June 25, 2020
what is keeping us on the edge of our seats...
empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines
Technology
Facebook is having a rough week when it comes to being a data-hungry monopoly. In Germany, a court ruled that Facebook must stop collecting data from users without getting their “qualified” consent, citing that its massive terms of service should have more than one agree-to function. The case stemmed from a challenge to the collection of users’ data across Facebook’s multiple apps (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp). The presiding judge brought up continuing antitrust concerns and stated:
“we have no doubt that Facebook has a dominant market position on the social network market and that it misuses its position.”
While in Brazil, the Central Bank suspended a newly released payments feature in WhatsApp. The new feature hoped to facilitate peer-to-peer payments and payments to small businesses through the app, but was suspended in just over a week. The Central Bank noted the monopolistic position of WhatsApp in the country, and aimed to protect the competitive nature of the mobile payments market.
What to watch: The European Union is probing Facebook’s data collection practices (and its ad Marketplace and its Libra currency) over antitrust concerns. Several US AGs are expected to do the same, and at some point the US Government may step in to investigate. Facebook recently began the bold step of integrating the infrastructure of its three apps, and some speculate this was to make it harder to break up the company. Big Tech may finally be having its reckoning.
An update: As we mentioned on June 20, even more companies have joined the #StopHateforProfit movement — pulling ads from Facebook during the month of July. Most of the brands involved are no strangers to social justice movements — Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia and Magnolia Pictures, but the boycott is forcing many large companies to rethink where they advertise.
Go Deeper:
FT on Facebook’s Trust Deficit
More Technology
Minority Report (the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie) is traditionally filed under science fiction. However, it’s feeling a lot more predictive lately — retinal scanners, multi-touch interfaces, personalized advertising and self-driving cars. This reality we can deal with, even if it comes with Tom Cruise.
This twist, not so much. The main premise behind the film was a pair of siblings, “Pre-Cogs”, who could see a crime before it happened, and then the pre-criminal would be arrested. Unfortunately, a group of researchers claims to have developed a facial recognition algorithm that can predict who will become a criminal. (Talk about built in bias.)
Recognizing the implicit bias (and the PR backlash), several companies have suspended selling facial recognition software to law enforcement including IBM, Amazon and Microsoft. Boston and San Francisco have also banned the use of facial recognition technology. In January, a man was wrongfully arrested in Detroit purely on the basis of facial recognition software.
Facial recognition software was used widely as a means of contact tracing during the pandemic; some of the software can even recognize faces wearing masks and read temperatures.
Why this matters: In December, China made facial recognition mandatory for mobile phone users. In the US, contact tracing has been an overwhelming failure as people are unwilling to give up their privacy.
Artificial Intelligence has its benefits — scanning the universe for exoplanets, powering autonomous cars, responding to customer service complaints, and reading x-rays. But it also has huge negatives — implicit bias, lack of emotions, empathy and morality.
We are already being scored by algorithms through our own data: we receive personalized advertisements, search results and customer service scores. China has implemented its own social credit system based on digital activity. How much we choose to use AI may be its own trolley problem.
Go deeper:
MIT on AI Ethics
NY Times on Wrongful Arrest
Climate Change
The Earth really is not happy with us humans. A town in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle, hit a temperature over 100F this week. It was the summer solstice with 24 hours of sunlight, but the heat wave is expected to continue. Apparently, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the Arctic: the more the snow melts, the less of a white surface to reflect the sunlight.
On the brighter side, Amazon announced a $2B fund to focus on offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. Amazon had pledged last year to become carbon neutral by 2040, but with the pandemic increasing its sales, Amazon also announced a 15% increase in carbon emissions. Bezos himself has pledged an additional $10B for a climate change initiative, although little has been announced publicly as to what that actually means. We are hoping that Amazon’s pledge for a cleaner, safer supply chain also takes the planet and its health into consideration.
Raising our eyebrows: Facebook seems to believe that climate science is an opinion and not a fact, creating an exemption for its fact checkers. Facebook has been overruling its science panel on climate misinformation since it is an “opinion.” Alternative facts meet misinformation meet social media amplification.
Go deeper:
Popular Information on Facebook
Business
We are not sure this is a trend, but we are alarmed: 2020 has seen the departure of several female CEOs. They have all left leadership for different reasons, some positive, some not by choice, but we’d prefer the C-Suite to get more diverse rather than less.
Stacy Brown-Philpot, the CEO of TaskRabbit, and one of the only Black executives in tech, stepped down following the acquisition by IKEA. This week we also saw Sophia Amoroso step down from Girlboss: the company’s main revenue stream (from sponsored, interactive events) was decimated by the pandemic. Audrey Gelman, CEO of the Wing, was forced to resign following staff protests over the treatment of minority employees. Other high profile female CEOs that have departed recently include Marilyn Hewson (CEO of Lockheed Martin, in a planned transition), Ginni Rometty (CEO of IBM, through retirement), Kathryn Marinello (CEO of Hertz, through resignation), and Cheryl Miller (CEO of AutoNation, due to medical leave).
What's next: The pandemic coupled with the movement toward social justice and inclusivity has forced many companies to rethink their cultures and their business models. We have seen several companies commit to adding POC to their boards, and we hope they will commit to changing their hiring practices as well.
Space
2020 really can’t get any stranger. In April, the Pentagon released three videos taken by US Navy pilots which showed UFOs. This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee, which allocates the budget for the Department of Naval Intelligence, requested a detailed report on unidentified aerial phenomena. We have yet to see the little green creatures, but we can’t wait for the Senate subpoenas.
Putting a smile on our face: NASA announced that it will be renaming its headquarters after Mary Jackson, the first Black female engineer at NASA. (Janelle Monáe portrayed her in the movie, Hidden Figures.)
Culture
There is a really intriguing trend on TikTok of doing Math, yes, I said Math. This is not teachers or tutors walking you through homework, but TikTokkers using Math in an almost CSI-like capacity. Using a real world object as a reference in an image to calculate someone’s height, or calculating a Boomer’s gray roots to show she hadn’t done her hair long before salons were closed down (and thus, no need to protest), or even a pure ode to a new Excel formula released in 2020.
I don’t know if GenZ is just more comfortable letting their nerd flags fly, or proud to show off what they’ve learned, or providing a service to their community, but they are putting their native digital skills to good use. Whatever its motivation, 👍🏻👍🏻.
Didn’t learn this in geography class: Did you know the official name of Rhode Island is “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”? The state will be dropping the second half due to its ties to slavery. 🤷🏻♀️
— Lauren Eve Cantor
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