Big Tech

June 18, 2021 Souwie

David and Goliath is a biblical story that pits agility of mind and body against size and power. At Deutsche Welle’s recent Global Media Forum, I witnessed a fascinating contest of wits in which DW’s Head of News, Max Hofmann, interviewed video blogger, Nuseir Yassin of Nas Daily. The issue – is what Yassin does, journalism? Yassin claims that the future of journalism lies with the individual, not the institution. But it’s a little more complicated than that. Behind the phenomenal individual success of someone like Nuseir Yassin (Nas Daily has over 38 million followers) stands an even larger giant. These are the social media platforms, Facebook and YouTube, that have allowed Yassin to reach millions of people globally on a daily basis. So who is the winner in this David and Goliath story and why does it matter?

History can help put things in perspective. As Yale History Professor, Timothy Snyder, points out, the invention of the printing press in 1450 resulted in over a hundred years of religious war in Medieval Europe and beyond. The internet and all that comes with it, is still in its infancy. It is still being shaped and yet it has already caused considerable disruption, particularly for traditional media. It has overturned long-established business models based on advertising dependent on new distribution channels. According to Reuters, 69% of people worldwide now access news via their smartphones. Conversely, US newspaper circulation in 2020 was at an 80-year low.

‘The future belongs to the individual, not the institution’ – Nuseir Yassin

The battle between traditional media organisations and social media giants like Google and Facebook is now familiar to most of us. Nuseir Yassin, colourfully describes it as ‘Some schmuck eating your lunch’. Content, produced by media organisations is distributed via social media platforms who get rich on the advertising revenue that accrues. One should not forget however, that these same platforms are helping news outlets reach a far wider audience than ever before. More consumers have traditionally been considered a sign of success. This is because it meant that more people were buying your product. But if no one is paying for the news that you produce with such painstaking care, does a larger audience benefit you and what does this mean for the future of journalism more generally?

This is where individuals like Nuseir Yassin come in. ‘The future belongs to the individual , not the institution’, he declares. Based no doubt on his own phenomenal success as a vlogger, Yassin argues that people like and come to trust individuals rather than institutions in the social media world. He is unashamedly biased in his position – an Israeli Arab, he supports a two state solution to the Israeli/Palestine conflict. His plan, he tells us, is to flood the internet with an alternative message of hope and peace in the Middle East. Idealistic perhaps, but not without substance when one considers the kind of power he commands in the virtual world as a result of his enormous following.

‘We need less information and more knowledge’ – Elif Shafak.

There is power in numbers. Nowhere is this more evident than on social media. Clicks are king. But they signal little more than a fleeting interest in an endless stream of information that barely registers with the consumer of this fast news diet. ‘We need less information and more knowledge’ says Turkish journalist, Elif Shafak. Knowledge implies processing and interpretation. This takes time. Yassin echoes this idea. ‘We live in a world where information is free but opinion is hard to come by’. Some see the future of journalism in the rise of new approaches like slow journalism. This is journalism that does not follow the 24 hour news cycle. A cycle on steroids since the arrival of the internet. Notions of time and space are different in the digital world. Or, as Professor Snyder puts it, ‘the digital world works in its own way, via its own rhythms’. Everything in this world is faster and further away. Further away from our real, locally rooted lives. Faster than our everyday routines.

The death of local news, newsrooms and papers is by now well documented. The consequences are revealing themselves more slowly as communities find themselves stranded in local news deserts. Professor Snyder explains that the increasing polarisation and levels of disinformation that we find in the social media world, have sprung up as a result, at least in part, of the lack of real, locally rooted news. ‘If media’s going to work in the future, it has to work locally’. Connection to local news and local reporters builds trust. In the virtual world, trust is becoming an increasingly rare commodity. Vloggers like Yassin are gaining trust globally, via individual, first person narratives that speak to a new generation. But he too agrees, that ‘distribution is not a right, it’s a privilege’.

Democracy thrives on truthful reporting and factual accuracy.

The question remains, who should be trusted with this privilege and who are the gatekeepers now? The European Union’s new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market provides for new rules to ensure fairer remuneration for publishers and journalists. It also increases transparency in their relationships with online platforms. It’s a start, but democracy is a delicate flower in many ways. It cannot be regulated into law, permanently. It thrives on the very openness that can also pose threats to its existence. Freedom of the press is one part but freedom of expression via social media platforms is another. Sometimes these two pull together, sometimes they are at odds with one another.

Who’s the winner in the David and Goliath battle? That depends on who one casts as David and who one views as Goliath. One thing is clear however, democracy thrives on truthful reporting and factual accuracy. These should form the basis of our trust in an individual or an institution and these should be prioritised in the new online world in which so many of us now spend our time. The future of journalism is dependent on recognising and supporting these ideals both in spirit and with cold, hard cash.

