Mark Scott

Musk personally led call with civil rights groups to address hate speech on Twitter

Twitter CEO Elon Musk led a call with civil rights groups in an effort to assure them that he would curtail hate speech — and stop the spread of misinformation ahead of the midterm elections. Musk said that Twitter employees responsible for election integrity who had been locked out of their moderation tools during the company’s acquisition will have their access reinstated soon. Musk also said that users banned by the platform — including former President Donald Trump — will remain off the site “for at least a few more weeks.” The gathering was part of Musk’s effort to set up a “content mo

UkraineX: How Elon Musk’s space satellites changed the war on the ground

The United States, European Union and other NATO countries have donated billions of dollars in military equipment to Ukraine since the war began in late February. But Elon Musk’s Starlink—based on a cluster of table-sized satellites flying as low as 130 miles above Ukraine and beaming down high-speed internet access—has become an unexpected lifeline to the country: both on the battlefield and in the war for public opinion. Ukrainian drones have relied on Starlink to drop bombs on Russian forward positions.

Ben Scott seeks to rewrite anti-tech lobbying rulebook

From an office in London's diamond district, Ben Scott has his eyes set on Big Tech.

Android case widens transatlantic rift

Even before the ink could dry on Europe’s record €4.3 billion ($5 billion) antitrust fine against Google, clashing interpretations rushed into the Brussels-created fray. The financial penalty would change everything for Google and Silicon Valley’s other tech giants — it was a European attack on a “great” American company, according to a tweet from President Donald Trump. Or it would change nothing. As usual, the reality is somewhere in between.

Facebook and Twitter Could Face Fines in Germany Over Hate Speech Posts

Social media companies including Facebook and Twitter are not doing enough to curb hate speech on their platforms and could face fines of up to $53 million if they do not strengthen their efforts to delete illegal posts, a German government minister said on March 14. The move by the country’s authorities comes as technology companies face increasing scrutiny worldwide over how they police online material including hate speech, possible terrorist propaganda and so-called fake news. The debate has been particularly acute in Germany, which has become a case study for combating such material because of its stringent laws on what can and cannot be published.

For tech companies and free speech campaigners, this global regulatory push could limit how individuals communicate online by restricting people’s digital activities and allowing governments to expand their control over vast parts of the internet.Yet for a growing number of policy makers in Europe, the United States and elsewhere, social media companies have a responsibility to block harmful content from their digital platforms, and they must respect national rules that often run counter to Silicon Valley’s efforts to operate across borders.

In Global Expansion, Netflix Makes Friends With Carriers

Negotiations will Internet service providers have become increasingly commonplace for Netflix as its global ambitions have taken the content streaming service far from its California roots into markets across Europe, Latin America and Asia.

The company’s partnerships with cable and cellphone operators worldwide give it almost instantaneous access to potential new users without having to spend a fortune on advertising and distribution deals in markets where its brand and content are often still relatively unknown. This growing symbiotic relationship will take center stage when Reed Hastings, the company’s chief executive, gives the keynote address on the first day of the Mobile World Congress. The conference is an annual trade show in Barcelona, Spain, where executives from across the telecom, media and technology worlds gather to meet and, potentially, sign new deals.

Uber, Seeking to Expand, Defends Itself at Europe’s Highest Court

Uber asserted that it was helping to bolster Europe’s digital economy as part of its defense in a long-awaited hearing to decide how the popular ride-hailing service should be able to operate across the region. The case at the European Court of Justice comes as the American company continues to push aggressively into overseas markets, often butting heads with local lawmakers and taxi associations that say the company flouts transportation and competition rules.

Uber has expanded into more than 300 cities across six continents and has an estimated value of $68 billion. Europe’s legal challenge represents a direct attack on how Uber operates in the region, one of its most important markets. It also raises questions about the company’s growth plans as it looks to expand beyond ride-hailing to food delivery and other online services. In its defense at the hearing, the company framed itself as a new player in Europe’s often lackluster digital economy, offering users and drivers new ways to connect and helping to support cities’ existing transportation networks.

