacturing, and the related fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).” With funding from the Department of Labor, “the AFL-CIO and Carnegie Mellon University are partnering with TechShop Pittsburgh to create an apprenticeship program for 21st-century manufacturing and encourage startups to manufacture domestically.” Recently, researchers from Baylor University and the University of North Carolina, in their research paper, have highlighted opportunities for studying the conditions under which the Maker movement might foster entrepreneurship outcomes. Dale Dougherty, Maker Media Inc.’s founder and CEO, told TechCrunch, “I started this 15 years ago and it’s always been a struggle as a business to make this work. Print publishing is not a great business for anybody, but it works…barely. Events are hard . . . there was a drop off in corporate sponsorship”. “Microsoft and Autodesk failed to sponsor this year’s flagship Bay Area Maker Faire”, TechCrunch reports. Dougherty further told that the company is trying to keep the servers running. “I hope to be able to get control of the assets of the company and restart it. We’re not necessarily going to do everything we did in the past but I’m committed to keeping the print magazine going and the Maker Faire licensing program”, he further added. In 2016, the company laid off 17 of its employees, followed by 8 employees recently in March. “They’ve been paid their owed wages and PTO, but did not receive any severance or two-week notice”, TechCrunch reports. These layoffs may have hinted the staff of the financial crisis affecting the company. Maker Media Inc. had raised $10 million from Obvious Ventures, Raine Ventures, and Floodgate. Dougherty says, “It started as a venture-backed company but we realized it wasn’t a venture-backed opportunity. The company wasn’t that interesting to its investors anymore. It was failing as a business but not as a mission. Should it be a non-profit or something like that? Some of our best successes, for instance, are in education.” The company has a huge public following for its products. Dougherty told TechCrunch that despite the rain, Maker Faire’s big Bay Area event last week met its ticket sales target. Also, about 1.45 million people attended its events in 2016. “MAKE: magazine had 125,000 paid subscribers and the company had racked up over one million YouTube subscribers. But high production costs in expensive cities and a proliferation of free DIY project content online had strained Maker Media”, writes TechCrunch. Dougherty told TechCrunch he has been overwhelmed by the support shown by the Maker community. As of now, licensed Maker Faire events around the world will proceed as planned. “Dougherty also says he’s aware of Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey’s interest in funding the company, and a GoFundMe page started for it”, TechCrunch reports. Mike Senese, Executive Editor, MAKE magazine, tweeted, “Nothing but love and admiration for the team that I got to spend the last six years with, and the incredible community that made this amazing part of my life a reality.” https://twitter.com/donttrythis/status/1137374732733493248 https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1137395288262373376 https://twitter.com/chr1sa/status/1137518221232238592 Former Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage, who was a regular presence at the Maker Faire, told The Verge, “Make Media has created so many important new connections between people across the world. It showed the power from the act of creation. We are the better for its existence and I am sad. I also believe that something new will grow from what they built. The ground they laid is too fertile to lie fallow for long.” On July 10, 2019, Dougherty announced he’ll relaunch Maker Faire and Maker Media with the new name “Make Community“. The official launch of Make Community will supposedly be next week. The company is also working on a new issue of Make Magazine that is planned to be published quarterly and the online archives of its do-it-yourself project guides will remain available. Dougherty told TechCrunch “with the goal that we can get back up to speed as a business, and start generating revenue and a magazine again. This is where the community support needs to come in because I can’t fund it for very long.” GitHub introduces ‘Template repository’ for easy boilerplate code management and distribution 12 Visual Studio Code extensions that Node.js developers will love [Sponsored by Microsoft] Shoshana Zuboff on 21st century solutions for tackling the unique complexities of surveillance capitalism

According to a complaint filed in a lawsuit yesterday, Google paid $135 million in total as exit packages to top two senior execs, namely Andy Rubin (creator of Android) and Amit Singhal (former senior VP of Google search) after they were accused of sexual misconduct in the company. The lawsuit was filed by an Alphabet shareholder, James Martin, in the Santa Clara, California Court. Google also confirmed paying the exit packages to senior execs to The Verge, yesterday. Speaking of the lawsuit, the complaint is against certain directors and officers of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, for their active and direct participation in “multi-year scheme” to hide sexual harassment and discrimination at Alphabet. It also states that the misconduct by these directors has caused severe financial and reputational damage to Alphabet. The exit packages for Rubin and Singhal were approved by the Leadership Development and Compensation Committee (LLDC). The news of Google paying high exit packages to its top execs first came to light last October, after the New York Times released a report on Google, stating that the firm paid $90 million to Rubin and $15 million to Singhal. Rubin had previously also received an offer for a $150 million stock grant, which he then further use to negotiate the $90 million in severance pay, even though he should have been fired for cause without any pay, states the lawsuit. To protest against the handling of sexual misconduct within Google, more than 20,000 Google employees along with vendors, and contractors, temps, organized Google “walkout for real change” and walked out of their offices in November 2018. Googlers also launched an industry-wide awareness campaign to fight against forced arbitration in January, where they shared information about arbitration on their Twitter and Instagram accounts throughout the day.   