All sides, inside and outside
WinSocially Weekly
All Sides
From our earliest newsletters, one of our most strident points has been that opposition from all sides of the political divide is the most important challenge facing Silicon Valley.
This article is a great example of the ongoing nature of this.
On one side is the progressive left, whose members have been appalled by Facebook’s handling of pro-Trump Russian disinformation campaigns and Silicon Valley’s consolidated power. On the other side is the Trumpist right, whose members see the power of social media companies to ban content as censorship and worry that the arteries of communication are controlled by young liberals.
The common cause has made for some strange new bedfellows. The left and the right now often have similar anti-tech talking points on cable news and at congressional hearings. Conservatives are showing up at largely liberal conferences, while liberals are going on conservative TV shows.
We’ve also discussed the global nature of the scepticism and this poses a unique challenge with big tech forced to go on the record for legislators — as this tweet from a UK MP shows.
There was a particularly egregious example of this at the Senate Banking, House and Urban Affairs Committee hearing.
David Marcus, the head of Facebook's digital currency project, said, "For the purposes of data and privacy protections, the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) will be the Libra Association's privacy regulator."
Asked about the agency's role regulating Libra, Hugo Wyler, head of communication at the FDPIC, said in a statement to CNBC:
"We have taken note of the statements made by David Marcus, Chief of Calibra, on our potential role as data protection supervisory authority in the Libra context. Until today we have not been contacted by the promoters of Libra," Wyler said. "We expect Facebook or its promoters to provide us with concrete information when the time comes. Only then will we be able to examine the extent to which our legal advisory and supervisory competence is given. In any case, we are following the development of the project in the public debate."
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the company hasn't yet met with the FDPIC.
Is this incredibly sloppy and arrogant by Facebook? Yes. It’s also par for the course.
But here’s a reason why they are playing so fast and loose with Libra.
Libra is a trial balloon designed to test regulators and see how far Facebook can push into digital currencies and payment platforms.
the cryptocurrency isn’t even complete. Not just in need of updates. Libra is incomplete in the sense that its creators are still figuring out what to build.
Given the nonfunctionality of the current software and ambiguity of the white paper, it’s clear that Libra’s announcement was intended to solicit feedback from regulators rather than to win over users. Lawmakers are not known for their ability to accommodate rapid iteration, so it makes sense that Facebook would put out a rudimentary proposal before investing more energy and reputation in crypto.
While in theory, this kind of tactic is valid (& we’ve certainly used it ourselves in a professional capacity), Facebook has done so in the most clumsy, insincere and antagonistic manner possible.
This is no surprise — remember what we wrote last week about organisational behaviour & leadership?
Inside and Outside
We’ve stressed the “all sides” nature of the political assault on big tech but this week saw two notable developments from conservative elements.
Someone who made an early appearance on WinSocially Weekly.
Note this article on Buzzfeed.
A month earlier, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the House Judiciary Committee that his company hadn’t been manually altering search results. But now, Breitbart had published an article that claimed to contain “smoking gun” evidence that Google had indeed. And the Republican members of Congress erupted in anger.
"Does this mean @sundarpichai committed perjury?" Sen. Josh Hawley tweeted. Pichai was "less than truthful," Sen. Marsha Blackburn said. "If Mr. Pichai lied to Congress, he was under oath and it would be a criminal matter for a Grand Jury," said Rep. Louie Gohmert.
Conservative employees inside Google cheered. The leak that hung Pichai out to dry came from one of their own. “We have tons of white- and blacklists that humans manually curate,” said one Google employee in a communication cited by Breitbart. “Hopefully this isn’t surprising or particularly controversial.”
Remember, this is the same world where liberal tech employees at Microsoft called on the company to cancel a nearly $480 million U.S. Army contract because the contract "is designed to help people kill.” and a group of Amazon employees sent out an internal email calling on Amazon to stop working with the big data company Palantir, which works with federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).