In Europe, Is Uber a Transportation Service or a Digital Platform?

In July 2015, a judge in Barcelona referred a case to the European Court of Justice, asking the Luxembourg-based court to determine whether Uber should be treated as a transportation service or merely as a digital platform. If the court decides that Uber is a transportation service, the company will have to obey Europe’s often onerous labor and safety rules, and comply with rules that apply to traditional taxi associations.

Though Uber already fulfills such requirements in many European countries, the ruling could hamper its expansion plans. But if the judges rule that Uber is an “information society service,” or an online platform that merely matches independent drivers with potential passengers, then the company will have greater scope to offer low-cost products like UberPop and other services that have been banned in many parts of Europe. A ruling is not expected before March 2017 at the earliest. The judges may decide to consider Uber a transportation service, an online platform, or a combination of the two, further complicating the legal standoff.

Fake News on Facebook? In Foreign Elections, That’s Not New.

Well before the 2016 American election threw Facebook’s status as a digital-era news source into the spotlight, leaders, advocacy groups and minorities worldwide have contended with an onslaught of online misinformation and abuse that have had real-world political repercussions. And for years, the social network did little to clamp down on the false news.

Now Facebook, Google and others have begun to take steps to curb the trend, but some outside the United States say the move is too late. “They should have done this way earlier,” said Richard Heydarian, a political analyst in the Philippines, one of Facebook’s fastest-growing markets. “We already saw the warning signs of this years ago.” The impact of Facebook and other social media platforms on international elections is difficult to quantify. But Facebook’s global reach — roughly a quarter of the world’s population now has an account — is difficult to deny, political experts and academics say.

AT&T’s Vision of Ultrafast Wireless Technology May Be a Mirage

Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, has a vision for the future if regulators approve his company’s blockbuster bid for Time Warner. It goes like this: In a few years, your cellphone’s data connection will be so fast that you can download a television show in the blink of an eye and a movie in less than five seconds. (That compares with up to eight minutes now for a movie.) When that happens, Stephenson has suggested, you may as well just watch TV with your cellular connection and cancel your cable subscription.

Yet the vision may be a mirage. That is because 5G is unlikely to be deployed in any meaningful capacity in the next decade. The technology, which is supposed to offer connectivity at least 100 times faster than what is now available, is at the center of a bitter fight between carriers and telecom equipment makers about how it should work. No resolution is expected until at least 2020, said Bengt Nordstrom, co-founder of Northstream, a telecommunications consulting firm. “Anything before that will just be window dressing,” he said. Even after companies and telecommunications groups define 5G and how it should operate, they face the high cost of installing a wireless network capable of handling the fast wireless speeds. “They take a tremendous amount of money to build,” Craig Moffett, a telecommunications analyst, said of 5G networks. “The obvious question for AT&T is, where is the money going to come from to build out 5G networks on a large scale?”

The Winners and Losers as Europe Tries to Erase Borders for TV and Films

New proposals published Sept 14 aim to give the European Union’s 500 million consumers greater choice of digital streaming content. Under the revamp, so-called video-on-demand services from national broadcasters, like the BBC iPlayer; digital players like Netflix; as well as potentially premium movies offered by Hollywood studios, among others, may become more readily available across the European Union. (British broadcasters may eventually not be subject to the rules, once Britain leaves the 28-member bloc). The goal is to allow people from Portugal to Poland to stream shows online and give national broadcasters a Continent-size possible audience as part of efforts to create a unified digital market across the European Union. The copyright proposals will now be debated for two years before becoming law.

Not everyone, though, is happy. Here is a primer on who would benefit and who would most likely lose from the proposal.
Winners: Europeans and streaming services.
Losers: Hollywood studios and national broadcasters.

Google, Trying to Endear Itself to Europe, Spreads Cash Around

A yearlong digital training course for Irish high school teachers started in 2014. A fund to help European news outlets adapt to the web popped up in 2015. And in March, a virtual reality exhibition began at a Belgian museum to showcase a Renaissance painter. All these projects are aimed at supporting European culture and education, helping the region embrace the fast-changing online world. And all are financed by Google.

