Probe into tech giants
News Corp warns on power of algorithms
NEWS Corp chief Robert Thomson says “algorithmic abuse” by technology giants should come under scrutiny as the competition regulator probes the digital advertising market in Australia.
Mr Thomson says he is concerned by the growing extent to which such companies impact the diversity of journalistic content and products available to consumers, par- ticularly through the algorithmic selection of news stories and products owned by the tech giants themselves.
“One of the things to watch out for is algorithmic abuse because, clearly, there was a point of concern among publishers that if they spoke up that they would be banished,” Mr Thomson said at a media conference yesterday.
“And it’s a particular issue, for example, when you look back to the Amazon-Hachette dispute of three, four years ago, when it suddenly became much more difficult to find Hachette authors, or the delivery dates that Amazon concocted in its algorithm for Hachette books were much delayed – weeks rather than days or even hours.”
Mr Thomson has been the most ardent critic of the way in which Google and Facebook damage quality publishers and promote dubious provenance in the pursuit of clicks.
Algorithms like PageRank – the computer code that powers Google’s search results – has a powerful impact on digital news consumption.
There are concerns algorithmically-curated Westfield Corporation founder Frank Lowy speaking at a business conference in Sydney filter bubbles, where users may find themselves receiving less exposure to new information or conflicting viewpoints, may affect the way people vote.
An investigation will scrutinise both issues as part of a world-first look into the digital media market by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
At the Deutsche Bank Media, Telecom & Business Services Conference yesterday, Mr Thomson said he was worried by the rapid ascent of Amazon’s audiobook service Audible. “When you have that amount of monolithic power in a sector – and audiobooks is a sector – and your ability to tweak the algorithm, to give it a tug here to potentially punish your suppliers or distort the market, then that is another issue,” Mr Thomson said.