Last year in November, Google ended its forced arbitration ( a move that was soon followed by Facebook) for its employees (excluding temps, vendors, etc) and only in the case of sexual harassment. This led to contractors writing an open letter on Medium to Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google, in December, demanding him to address their demands of better conditions and equal benefits for contractors. In response to the Google walkout and the growing public pressure, Google finally decided to end its forced arbitration policy for all employees (including contractors) and for all kinds of discrimination within Google, last month. The changes will go into effect for all the Google employees starting March 21st, 2019. Yesterday, the Google walkout for real change group tweeted condemning the multi-million dollar payouts and has asked people to use the hashtag #Googlepayoutsforall to highlight other better ways that money could have been used. https://twitter.com/GoogleWalkout/status/1105450565193121792 “The conduct of Rubin and other executives was disgusting, illegal, immoral, degrading to women and contrary to every principle that Google claims it abides by”, reads the lawsuit. James Martin also filed a lawsuit against Alphabet’s board members, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt earlier this year in January for covering up the sexual harassment allegations against the former top execs at Google. Martin had sued Alphabet for breaching its fiduciary duty to shareholders, unjust enrichment, abuse of power, and corporate waste. “The directors’ wrongful conduct allowed illegal conduct to proliferate and continue. As such, members of the Alphabet’s board were knowing direct enables of sexual harassment and discrimination”, reads the lawsuit. It also states that the board members not only violated the California and federal law but it also violated the ethical standards and guidelines set by Alphabet. Public reaction to the news is largely negative with people condemning Google’s handling of sexual misconduct: https://twitter.com/awesome/status/1105295877487263744 https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/1105456081663225856 https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/1105457965790707713 https://twitter.com/conradwt/status/1105386882135875584 https://twitter.com/mer__edith/status/1105464808831361025 For more information, check out the official lawsuit here. Recode Decode #GoogleWalkout interview shows why data and evidence don’t always lead to right decisions in even the world’s most data-driven company Liz Fong Jones, prominent ex-Googler shares her experience at Google and ‘grave concerns’ for the company Google’s pay equity analysis finds men, not women, are underpaid; critics call out design flaws in the analysis

Businesses in powerful economies like USA, UK, Australia are as arguably powerful as politics or more than that. Especially now that we inhabit a global economy where an intricate web of connections can show the appalling employment conditions of Chinese workers who assemble the Apple smartphones we depend on. Amazon holds a revenue bigger than Kenya’s GDP. According to Business Insider, 25 major American corporations have revenues greater than the GDP of countries around the world. Because corporations create millions of jobs and control vast amounts of money and resources, their sheer economic power dwarfs government's ability to regulate and oversee them. With the recent global scale scandals that the tech industry has found itself in, with some resulting in deaths of groups of people, governments are waking up to the urgency for the need to hold tech companies responsible. While some government laws are reactionary, others are taking a more cautious approach. One thing is for sure, 2019 will see a lot of tech regulation come to play. How effective they are and what intended and unintended consequences they bear, how masterfully big tech wields its lobbying prowess, we’ll have to wait and see. Holding Tech platforms enabling hate and violence, accountable Australian govt passes law that criminalizes companies and execs for hosting abhorrent violent content Today, Australian parliament has passed legislation to crack down on violent videos on social media. The bill, described the attorney general, Christian Porter, as “most likely a world first”, was drafted in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack by a White supremacist Australian, when video of the perpetrator’s violent attack spread on social media faster than it could be removed. The Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material bill creates new offences for content service providers and hosting services that fail to notify the Australian federal police about or fail to expeditiously remove videos depicting “abhorrent violent conduct”. That conduct is defined as videos depicting terrorist acts, murders, attempted murders, torture, rape or kidnap. The bill creates a regime for the eSafety Commissioner to notify social media companies that they are deemed to be aware they are hosting abhorrent violent material, triggering an obligation to take it down. While the Digital Industry Group which consists of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Verizon Media in Australia has warned that the bill is passed without meaningful consultation and threatens penalties against content created by users. Sunita Bose, the group’s managing director says, “ with the vast volumes of content uploaded to the internet every second, this is a highly complex problem”. She further debates that “this pass it now, change it later approach to legislation creates immediate uncertainty to the Australia’s tech industry”. The Chief Executive of Atlassian Scott Farquhar said that the legislation fails to define how “expeditiously” violent material should be removed, and did not specify on who should be punished in the social media company. https://twitter.com/scottfarkas/status/1113391831784480768 The Law Council of Australia president, Arthur Moses, said criminalising social media companies and executives was a “serious step” and should not be legislated as a “knee-jerk reaction to a tragic event” because of the potential for unintended consequences. Contrasting Australia’s knee-jerk legislation, the US House Judiciary committee has organized a hearing on white nationalism and hate speech and their spread online. They have invited social media platform execs and civil rights organizations to