Google has been staging a full-court press in Europe to finance everything from start-up offices to YouTube-sponsored music concerts, trying to remake its image in the region as it battles a mounting list of regulatory woes. Those efforts represent a campaign of “soft lobbying” where instead of, or alongside, paying registered lobbyists to advocate its case in the corridors of power, a company looks to change the minds of the public at large. In Google’s case, experts say, its push equates to an almost unprecedented effort by a United States tech company to change the perceptions of Europeans, many of whom still see it as an American interloper that does not play by the rules. Google’s soft lobbying efforts are by no means unique, and have filled a funding gap that governments and European rivals are unwilling, or incapable, of matching. But the company has ramped up its campaign in recent years, earmarking about $450 million from 2015 to 2017 — based on Google’s public filings and industry estimates of its activities — to revamp its reputation with Europeans and, more important, the region’s policy makers who have the power to issue fines totaling billions of dollars.

Google Faces New Round of Antitrust Charges in Europe

When it comes to Europe’s lengthy investigations into Google, Margrethe Vestager, the region’s competition chief, is hoping that the third time’s a charm. Vestager announced a new round of antitrust charges against the company — the third set since early 2015 — claiming that some of the company’s advertising products had restricted consumer choice. The efforts are part of her continuing push to rein in Google’s activities in the European Union, where the Silicon Valley company has captured roughly 90 percent of the region’s online search market.

“Google’s conduct, based on our evidence, is harmful to consumers,” she said. “Google’s magnificent innovations don’t give it the right to deny competitors the chance to innovate.” The announcement represents a setback for Google, which vigorously denied any wrongdoing in two previous European antitrust charges linked to Android, its popular mobile operating system, and some of its dominant online search services. It also comes at a difficult time for Europe’s competition authorities, which have been unable to land a knockout punch against Google’s perceived abusive activities in the region, despite investigations that date back to 2010. The stakes are high. Google could face fines of up to 10 percent, or about $7 billion, of its global annual revenue if it is found to have broken Europe’s tough competition rules.

Google Details Problems With Handling Right to Be Forgotten Requests

Google says complying with Europe’s so-called right to be forgotten ruling is getting complicated.

In a lengthy response to questions from the region’s data regulators, the search giant said that it often lacked enough information to decide whether it should remove links to web pages to comply with European law.

Google said it had rejected a number of requests made by journalists, who wanted links to articles at publications where they no longer worked to be taken down.

Microsoft to Wade Into Complying with the Right to be Forgotten

Microsoft has kept its head down since a European court in May ruled that people could ask Internet search services to delink personal information.

But the company is about to invite a lot more attention. Microsoft plans to follow the lead of Google, which responded to the court ruling by creating an online form that lets individuals request removal of links to material they say violates their online privacy.

Microsoft, which operates the Bing search service, is expected to roll out its own request form. The release date of the online form is not yet certain, because Microsoft must coordinate with Yahoo, which also relies on the Bing search engine to power its own search services.

Google Reinstates European Links to Articles From The Guardian

Google’s efforts to carry out a European court order on the “right to be forgotten” took another twist as the company restored search-engine links to several newspaper articles from The Guardian whose delinking had stirred a public furor only a day earlier.

As Google once again declined to explain its decision-making, the episode underscored the potentially bewildering complexities of trying to remove information from the Internet when people request it.

Analysts and public officials, many critical of the way Google is carrying out the court order, say the tumult could have far wider implications. That is because the order, issued in May by the European Court of Justice, dealt with a right to be forgotten that would be much more broadly interpreted in a sweeping digital privacy law that is now the subject of discussions involving the European Parliament, the European Commission and leaders of the 28 member countries of the European Union.