April 23, 2020 Souwie

Surely the century’s deadliest pandemic calls for some of Big Tech’s strongest firepower? As governments around the world start looking toward exit strategies without a vaccine for COVID 19 yet available, Apple, Google and Facebook are stepping in to fill the gap. But will contact tracing work? And what about data privacy? The social credit system in China may well make tracking apps and symptom reporting more readily acceptable. But other countries must tread the fine line between individual privacy and communal protection.

The use of technology to help combat the highly infectious coronavirus, began even before its status as a pandemic was established. The tracking ability of apps is clearly helpful in tracing the path of infection as it moves from person to person. This is called contact-tracing in medical circles and is not new. Contact tracing was used in the fight against HIV and the 2015 Ebola outbreak in Africa. It involves asking people who test positive for the names of everyone with whom they have recently been in contact. People who may then have been exposed to the disease are traced and contacted in order to provide them with advice on how to proceed.

This has traditionally been done by human beings. The provision of advice on an individual basis is still best done by people rather than apps. In Massachusetts for example, 1000 contact tracers have been hired to interview people who’ve become infected with coronavirus. But given the speed of transmission of COVID 19, digital tracing methods are increasingly attractive. Contact tracing can also work if one self-reports, assuming of course that one is reasonably honest and accurate. For example, the Governor of Rhode Island, asked the entire population to keep a journal of the people they met and the places they visited each day. If they fall sick, this journal can be handed over to health officials and used to trace those who may have been infected.

Carnegie Mellon University very happy with Facebook and Google survey results so far.

Facebook has begun work with Carnegie Mellon University in the US to create a map, showing the proportion of people who say they have experienced coronavirus symptoms, by State. The data was gathered from more than a million Facebook users who completed a survey compiled by Carnegie Mellon University. It is voluntary and depends on respondents accurately reporting their symptoms. Nevertheless, researchers at the university say that they are very happy with both Facebook and Google survey results so far. Updated on a daily basis, these results, combined with other data sources, provide real time indications of COVID 19 infections. This information helps health officials and local governments make decisions about how to allocate limited resources such as ventilators, testing equipment and face masks.

Google and Apple have recently announced their joint effort to use Bluetooth technology in order to create the foundation (application programming interface) for contact-tracing apps that will work across both iOS and Android phones. The idea is to use low energy Bluetooth waves, which have a range of about 9 meters, to track whether a smartphone owner has come into contact with someone who may be infected with coronavirus.

No one knows for sure if Bluetooth will work for digital contact-tracing.

Importantly, Apple and Google say that the system will be anonymized. This means there will be no identifying data stored on a server and it won’t involve location data. Data experts agree however that Bluetooth was not designed with this in mind. So no one knows for sure if it will work, warns Bennett Cyphers of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ‘It is highly experimental and we certainly shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket’, he says. Nevertheless Cyphers agrees that the current Apple/Google initiative is ‘relatively good’, in terms of transparency and decentralization.

Currently in the development phase, it is later that issues concerning consent will come to the fore. ‘Consent is going to be critical at every stage’ emphasises Bennett. This means that even after a user has opted in for such an app, it should still be possible to change one’s mind and op out, taking one’s data with you. Further, any new data collection from an individual who has previously given consent should require further requests for consent. There should also be no compunction to download the app, this includes from your boss or child’s school. Voluntary use of these apps, which is clearly linked to trust, is vital for success.

Data scientists concerned about slow eroding of data privacy over time.

Data Scientist and researcher at the Brookings Institute in the US, Alex Engler, supports what he terms ‘a cohesive effort for digital contact tracing’ because of the relative ease and low cost of such projects. However, he worries about ‘the slow eroding of data privacy over time’, especially if the pandemic drags on over a period of years. Engler also points out that privacy issues can arise simply from combining different sets of data. So-called re-association can take place with just a few other data points. Data Protection Officer for Uber, Europe, Simon Hania, agrees that ‘Anonymized data is not necessarily innocuous data’.

Clearly digital contact tracing requires consideration of multiple issues. In the European Union, Member States are approaching the challenge individually. The Netherlands, for example recently trialed 3 pilot apps but concluded that none reached the requisite privacy requirements. Anna Buchta, Senior Official at the European Data Protection Supervisor, notes that from one member state to another, there will likely be slightly different combinations of technological and non-technological solutions to COVID 19.

GDPR will not stand in the way of combating COVID 19 – European Data Protection Supervisor confirms.

But she points out that the GDPR regulations, in force across the EU since 2018, are in fact ‘quite flexible so should not stand in the way of combating COVID 19’. A European-wide contact-tracing app has been proposed, but its adoption by Member States is voluntary. Buchta stresses however that before such technology can be really useful, definite exit strategies will need to be agreed. Experts from both the US and the EU ultimately agree that technology will always remain only part of a co-ordinated response to COVID 19.

Stop stealing my lunch! Newsrooms vs Big Tech & the future of journalism.