Edition 40: Big Tech might have met its match in the Australian government
(This newsletter was sent to email subscribers on August 5, 2020.)
Happy Wednesday, muggles. As if coronavirus and murder hornets weren’t enough, there are now “zombie cicadas.” The insects found in West Virginia are being eaten by a parasitic fungus that then takes over their bodies and begins spreading the sexually transmitted fungus. Luckily, it is not a danger to humans and doesn’t pose a serious risk to the entire cicada population, but onto other news!
ACCESSIBILITY
Lawsuit claims White House coronavirus briefings violate First Amendment
Mon Aug 3
The National Association of the Deaf is suing the White House over the lack of American Sign Language interpreters during coronavirus briefings. The National Council on Disability and some members of Congress have also reached out to request interpreters.
The lawsuit says…
- Interpreters can convey tone and context that captions cannot
- Live closed captioning often contains errors and omissions
- All 50 state governors have in-frame interpreters during coronavirus briefings, but President Trump and the White House do not
More than 37 million adults in the U.S. report some trouble hearing.
SOURCES: CNN, The New York Times, The Hill
TECHNOLOGY
Australia has a plan to make Google and Facebook pay for news
Fri Jul 31
Australia has unveiled a plan that would force the tech giants to swiftly negotiate payment to local publishers for their content. There are a few layers to this evolving story.
First, the “News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code.” This code was requested in April and intended to be voluntary, but is now being made mandatory for a few reasons:
- The imbalances in bargaining power between Australian news businesses and the adtech duopoly
- The impact of coronavirus pandemic on publishers’ advertising revenue
Now, negotiations are intended to set pricing — which comes with some rules:
- Non-compliance would result in penalties
- Platforms would need to give media companies 28 days’ notice of any algorithm changes that could affect business
- Platforms would need to give businesses information about the data they collect on users
Has this type of monetization happened between Big Tech and publishers before?
Publishers in Germany, Spain and France did pass copyright laws which required Google to pay licensing fees for snippets of news articles — but then…
- Google stopped showing snippets from European publishers in France
- Google News simply shut down in Spain
- Germany’s biggest news publisher acquiesced after traffic to its site plunged
So, if Australia gets this right, it could be the first to hold Big Tech accountable monetarily and could pave the way for other countries, including the U.S.
What’s next?
The mandatory code still needs to be passed by the Australian Parliament and would also allow for a 3-month period of negotiations between media companies and the digital platforms at which time if no agreement is reached an independent arbitrator would come in and decide the terms.
SOURCES: The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Politico, Reuters, ACCC
CRIME
Man shoots employee, officers after refusing to wear a mask
Mon Aug 3
A Pennsylvania man shot a cigar store clerk with a semiautomatic handgun after he was told he needed to wear a mask. Police say he also took two cigars and fired a shot in the air as he drove away. Police tried to stop the man the next morning, but the man started shooting with an AK-47 at officers. The suspect was eventually shot and arraigned from a hospital bed for attempted homicide.
How could you possibly have any excuse for that?
Well, his attorney is saying, “He just wasn’t dealing well with the loss of his job, the loss of his child, just not handling the pandemic well.”
SOURCES: Lehigh Valley Live, The Washington Post, WPVI-TV
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That’s all for today. Have a magical week.✨