The company told The Guardian that several links to its articles had been reinstated in Google’s European search service after the newspaper complained. Some of the articles were from 2010 about a soccer referee, now retired, who had been accused of lying about why he had awarded a penalty kick in a match in Scotland.

Google declined to explain why it had removed the links, or its reasons for honoring The Guardian’s request to restore them. Critics said the episode highlighted a lack of transparency about how Google is carrying out the court order as it works through requests it has received for removing information, a number that has reached 70,000 and continues to grow.

Google Ready to Comply With ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Rules in Europe

Your right to be forgotten on the Internet is almost here. Google will start to remove links to online content in Europe by the end of the month to comply with a recent landmark European court ruling intended to protect individuals’ privacy, according to sources with direct knowledge of the issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

This step follows a month-long effort by Google to comply with the European Court of Justice’s decision, which requires all search providers operating in Europe to consider people’s requests to remove links that they say violate their online privacy.

Google has already received more than 50,000 submissions from people asking the company to remove links. That includes more than 12,000 requests within the first 24 hours of the form’s being made available, according to one of the people with direct knowledge of the matter.

While the company will start to remove links by the end of June, the process is expected to take several weeks before it is fully operational. Google’s engineering teams -- both in Europe and further afield -- have been tweaking the company’s search infrastructure since the ruling was made in May.

Irish Regulator Finds Himself at Heart of Privacy Debate

Billy Hawkes might be the most important tech regulator you’ve never heard of. When Hawkes took over in 2005 as Ireland’s data protection commissioner, he said, it was a relatively quiet job focused on local issues. But in the years since, Ireland has become a preferred spot for giant tech companies to place their international headquarters, largely because of the country’s low corporate tax rates.

That has put Hawkes at the center of a growing debate over how these companies use people’s online data. Hawkes is tasked with handling privacy complaints about any company based in Ireland, leaving him responsible for protecting around a billion Internet users -- both European citizens and those further afield. “The biggest change is the number of controversial companies that fall under my remit,” said Hawkes, who will step down from his role. “It’s a shift from a domestic to an international focus.”

The role of Ireland’s data protection regulator is set to expand even further under proposed privacy changes in Europe expected to be approved in 2015. The legislation will allow companies that meet the data protection requirements in one European Union country to operate freely across the Continent. Now, companies like Microsoft and Google have to comply with regulators in each of the union’s 28 member states, which often take different views on how local privacy rules should be enforced.

After European Court Decision, Google Works on a Link Removal Tool

Google will announce by the end of the month a mechanism for consumers to request that links to information about them be removed from the company’s search engine, a leading European regulator said.

It was one of the first signs that Google was working through how to operate after a court ruling said consumers could make such requests.

Ulrich Kühn, ​head of the technical department at Hamburg’s data protection regulator, one of Germany’s leading data protection agencies, said that the details of the mechanism still had to be finalized. But a basic online tool for people to ask Google to take down potentially harmful links would be in place in about two weeks, he said.

“They are trying to come up with something that users can use to lodge complaints about specific links,” Kühn said. “It will be rolled out across Europe for all citizens.”

Europeans Look Beyond Their Borders

How many people need to use your product before it’s a success? That’s a question European tech companies from Dublin to Dubrovnik routinely ask themselves as they look to move beyond their small local markets to reach bigger audiences.

Microsoft Touts Data Protection Approval in Europe; Eager for New Customers

Online privacy is heating up as a selling point, at least in Europe. Microsoft’s top lawyer said the company’s cloud computing services had met Europe’s stringent data protection rules -- the only company so far to receive such approval -- and he used the news as a way to woo potential new customers.

“For customers who care about privacy and compliance, there is no more committed partner than Microsoft,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said.

Privacy has become an increasingly important concern for American tech companies following the revelations by Edward Snowden, which tied some of these companies to the National Security Agency’s vast surveillance program. In response, some companies and governments have starting to look elsewhere for computer services with a greater degree of privacy.

International rivals, from Europe to South America, have gained some customers who are shunning American providers. Many of the major American companies have started to face some damage to their bottom lines because of the revelations.