Change the Conversation

The law is closing in on Facebook and the ‘digital gangsters’

For social media and search engines, the law is back in town. Prompted by privacy invasions, the spread of misinformation, a crisis in news funding and potential interference in elections, regulators in several countries now propose a range of interventions to curb the power of digital platforms. A newly published UK inquiry is part of this building global momentum. e Shortly after Valentine’s Day, a committee of the British House of Commons published its final report into disinformation and “fake news”. It was explicitly directed at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and it was less a love letter than a challenge to a duel. The report found: Companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like ‘digital gangsters’ in the online world, considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law. The committee was particularly vexed by Zuckerberg himself, concluding: By choosing not to appear before the Committee … Mark Zuckerberg has shown contempt. Its far-reaching recommendations included giving the UK’s Information Commissioner greater capacity to be “… an effective ‘sheriff in the Wild West of the Internet’.” The law is back in town In December 2018, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) handed down its preliminary report into the impact of digital platforms. It tabled a series of bold proposals. e Then, on February 12, the Cairncross Review – an independent analysis led by UK economist and journalist Frances Cairncross – handed down its report, A Sustainable Future for Journalism. Referring to sustainability of the production and distribution of high-quality journalism, “Public intervention may be the only remedy,” wrote Cairncross. “The future of a healthy democracy depends on it.” And a week later, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons issued its challenge in its final report on disinformation and “fake news”: The big tech companies must not […]

Historian berates billionaires at Davos over tax avoidance

A discussion panel at the Davos World Economic Forum has become a sensation after a Dutch historian took billionaires to task for not paying taxes. In a video shared tens of thousands of times, Rutger Bregman, author of the book Utopia for Realists, bemoans the failure of attendees at the recent gathering in Switzerland to address the key issue in the battle for greater equality: the failure of rich people to pay their fair share of taxes. Noting that 1,500 people had travelled to Davos by private jet to hear David Attenborough talk about climate change, he said he was bewildered that no one was talking about raising taxes on the rich. “I hear people talking the language of participation, justice, equality and transparency but almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not paying their fair share,” Bregman tells the Time magazine panel on inequality. “It feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water.” Industry had to “stop talking about philanthropy and start talking about taxes”, he said, and cited the high tax regime of 1950s America as an example to disprove arguments by businesspeople at Davos such as Michael Dell that economies with high personal taxation could not succeed. “That’s it,” he says. “Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion.” A member of the audience, former Yahoo chief financial officer Ken Goldman, challenged his comments and said it was a “one-sided panel”. He argued the fiscal settings across the global economy had been successful and had created record employment. But another panel member, Winnie Byanyima, an Oxfam executive director, took up the fight and said high employment was not a good thing in itself because many people found themselves in exploitative work. She […]

Scenarios for the future of geopolitics

The balance of power is shifting. To understand events in the international arena, it helps to distinguish whether our current period is essentially stable or in significant flux. In an article written a quarter of a century ago, during another time of rapid and relentless change, my co-author and I described the former type of period as a plateau phase, and the latter as one of historical transition. A series of recent developments suggests that the domestic political situations of several key players in the international arena are undergoing significant shifts, as are relations between players. Everything seems to indicate that the world is in another period of historical transition. A shortlist of the developments that point in this direction include: the breakdown of the political centre in several advanced democracies; centrifugal tendencies in the long-prevailing regional and international structures, of which the Brexit vote is one example; the accentuation of authoritarianism in Russia and China; and last, but certainly not least, the collapse of American moral leadership. Against this backdrop, how might we expect strategic relations to evolve in the next 20 years? In the short to mid-term, the key issue is the relationship between those powers that have been largely responsible for creating the post-WWII order, and those that are challenging it, in an effort to erect a new paradigm calling that order into question. In which direction this relationship is moving should become clear within the next five to ten years, and perhaps much sooner. There are essentially three possible outcomes. One is that the current Western-dominated paradigm manages to overcome its current weaknesses and disunity, creating space for and movement towards a renewed democratic revolution. In the process, it forges an environment in which the challenging powers can be successfully encouraged to integrate. Call […]

