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Jan 18

A short handbook on opening up the hi-tech giants

During the final months of 2017 a lot of public and private attention was being directed at opening up the secrets of the algorithms used by social networks and search engines such as Facebook and Google. They have edged cautiously towards opening up, but too little and too late. The attacks on their carelessness have mounted as their profits have climbed.

The public pressure came from voices (including mine) arguing that inquiries into misinformation/disinformation in news were all very well but missed the main point. Attention is also being paid to this in private negotiations between the social networks and news publishers.

These discussions have included the suggestion that the networks might make much more detailed data on how they operate available to the publishers, but not to the public. This kind of private deal won’t work if it’s tried. The functioning of the networks is crucial to publishers, but it matters to a lot of other people as well.

You may think that your elected representatives are on the case: there’s an inquiry into disinformation in news in the UK parliament. German and French politicians are bearing down on the online giants. But not much will change until these legislators and pundits look at the detail of how social networks function. I suspect that the German and French attempts to regulate these platforms will, however well-intentioned, misfire. Regulation of self-expression is inherently difficult because of the collision with rights of free speech.

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