participate. Holding companies accountable for reckless corporate behavior Facebook has undergone scandals after scandals with impunity in recent years given the lack of legislation in this space. Facebook has repeatedly come under the public scanner for data privacy breaches to disinformation campaigns and beyond. Adding to its ever-growing list of data scandals yesterday CNN Business uncovered  hundreds of millions of Facebook records were stored on Amazon cloud servers in a way that it allowed to be downloaded by the public. Earlier this month on 8th March, Sen. Warren has proposed to build strong anti-trust laws and break big tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple. Yesterday, she introduced Corporate Executive Accountability Act and also reintroduced the “too big to fail” bill a new piece of legislation that would make it easier to criminally charge company executives when Americans’ personal data is breached, among other corporate negligent behaviors. “When a criminal on the street steals money from your wallet, they go to jail. When small-business owners cheat their customers, they go to jail,” Warren wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published on Wednesday morning. “But when corporate executives at big companies oversee huge frauds that hurt tens of thousands of people, they often get to walk away with multimillion-dollar payouts.” https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1113448794912382977 https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1113448583771185153 According to Elizabeth, just one banker went to jail after the 2008 financial crisis. The CEO of Wells Fargo and his successor walked away from the megabank with multimillion-dollar pay packages after it was discovered employees had created millions of fake accounts. The same goes for the Equifax CEO after its data breach. The new legislation Warren introduced would make it easier to hold corporate executives accountable for their companies’ wrongdoing. Typically, it’s been hard to prove a case against individual executives for turning a blind eye toward risky or questionable activity, because prosecutors have to prove intent — basically, that they meant to do it. This legislation would change that, Heather Slavkin Corzo, a senior fellow at the progressive nonprofit Americans for Financial Reform, said to the Vox reporter. “It’s easier to show a lack of due care than it is to show the mental state of the individual at the time the action was committed,” she said. A summary of the legislation released by Warren’s office explains that it would “expand criminal liability to negligent executives of corporations with over $1 billion annual revenue” who: Are found guilty, plead guilty, or enter into a deferred or non-prosecution agreement for any crime. Are found liable or enter a settlement with any state or Federal regulator for the violation of any civil law if that violation affects the health, safety, finances, or personal data of 1% of the American population or 1% of the population of any state. Are found liable or guilty of a second civil or criminal violation for a different activity while operating under a civil or criminal judgment of any court, a deferred prosecution or non prosecution agreement, or settlement with any state or Federal agency. Executives found guilty of these violations could get up to a year in jail. And a second violation could mean up to three years. The Corporate Executive Accountability Act is yet another push from Warren who has focused much of her presidential campaign on holding corporations and their leaders responsible for both their market dominance and perceived corruption. Elizabeth Warren wants to break up tech giants like Amazon, Google Facebook, and Apple and build strong antitrust laws Zuckerberg wants to set the agenda for tech regulation in yet another “digital gangster” move Facebook under criminal investigations for data sharing deals: NYT report

The Australian competition and consumer commission (ACCC) have today published a 378-page preliminary report to make the Australian government and the public aware of the impact of social media and digital platforms on targeted advertising and user data collection. The report also highlights the ACCC's concerns regarding the “market power held by these key platforms, including their impact on Australian businesses and, in particular, on the ability of media businesses to monetize their content.” This report was published following an investigation when ACCC Treasurer Scott Morrison MP had asked the ACCC, late last year, to hold an inquiry into how online search engines, social media, and digital platforms impact media and advertising services markets. The inquiry demanded answers on the range and reliability of news available via Google and Facebook. The ACCC also expressed concerns on the large amount and variety of data which Google and Facebook collect on Australian consumers, which users are not actively willing to provide. Why did ACCC choose Google and Facebook? Google and Facebook are the two largest digital platforms in Australia and are the most visited websites in Australia. Google and Facebook also have similar business models, as they both rely on consumer attention and data to sell advertising opportunities and also have substantial market power. Per the report, each month, approximately 19 million Australians use Google Search, 17 million access Facebook, 17 million watch YouTube (which is owned by Google) and 11 million access Instagram (which is owned by Facebook). This widespread and frequent use of Google and Facebook means that these platforms occupy a key position for businesses looking to reach Australian consumers, including advertisers and news media businesses. Recommendations made by the ACCC The report contains 11 preliminary recommendations to these digital platforms and eight areas for further analysis. Per the report: #1 The ACCC wants to amend the merger law to make it clearer that the following are relevant factors: the likelihood that an acquisition would result in the removal of a potential competitor, and the amount and nature of data which the acquirer would likely have access to as a result of the acquisition. #2 ACCC wants Facebook and Google to provide advance notice of the acquisition of any business with activities in Australia and to provide sufficient time to enable a thorough review of the likely competitive effects of the proposed acquisition. #3 ACCC wants suppliers of operating