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A Thread: In recent months Facebook and Google have threatened to withdraw services from Australia is they are forced to pay for news content. It’s something they’ve done before: Google pulled new in Spain in 2014 and Facebook is threatening full withdrawal in Europe right now
We at the @CntrResponsTech thought it would be worth thinking through the implications if they followed through – and we are releasing our risk analysis 'Tech-Xit' today – https://www.centreforresponsibletechnology.org.au/life_wo_google_facebook
It finds Australia is hugely exposed by our reliance on these two companies: for our news, for businesses, for government services and, most importantly, for our social connections. That’s why today we are calling for a National Technology Risk Mitigation Strategy.
The first step would be to implement other elements of the ACCC platforms inquiry that give citizens greater control over their personal information, effectively cutting the supply of data that fuels the platform’s market dominance.
With better management of personal privacy, the potency of the advertising algorithm dissipates, opening the way for alternate models of audience engagement to fund journalism.
Secondly, we think the government should diversify its technology strategies, actively seeking out and supporting new players with public contracts; while tightening merger laws (another ACCC recommendation) so they just don’t become another hothouse for Big Tech takeovers.
Finally, if we really want to protect our citizens from the risk of broken social connections from a Facebook withdrawal, we need to imagine our own public social network – one that doesn’t monitor our every move and trade the information in a bid to sell us stuff.
An obvious place to start is the ABC, established in the industrial age as a public interest broadcaster and still wedded to linear and transactional forms of public engagement.
Imagine a national network that offered a home for sporting clubs and community groups and churches and friendship groups the chance to organise activities, share information, support each other.
Imagine a network with national nodes where communities could organise, an independent forum to feeds back information to government as well as receive it, providing real value to the public who funds it
Imagine a network where the objective was sharing the most important news and information from friends, rather than driving engagement at all costs with addictive algorithms, who actually took the responsibility as a gatekeeper of information seriously
Yes, it would require a fundamental rethink of the national broadcaster and its charter, but that might be what is required if we are serious about addressing our unhealthy reliance on a social platform that seems designed to divide, distract and distort.
In bullying our government, Google and Facebook may have actually done us a favour. They’ve given us the chance to imagine a future without them.
