Stand up to the tech giants
Techlash (noun): a strong and widespread negative reaction to the growing power and influence of large technology companies, particularly those based in Silicon Valley.
“Techlash” didn’t quite make the cut as Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2018, but it might well have. Never has the threat to our privacy, our democracy and the competitiveness of our economy posed by the likes of Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon been so obvious.
Yet our government seems uncertain, even paralyzed, in the face of the multiple challenges posed by the tech giants that have come to rule so much of our daily lives.
In the United States, and especially in Europe, governments are taking strong action to counter some of the worst effects of Facebook et al. They’ve brought in laws to strengthen privacy protection for the tens of millions who rely on the online platforms. And they’re updating copyright laws designed to protect the rights and livelihood of those who produce content that ends up online — everything from music to news.
Ottawa, by contrast, has been hesitant to act, and that’s putting it kindly. In case after case, our federal government has chosen to tread lightly when it comes to dealing with the impact of the big tech companies on Canadians’ privacy, on the spread of false and toxic information, and on the economic health of the companies that pay for original content only to see the tech giants scoop up much of the profit.
That’s the overall conclusion to be drawn from a comprehensive survey of the issues involved in trying to rein in Big Tech by Star reporters Michael Lewis, May Warren and Jennifer Yang.
In one area after another, politicians in the United States, the European Union, even Australia, California and Quebec, are debating how to respond to the tech challenge. After years of being celebrated as champions of innovation and prosperity, they’re now coming under well-deserved fire for playing fast and loose with customers’ personal data, crushing competitors, contributing to inequality and poisoning democracy.
It’s a perfect storm for tech, yet Ottawa seems to be content to sit on the sidelines and watch as others tackle the tough issues.
Take privacy, one of the biggest concerns for consumers in the wake of epic fails involving Facebook last year, including one affecting the personal information of 50 million users.
The European Union has pioneered privacy laws for the tech age with its General Data Protection Regulation, which came into effect last May. It requires tech companies to be much more transparent about how they obtain consent from consumers, and what they do with the data they collect, and allows for fines of up to 4 per cent of a company’s revenue.
French authorities fined Google a record $75 million in January for violating the law, and other investigations are under way elsewhere in Europe. This law promises to hit the tech companies where they hurt most — on their bottom line.
Is there any sign that our federal government is prepared to be similarly tough? In short, no. Canada’s privacy law was developed in 2000, when smartphones were barely a gleam in Steve Jobs’ eye, and doesn’t provide for the kind of stiff fines that the EU law contains. A parliamentary committee last year recommended a tougher approach, but from the government so far, nothing.
What about the health of democracy? Germany has taken the toughest line, forcing tech firms to remove hate speech within 24 hours and employing moderators to police their content. In Britain, a parliamentary committee last week labelled Facebook and the like “digital gangsters” for allowing a torrent of “disinformation” to subvert democracy. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal last year, government action seems inevitable. “Self-regulation is no longer enough,” editorializes the Guardian.
But in Ottawa, the Trudeau government has been much more cautious. Bill C-76 bans the use of foreign money by third-party advocacy groups and empowers a committee of senior bureaucrats to blow the whistle if any outside entity tries to interfere with next fall’s federal election.
But the government did not follow the advice of an all-party Commons committee, which urged it to go a lot further and force Google, Facebook, etc., to up their game in removing “manifestly illegal content.” Instead, the government chose to go easy on the social media companies.
Finally, Europe is moving toward adopting a new copyright law that would force Google and Facebook to compensate content creators, or filter out copyright-protected content. The basic idea is that those who produce content (including news) should not have to stand by while Big Tech creams off the revenue. The new law isn’t a done deal, but most EU countries signed on to the idea this month.
Canada, in contrast, has done nothing on this front. Ottawa is in the midst of a consultation on copyright law that is due to extend into 2020, well beyond the next election. Content producers, meanwhile, watch while social media companies profit by “sharing” their content.
The techlash was a long time coming, but it’s turned into a howling storm. Governments must find a way to rein in Big Tech without stifling the free flow of information, and Ottawa should be part of that solution. So far, though, it has failed the challenge.
Canada’s privacy law was developed in 2000, when smartphones were barely a gleam in Steve Jobs’ eye