systems for mobile devices, computers, and tablets to provide consumers with options for internet browsers and search engines (rather than providing a default). #4 The ACCC wants a regulatory authority to monitor, investigate and report on whether digital platforms are engaging in discriminatory conduct by favoring their own business interests above those of advertisers or potentially competing businesses. #5 The regulatory authority should also monitor, investigate and report on the ranking of news and journalistic content by digital platforms and the provision of referral services to news media businesses. #6 The ACCC wants the government to conduct a separate, independent review to design a regulatory framework to regulate the conduct of all news and journalistic content entities in Australia. This framework should focus on underlying principles, the extent of regulation, content rules, and enforcement. #7 Per ACCC, the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) should adopt a mandatory standard regarding take-down procedures for copyright infringing content. #8 ACCC proposes amendments to the Privacy Act. These include: Strengthen notification requirements Introduce an independent third-party certification scheme Strengthen consent requirements Enable the erasure of personal information Increase the penalties for breach of the Privacy Act Introduce direct rights of action for individuals Expand resourcing for the OAIC (Office of the Australian Information Commissioner) to support further enforcement activities #9 The ACCC wants OAIC to develop a code of practice under Part IIIB of the Privacy Act to provide Australians with greater transparency and control over how their personal information is collected, used and disclosed by digital platforms. #10 Per ACCC, the Australian government should adopt the Australian Law Reform Commission’s recommendation to introduce a statutory cause of action for serious invasions of privacy. #11 Per the ACCC, unfair contract terms should be illegal (not just voidable) under the Australian Consumer Law “The inquiry has also uncovered some concerns that certain digital platforms have breached competition or consumer laws, and the ACCC is currently investigating five such allegations to determine if enforcement action is warranted,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said. The ACCC is also seeking feedback on its preliminary recommendations and the eight proposed areas for further analysis and assessment. Feedback can be shared by email to [email protected] by 15 February 2019. AI Now Institute releases Current State of AI 2018 Report Australia passes a rushed anti-encryption bill “to make Australians safe”; experts find “dangerous loopholes” that compromise online privacy and safety Australia’s Facial recognition and identity system can have “chilling effect on freedoms of political discussion, the right to protest and the right to dissent”: The Guardian report

Update August 23, 2019: After Twitter, and Facebook Google has shutdown 210 YouTube channels that were tied to misinformation about Hong Kong protesters. The article has been updated accordingly. Chinese state-run media agencies have been buying advertisements and promoted tweets on Twitter and Facebook to portray Hong Kong protestors and their pro-democracy demonstrations as violent. These ads, reported by Pinboard’s Twitter account were circulated by State-run news agency Xinhua calling these protesters as those "escalating violence" and calls for "order to be restored." In reality, Hong Kong protests have been called a completely peaceful march. Pinboard warned and criticized Twitter about these tweets and asked for its takedown. Though Twitter and Facebook are banned in China, the Chinese state-run media runs several English-language accounts to present its views to the outside world. https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1162711159000055808 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1163072157166886913 Twitter bans 936 accounts managed by the Chinese state Following this revelation, in a blog post yesterday, Twitter said that they are discovering a “significant state-backed information operation focused on the situation in Hong Kong, specifically the protest movement”.  They identified 936 accounts that were undermining “the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement on the ground.” They found a larger, spammy network of approximately 200,000 accounts which represented the most active portions of this campaign. These were suspended for a range of violations of their platform manipulation policies.  These accounts were able to access Twitter through VPNs and over a "specific set of unblocked IP addresses" from within China. “Covert, manipulative behaviors have no place on our service — they violate the fundamental principles on which our company is built,” said Twitter. Twitter bans ads from Chinese state-run media Twitter also banned advertising from Chinese state-run news media entities across the world and declared that affected accounts will be free to continue to use Twitter to engage in public conversation, but not in their advertising products. This policy will apply to news media entities that are either financially or editorially controlled by the state, said Twitter. They will be notified directly affected entities who will be given 30 days to offboard from advertising products. No new campaigns will be allowed. However, Pinboard argues that 30 days is too long; Twitter should not wait and suspend Xinhua's ad account immediately. https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1163676410998689793 It also calls on Twitter to disclose: How much money it took from Xinhua How many ads it ran for them since the start of the Hong Kong protests in June and How those ads were targeted Facebook blocks Chinese accounts engaged in inauthentic behavior Following a tip shared by Twitter, Facebook also removed seven Pages, three Groups and five Facebook accounts involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior as part of a small network that originated in China and focused on Hong Kong. However, unlike Twitter, Facebook did not announce any policy changes in response to the discovery. YouTube was also notably absent in the fight against Chinese misinformation propagandas. https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1163694701716766720 However, on 22nd August, Youtube axed 210 Youtube channels found to be spreading misinformation