Why Africa is turning the heads of investors

Chinese and Western firms could experience high returns by investing in Africa’s strong economic growth. Since 2000, at least half of the world’s fastest-growing economies have been in Africa. And by 2030, Africa will be home to 1.7 billion people, whose combined consumer and business spending will total $6.7 trillion. Image: World Bank Seven years ago, the Harvard Business Review pointed out that Africa is also home to many of the world’s biggest opportunities. And yet, despite its tremendous business potential, Africa has not risen to the top of Western business leaders’ agendas. In fact, between 2014 and 2016, US exports to Africa fell by almost half, from $38 billion to $22 billion. And while the United Kingdom’s investments on the continent more than doubled between 2005 and 2014, reaching £42.5 billion ($57.6 billion), only 2.5% of its total exports are to Africa. Western countries are quickly losing ground to China, which increased its exports to Africa more than sevenfold – to $103 billion – from 2005 to 2015. If Western businesses hope to keep up, they will need to tap into the African countries and sectors with the highest potential for growth. By 2030, more than half of Africa’s population will reside in seven countries: Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa. But, more important, 43% of Africans will belong to the middle or upper classes, up from 39.6% in 2013, implying considerably higher demand for goods and services. By 2030, household consumption is expected to reach $2.5 trillion, up from $1.1 trillion in 2015. Nearly half of that $2.5 trillion will be spent in three countries: Nigeria (20%), Egypt (17%), and South Africa (11%). But there will also be lucrative opportunities in Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. Any one of these countries would […]

This is how India created its first ‘smart village’

In a way, Mahatma Gandhi conceptualized smart villages. A champion of participatory democracy and grassroots development, he believed that making villages self-contained and sustainable was the first step towards empowering India. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t against industrialisation, markets and competition as long as they did not lead to the passive or active exploitation of villagers. Yet, seven decades after independence, we are nowhere close to realizing Gandhi’s vision of empowered villages. Rural India remains in a deplorable state. One reason for this is institutional neglect. Headquarters of malnourishment A glaring example is Harisal, a small village in Amravati district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. During my first fieldwork in this village, I learned that telephone lines and mobiles didn’t work here, infant mortality rates were alarmingly high, finding meaningful employment was impossible, school dropouts were the norm, and avenues for learning skills non-existent. In fact, soon after taking charge in October 2014, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis even referred to Harisal as the “headquarters of malnourishment”. Harisal was far from being one of the Narendra Modi-led central government’s smart villages. Being a passionate skeptic of blanket monolithic solutions, my vision for smart villages is for them to emerge as a cluster of connected communities, each having a distinct sense of style, purpose and being. For me, Harisal will be smart when a handloom weaver near the Melghat Tiger Reserve begins her day by powering her mobile internet through “White-Fi” (technology that leverages unutilized spectrum owned by television channels to provide low-cost internet connectivity), discovers business opportunities using a customer relationship management app, and partners with payment gateways, e-commerce firms, and rural transport services to provide finished garments from Mumbai to Jammu. So, over the past year, the Maharashtra government and Microsoft have collaborated to develop […]

Not suitable

If it wasn’t so tragic it would be funny. I blame the American political system for not allowing Obama to have a third term in office!He’s not perfect but compared to the current choices he’s pretty good. So much energy is being wasted on Donald Trump by so called experts in US media and political parties and splinter groups – I wish they’d all go home and do something creative like grow a veggie garden or take the dog for a walk. They want to be authorative in the eyes of viewers and readers on television and in newspapers and magazines and of course on social media. Even if they dont have anything worthwhile or game changing to say – like “this is how we can make our country better and this is how we will do it” – they want to be noticed. Trump is like a hurricane or Aleppo but the problem is that he overshadows tragedy as an uninspiring figure lacking in charisma and values fit enough to lead the free world. If ROP registered voters believe he is the future,then what does it say about their country and their vision for the future?

10 visions of the future

www.themirrorinspires.com Most books report on what has already happened. John O’Brien has written one that describes the future. But it’s not just built on his ideas. Visions 2100: Stories from Your Future presents scenarios from 80 of the world’s leading environmental thinkers and influencers. 1. Robogardeners, LaserBubbles and Parceldrones are things Like most people, my family and I grow lots of our own food. (Ok, Robogardeners do most of the work. But we tell them what we’d like). We eat real meat occasionally, and Newmeat more regularly. The kids like Newmeat better but they don’t really have adult palettes yet. We travel by bike. We all have Copenhagen Wheels for the hills and I love our LaserBubbles that protect us in the rain. We live just a few kilometres from work and school. Parceldrones carry the big things for us when we go shopping. 2. There’s an app to share human poo Every resource – even human waste – is used to its highest capacity via ‘Need and Want’ sharing apps. All of our stuff is designed to neatly turn into other stuff – or fuel. We dress in virtual, chameleon-like clothing for our virtual adventures to make holographic videos to show our virtual friends. We are free to live vibrantly without being overwhelmed. 3. The elderly don’t live alone Elder lifecare re-integrated into AllAge areas is massive now. Add all the required cooling, catering, shared resource-cycling has changed so much of our lifestyle, architecture and spatial planning. Then the on and offshore arcology, plans advanced for Moon and Mars and already on Antarctica. So, we see it works when it makes sense for economy, society and ecology. 4. Women take charge Did having an all-female G7 Summit ten years earlier have anything to do with the smoothness of the […]

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