about the Hong Kong protests. “Earlier this week, as part of our ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations, we disabled 210 channels on YouTube when we discovered channels in this network behaved in a coordinated manner while uploading videos related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong,” Shane Huntley, director of software engineering for Google Security’s Threat Analysis Group said in a blog post. “We found use of VPNs and other methods to disguise the origin of these accounts and other activity commonly associated with coordinated influence operations.” Kyle Bass, Chief Investment Officer Hayman Capital Management, called on all social media outlets to ban all Chinese state-run propaganda sources. He tweeted, “Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube should BAN all State-backed propaganda sources in China. It’s clear that these 200,000 accounts were set up by the “state” of China. Why allow Xinhua, global times, china daily, or any others to continue to act? #BANthemALL” Public acknowledges Facebook and Twitter’s role in exposing Chinese state media Experts and journalists were appreciative of the role social media played in exposing those guilty and liked how they are responding to state interventions. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, President of the International China Journalist Association called it huge news. “This is the first time that US social media companies are openly accusing the Chinese government of running Russian-style disinformation campaigns aimed at sowing discord”, she tweeted. She added, “We’ve been seeing hints that China has begun to learn from Russia’s MO, such as in Taiwan and Cambodia. But for Twitter and Facebook to come out and explicitly accuse the Chinese govt of a disinformation campaign is another whole level entirely.” Adam Schiff, Representative (D-CA 28th District) tweeted, “Twitter and Facebook announced they found and removed a large network of Chinese government-backed accounts spreading disinformation about the protests in Hong Kong. This is just one example of how authoritarian regimes use social media to manipulate people, at home and abroad.” He added, “Social media platforms and the U.S. government must continue to identify and combat state-backed information operations online, whether they’re aimed at disrupting our elections or undermining peaceful protesters who seek freedom and democracy.” Social media platforms took an appreciable step against Chinese state-run media actors attempting to manipulate their platforms to discredit grassroots organizing in Hong Kong. It would be interesting to see if they would continue to protect individual freedoms and provide a safe and transparent platform if state actors from countries where they have a huge audiences like India or US, adopted similar tactics to suppress or manipulate the public or target movements. Facebook bans six toxic extremist accounts and a conspiracy theory organization Cloudflare terminates services to 8chan following yet another set of mass shootings in the US YouTube’s ban on “instructional hacking and phishing” videos receives backlash from the infosec community

According to information obtained by Bloomberg, The White House is reportedly making a draft executive order against online platform bias in Social Media firms. Per this draft, federal antitrust and law enforcement agencies are instructed to investigate into the practices of Google, Facebook, and other social media companies. The existence of the draft was first reported by Capital Forum. Federal law enforcers are required to investigate primarily against two violations. First, if an online platform has acted in violation of the antitrust laws. Second, to remove anti-competitive spirit among online platforms and address online platform bias. Per the sources by Capital Forum, the draft is written in two parts. The first part is a policy statement stating that online platforms are central to the flow of information and commerce and need to be held accountable through competition. The second part instructs agencies to investigate bias and anticompetitive conduct in online platforms where they have the authority. In case of lack of authorization, they are required to report concerns or issues to the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice. No online platforms are mentioned by name in the draft. It’s unclear when or if the White House will decide to issue the order. Donald Trump and the White House have always been vocal about the prevalent bias in Social media platforms. In August, Trump tweeted about Social Media discriminating against Republican and Conservative voices. Source: Twitter He also went on to claim that Google search results for “Trump News” reports fake news. He accused the search engines’ algorithms of being rigged. However, that allegation having not been backed by evidence, let Google slam Trump’s accusations, asserting that its search engine algorithms do not favor any political ideology. Earlier this month, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey faced the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, to discuss foreign interference through social media platforms in US elections. Google, Facebook, and Twitter also released a Testimony ahead of appearing before the committee. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Sundar Pichai also plans to meet privately with top Republican lawmakers this Friday to discuss a variety of topics, including the company's alleged political bias in search results. This meeting is organized by the House Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy. Pichai said on Tuesday that “I look forward to meeting with members on both sides of the aisle, answering a wide range of questions, and explaining our approach." Google is also facing public scrutiny over a report that it intends to launch a censored search engine in China. Google’s custom search engine would link Chinese users’ search queries to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the government to track their searches. About a thousand Google employees frustrated with a series of controversies involving Google have signed a letter to demand transparency on building the alleged search engine. Google’s new Privacy Chief officer proposes a new framework for Security Regulation. Amazon is the next target on EU’s antitrust hitlist. Mark Zuckerberg publishes Facebook manifesto for safeguarding against political interference.  

Facebook has probably made the biggest April Fool’s joke of this year. Over the weekend, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, penned a post detailing the need to have tech regulation in four major areas: “harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability”. However, privacy advocates and tech experts were frustrated rather than pleased with this announcement, stating that seeing recent privacy scandals, Facebook CEO shouldn’t be the one making the rules. The term ‘digital gangster’ was first coined by the Guardian, when the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee published its final report on Facebook’s Disinformation and ‘fake news practices. Per the publishing firm, “Facebook behaves like a ‘digital gangster’ destroying democracy. It considers itself to be ‘ahead of and beyond the law’. It ‘misled’ parliament. It gave statements that were ‘not true’”. Last week, Facebook rolled out a new Ad Library to provide more stringent transparency for preventing interference in worldwide elections. It also rolled out a policy to ban white nationalist content from its platforms. Zuckerberg’s four new regulation ideas “I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators. By updating the rules for the internet, we can preserve what’s best about it — the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things — while also protecting society from broader harms.”, writes Zuckerberg. Reducing harmful content For harmful content, Zuckerberg talks about having a certain set of rules that govern what types of content tech companies should consider harmful. According to him, governments should set "baselines" for online content that require filtering. He suggests that third-party organizations should also set standards governing the distribution of harmful content and measure companies against those standards. "Internet companies should be accountable for enforcing standards on harmful content," he writes. "Regulation could set baselines for what’s prohibited and require companies to build systems for keeping harmful content to a bare minimum." Ironically, over the weekend, Facebook was accused of enabling the spreading of anti-Semitic propaganda after its refusal to take down repeatedly flagged hate posts. Facebook stated that it will not remove the posts as they do not breach its hate speech rules and are not against UK law. Preserving election integrity The second tech regulation revolves around election integrity. Facebook has been taken steps in this direction by making significant changes to its advertising policies. Facebook’s new Ad library which was released last week, now provides advertising transparency on all active ads running on a Facebook page, including politics or issue ads. Ahead of the European Parliamentary election in May 2019, Facebook is also introducing ads transparency tools in the EU. He advises other tech companies to build a searchable ad archive as well. "Deciding whether an ad is political isn’t always straightforward. Our systems would be more effective if regulation created common standards for verifying political actors," Zuckerberg says. He also talks about improving online political advertising laws for political issues rather than primarily focussing on candidates and elections. “I believe”, he says “legislation should be updated to reflect the reality of the threats and set standards for the whole industry.” What is surprising is that just 24 hrs after Zuckerberg published his post committing to preserve election integrity, Facebook took down over 700 pages, groups, and accounts that were engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on Indian politics ahead of the country’s national elections. According to DFRLab, who analyzed these pages, Facebook was in fact quite late to take actions against these pages. Per DFRLab, "Last year, AltNews, an open-source fact-checking outlet, reported that a related website called theindiaeye.com was hosted on Silver Touch servers. Silver Touch managers denied having anything to do with the website or the Facebook page, but Facebook’s statement attributed the page to “individuals associated with” Silver Touch. The page was created in 2016. Even after several regional media outlets reported that the page was spreading false information related to Indian politics, the engagements on posts kept increasing, with a significant uptick from June 2018 onward." Adhering to privacy and data portability For privacy, Zuckerberg talks about the need to develop a “globally harmonized framework” along the lines of European Union's GDPR rules for US and other countries “I believe a common global framework — rather than regulation that varies significantly by country and state — will ensure that the internet does not get fractured, entrepreneurs can build products that serve everyone, and everyone gets the same protections.”, he writes. Which makes us wonder what is stopping him from implementing EU style GDPR on Facebook globally until a common framework is agreed upon by countries? Lastly, he adds, “regulation should guarantee the principle of data portability”, allowing people to freely port their data across different services. “True data portability should look more like the way people use our platform to sign into an app than the existing ways you can download an archive of your information. But this requires clear rules about who’s responsible for protecting information when it moves between services.” He also endorses the need for a standard data transfer format by supporting the open source Data Transfer Project. Why this call for regulation now? Zuckerberg's post comes at a strategic point of time when Facebook is battling a large number of investigations. Most recent of which is the housing discrimination charge by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) who alleged that Facebook is using its advertising tools to violate the Fair Housing Act. Also to be noticed is the fact, that Zuckerberg’s blog post comes weeks after Senator Elizabeth Warren, stated that if elected president in 2020, her administration will break up Facebook. Facebook was quick to remove and then restore several ads placed by Warren, that called for the breakup of Facebook and other tech giants. A possible explanation to Zuckerberg's post can be the fact that Facebook will be able to now say that it's actually pro-government regulation. This means it can lobby governments to make a decision that would be the most beneficial for the company. It may also set up its own work around political advertising and content moderation as the standard for other industries. By blaming decisions on third parties, it may also possibly reduce scrutiny from lawmakers. According to a report by Business Insider, just as Zuckerberg posted about his news today, a large number of Zuckerberg’s previous posts and announcements have been deleted from the FB Blog. Reaching for comment, a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider that the posts were "mistakenly deleted" due to "technical errors." Now if this is a deliberate mistake or an unintentional one, we don’t know. Zuckerberg’s post sparked a huge discussion on Hacker news with most people drawing negative conclusions based on Zuckerberg’s writeup. Here are some of the views: “I think Zuckerberg's intent is to dilute the real issue (privacy) with these other three points. FB has a bad record when it comes to privacy and they are actively taking measures against it. For example, they lobby against privacy laws. They create shadow profiles and they make it difficult or impossible to delete your account.” “harmful content, election integrity, privacy, data portability Shut down Facebook as a company and three of those four problems are solved.” “By now it's pretty clear, to me at least, that Zuckerberg simply doesn't get it. He could have fixed the issues for over a decade. And even in 2019, after all the evidence of mismanagement and public distrust, he still refuses to relinquish any control of the company. This is a tone-deaf opinion piece.” Twitteratis also shared the same sentiment. https://twitter.com/futureidentity/status/1112455687169327105 https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1112150281066819584 https://twitter.com/davidcicilline/status/1112085338342727680 https://twitter.com/DamianCollins/status/1112082926232092672 https://twitter.com/MaggieL/status/1112152675699834880 Ahead of EU 2019 elections, Facebook expands it’s Ad Library to provide advertising transparency in all active ads Facebook will ban white nationalism, and separatism content in addition to white supremacy content. Are the lawmakers and media being really critical towards Facebook?

Yesterday, the chairs of the UK and Canadian Houses of Commons issued a letter calling for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO to appear before them. The primary aim of this hearing is to get a clear idea of what measures Facebook is taking to avoid the spreading of disinformation on the social media platform and to protect user data. It is scheduled to happen at the Westminster Parliament on Tuesday 27th November. The committee has already gathered evidence regarding several data breaches and process failures including the Cambridge Analytica scandal and is now seeking answers from Mark Zuckerberg on what led to all of these incidents. Mark last attended a hearing in April with the Senate's Commerce and Judiciary committees this year in which he was asked about the company’s failure to protect its user data, its perceived bias against conservative speech, and its use for selling illegal material like drugs. After which he has not attended any of the hearings and instead sent other senior representatives such as Sheryl Sandberg, COO at Facebook. The letter pointed out: “You have chosen instead to send less senior representatives, and have not yourself appeared, despite having taken up invitations from the US Congress and Senate, and the European Parliament.” Throughout this year we saw major security and data breaches involving Facebook. The social media platform faced a security issue last month which impacted almost 50 million user accounts. Its engineering team discovered that hackers were able to find a way to exploit a series of bugs related to the View As Facebook feature. Earlier this year, Facebook witnessed a backlash for the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was a major political scandal about Cambridge Analytica using personal data of millions of Facebook users for political purposes without their permission. The reports of this hearing will be shared in December if at all Zuckerberg agrees to attend it. The committee has requested his response till 7th November. Read the full letter issued by the committee. Facebook is at it again. This time with Candidate Info where politicians can pitch on camera Facebook finds ‘no evidence that hackers accessed third party Apps via user logins’, from last week’s security breach How far will Facebook go to fix what it broke: Democracy, Trust, Reality

The European Union approved two new labour protection laws recently. This time, for the two not so hyped sects, the whistleblowers and the ones earning their income via the ‘gig economy’. As for the whistleblowers, with the new law, they receive an increased protection landmark legislation aimed at encouraging reports of wrongdoing. On the other hand, for those working for ‘on-demand’ jobs, thus, termed as the gig economy, the law sets minimum rights and demands increased transparency for such workers. Let’s have a brief look at each of the newly approved by the EU. Whistleblowers’ shield against retaliation On Tuesday, the EU parliament approved a new law for whistleblowers safeguarding them from any retaliation within an organization. The law protects whistleblowers against dismissal, demotion and other forms of punishment. “The law now needs to be approved by EU ministers. Member states will then have two years to comply with the rules”, the EU proposal states. Transparency International calls this as “pathbreaking legislation”, which will also give employees a "greater legal certainty around their rights and obligations". The new law creates a safe channel which allows the whistleblowers to report of an EU law breach both within an organization and to public authorities. “It is the first time whistleblowers have been given EU-wide protection. The law was approved by 591 votes, with 29 votes against and 33 abstentions”, the BBC reports. In cases where no appropriate action is taken by the organization’s authorities even after reporting, whistleblowers are allowed to make public disclosure of the wrongdoing by communicating with the media. European Commission Vice President, Frans Timmermans, says, “potential whistleblowers are often discouraged from reporting their concerns or suspicions for fear of retaliation. We should protect whistleblowers from being punished, sacked, demoted or sued in court for doing the right thing for society.” He further added, “This will help tackle fraud, corruption, corporate tax avoidance and damage to people's health and the environment.” “The European Commission says just 10 members - France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Sweden, and the UK - had a "comprehensive law" protecting whistleblowers”, the BBC reports. “Attempts by some states to water down the reform earlier this year were blocked at an early stage of the talks with Luxembourg, Ireland, and Hungary seeking to have tax matters excluded. However, a coalition of EU states, including Germany, France, and Italy, eventually prevailed in keeping tax revelations within the proposal”, the Reuters report. “If member states fail to properly implement the law, the European Commission can take formal disciplinary steps against the country and could ultimately refer the case to the European Court of Justice”, BBC reports. To know more about this new law for whistleblowers, read the official proposal. EU grants protection to workers in Gig economy (casual or short-term employment) In a vote on Tuesday, the Members of the European Parliament (MEP) announced minimum rights for workers with on-demand, voucher-based or platform jobs, such as Uber or Deliveroo. However, genuinely self-employed workers would be excluded from the new rules. “The law states that every person who has an employment contract or employment relationship as defined by law, collective agreements or practice in force in each member state should be covered by these new rights”, BBC reports. “This would mean that workers in casual or short-term employment, on-demand workers, intermittent workers, voucher-based workers, platform workers, as well as paid trainees and apprentices, deserve a set of minimum rights, as long as they meet these criteria and pass the threshold of working 3 hours per week and 12 hours per 4 weeks on average”, according to EU’s official website. For this, all workers need to be informed from day one as a general principle, but no later than seven days where justified. Following are the specific set of rights to cover new forms of employment includes: Workers with on-demand contracts or similar forms of employment should benefit from a minimum level of predictability such as predetermined reference hours and reference days. They should also be able to refuse, without consequences, an assignment outside predetermined hours or be compensated if the assignment was not cancelled in time. Member states shall adopt measures to prevent abusive practices, such as limits to the use and duration of the contract. The employer should not prohibit, penalize or hinder workers from taking jobs with other companies if this falls outside the work schedule established with that employer. Enrique Calvet Chambon, the MEP responsible for seeing the law through, said, “This directive is the first big step towards the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, affecting all EU workers. All workers who have been in limbo will now be granted minimum rights thanks to this directive, and the European Court of Justice rulings, from now on no employer will be able to abuse the flexibility in the labour market.” To know more about this new law on Gig economy, visit EU’s official website. 19 nations including The UK and Germany give thumbs-up to EU’s Copyright Directive Facebook discussions with the EU resulted in changes of its terms and services for users The EU commission introduces guidelines for achieving a ‘Trustworthy AI’

A leading fact-checking agency, Snopes, announced last week that it’s terminating its partnership with Facebook and will no longer aid in reducing the spread of misinformation and fake news on the platform. “We are evaluating the ramifications and costs of providing third-party fact-checking services, and we want to determine with certainty that our efforts to aid any particular platform are a net positive for our online community, publication, and staff”, reads the statement by David Mikkelson, CEO, Snopes, and Vinny Green, VP operations, Snopes. Facebook had decided to partner up with 3rd party fact checking firms at the end of 2016, to get help in combating false news on its platform following the 2016 US elections. One such firm to partner up with Facebook was Snopes, who contributed to Facebook for two years. Snopes team mentions that when they contributed to Facebook’s initial fact-checking effort in December 2016, there were no financial benefits (payment offer) involved. However, Facebook did offer a lump $100,000 payment for their work in 2017. Other than that, Green told Poynter that part of the reason why Snopes withdrew its partnership with Facebook is that third-party fact-checking for Facebook didn’t seem practical to the publishers within Snopes. He mentions that fact checkers had to manually enter false news post on Facebook that they flag into the dashboard, which in turn, requires a lot of time and is not possible for a team that has only 16 people. “It doesn’t seem like we’re striving to make third-party fact-checking more practical for publishers — it seems like we’re striving to make it easier for Facebook. The work that fact-checkers are doing doesn’t need to be just for Facebook — we can build things for fact-checkers that benefit the whole web, and that can also help Facebook”, Green told Poynter. Offering Fact-checking services for Facebook has been under a lot of controversy within Snopes, as Guardian recently quoted Brooke Binkowski, Snopes’ former managing editor, and Kim LaCapria, a former fact-checker in a report published in December last year. As per the reports, the former Snopes employees mentioned that Facebook ‘didn’t care’ about the fact-checking firms. “They’ve essentially used us for crisis PR. They’re not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck … They clearly don’t care,” said Binkowski. Regarding the current news, a Facebook spokesperson told Poynter that, despite Snopes’ pulling out of the partnership, Facebook will continue to improve its platform and work with fact-checkers around the world. Another agency, named, Associated Press (AP) is also currently making negotiations over its role as a fact-checking agency on Facebook. AP spokesperson told TechCrunch it’s not doing any fact-checking work for Facebook currently and is in an ongoing discussion with Facebook about opportunities related to doing more important fact-checking work on Facebook. AP doesn’t plan on leaving Facebook but is in talks with the company and hopes to start the fact-checking work soon, as reported by TechCrunch. Snopes team also mentioned that they've not entirely ruled out working with Facebook and are willing to have an open dialogue and discussion with Facebook over its approaches to fighting misinformation. “We will continue to be pioneers in a challenging digital media landscape, forever looking for opportunities to cultivate our publication and increase our impact. Our extremely talented and dedicated staff stands ready for the challenges ahead”, states the Snopes team.This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote This is a test for blockquote Read NextFacebook faces multiple data-protection investigations in Ireland Facebook pays users $20/month to install a ‘Facebook Research’ VPN that spies on their phone and web activities, TechCrunch reports Facebook hires top EEF lawyer and Facebook critic as Whatsapp privacy policy manager