Google has rejected demands it pay hundreds of millions of dollars per year in compensation to Australian news media under a government-imposed revenue sharing deal.
The company's top executive in Australia said Google made barely Aus$10 million (US$6.7 million) per year from news-linked advertising, a fraction of a government watchdog's estimates for the sector.
In an effort being closely watched around the world, Australia is set to unveil plans to force major internet firms to share advertising revenue they earn from news featured in their services.
The country's competition regulator, the ACCC, has estimated that Google and Facebook together earn some Aus$6 billion (US$4 billion) per year from advertising in Australia.
Leading news publishers have demanded the two companies pay at least 10 percent of that money each year to local news organizations, which they say have lost the vast majority of their advertising revenue to the global technology giants.
Mel Silva, Google's managing director for Australia, dismissed such figures as wildly unrealistic.
"We all agree that high-quality news has great social value, but we need to understand the economics as well," Silva said in a blog post Sunday.
She said Google last year earned just Aus$10 million in revenue from clicks on ads placed next to news-related search queries.
"The bulk of our revenue comes not from news queries, but from queries with commercial intent, as when someone searches for 'running shoes' and then clicks on an ad," she said.
Silva also denied ACCC arguments that the tech firms gain significant "indirect benefits" from displaying news since the content draws users to their platforms.
News "represents only a tiny number of queries" on Google, accounting last year for barely one percent of actions on Google Search in Australia, she said.
- Job cuts -
The Google executive said her company on the other hand provided Australia's news media with "substantial" value by sending people to their websites.
"To put it plainly, a lot of people (Australians and beyond) click from Google through to Australian news websites, which gives publishers the chance to make money by showing them ads or turning them into paying subscribers," she said.
She said Google search accounted for 3.44 billion visits to large and small Australian news publishers in 2018, valuing those referrals at more than Aus$200 million per year for the news companies.
Google's position bodes ill for negotiations which the ACCC hopes to pursue between Google, Facebook and Australian media companies over a mandatory "code of conduct" governing issues such as revenue sharing, curbing disinformation and protecting user privacy.
The regulator suggested last month that Australian publishers might need to organize a "collective boycott" of Google and Facebook if voluntary negotiations on the code of conduct fail.
Silva said Google was prepared to take part in the process, but added that "it's important to base decisions on facts, not inaccurate numbers and unfounded assertions".
The ACCC has until the end of July to draw up the final code, which the government has said it will quickly implement.
Google and Facebook have had a huge impact on media companies across the globe as they capture the lion's share of online advertising spending.
In response to falling revenues, exacerbated by the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Australian outlets have permanently or temporarily closed more than 150 newsrooms, slashing more than 20 percent of jobs in the sector since 2014.
Twitter's moves to label or hide comments from President Donald Trump have escalated a feud between the social network and the White House, but there could be more to come.
The messaging platform has a range of "enforcement" options for dealing with content in violation of its policies, each of which carries its own potential risks and costs.
"Twitter has shown a newfound willingness to enforce its policies," said Daniel Kreiss, a University of North Carolina professor specializing in politics and social media.
"If you're a private company you have a right to regulate content, and it behooves those companies to enforce these polices in a fair and transparent and publicly justifiable way. I think Twitter will do this in a consistent way."
While Twitter could have acted before on Trump's tweets, "I think there has been a gradual shift in thinking at Twitter inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, and its thinking about misinformation that is harmful," said Tiffany Li, a fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project who specializes in social media.
- Range of actions -
Twitter, which this week added fact-check labels to two Trump tweets and a violation notice on another, can go further under its enforcement guidelines.
One option would be to "downrank" or limit the visibility of a tweet, or to remove it.
But Twitter's policies also include a "public interest" exception which would require leaving a tweet online but with the possibility of blocking "engagements" such as retweets and likes.
Kreiss said that because of Trump's importance as a public figure, "I don't think you'll see a takedown" of his tweets but "you might see actions preventing these things from being amplified."
Twitter's guidelines note that "world leaders are not above our policies entirely" and that the platform reserves the right to remove tweets that promote terrorism, violence or self-harm, or includes private information about another person.
- Most drastic steps -
Twitter's policies say the company may suspend or delete an account for repeated violations.
Some of Trump's critics have called for him to be "de-platformed" for his conduct, but such a move could create a political firestorm by acting against a leader with 80 million followers.
"They're not going to want to put themselves out on a limb," said Steven Livingston, director of the George Washington University Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics.
At the same time, Livingston said, Twitter may be making a calculation that it can withstand the pressure as Trump moves further to the extreme.
"The smart people at Twitter are going to want to test the waters to determine if are they putting themselves at political risk by standing up to Trump," he said.
- Cost, and benefits -
Twitter has already triggered the wrath of Trump, who two days after tweets of his on mail-in voting were tagged as misleading, signed an executive order which could lead to tighter oversight of social media platforms. There are doubts about the order's legality, however.
The San Francisco company carefully weighed its decision this week before labeling Trump's tweets for the first time, according to the news platform OneZero's account of deliberations.
"The company needed to do what's right, and we knew from a comms perspective that all hell would break loose," spokesman Brandon Borrman told OneZero.
Twitter drew an intense backlash not only from the president but from "the internet mob" which directed anger at a specific company executive, according to Li.
"This is troublesome because while Twitter as a company is a relatively strong entity, an individual is more vulnerable," she said.
The dramatic clash between Trump and Twitter may have consequences for both, but both sides may also end up benefitting, according to Kreiss.
"I don't think Trump is going to leave Twitter because this is how he uses it to communicate," Kreiss said.
The conflict "sets up a foil for him and helps him mobilize his base," the researcher said.
"Ironically this is good for Twitter too because it now makes it the center of fundamental debate going into the 2020 election, and it will increase use of the platform."
During an exchange with CNN's Jim Acosta this Thursday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany suggested that Donald Trump has never intentionally lied during his tenure as president.
After discussing Trump's recent attacks on social media platforms for allegedly being biased against conservatives, McEnany called on Acosta, who asked her if she thinks Trump should be fact checked on Twitter.
"...especially this president, who has made so many false and misleading statements that has put fact checkers to work across the world," Acosta said, adding that the Trump administration is "trying to silence fact checking."
McEnany said she disagreed with almost all of Acosta's assertions, and then launched into a list of examples she says proves the "mainstream media" needs its own fact checkers. Acosta pointed out that news outlets make mistakes from time to time but nevertheless corrects those mistakes, unlike Trump.
"You have pledged in this briefing room to never lie to the American people," Acosta said. "Are you saying that the President of the United States has never lied to the public before?"
McEnany replied that Trump's "intent is to always give truthful information" before launching back into a list of the media's failures.
"Undoubtedly the first step down an increasingly dark path of Trump using the power of his office to intimidate media companies, journalists, activists, and anyone else who criticizes him into silence."
Advocacy groups and legal experts say an executive order President Donald Trump is expected to sign Thursday—a document the White House claims is an effort to curtail the power of social media—is nothing more than an unconstitutional attempt by the president to "bully" into submission platforms that fact-check or criticize him.
"Trump's threat to use the executive branch's power to punish internet companies for Twitter's mild fact check of his statements is exactly the kind of abuse of power that the Constitution and our First Amendment were written to prevent."
—Gaurav Laroia, Free Press
The New York Timesreported late Wednesday that a draft of the executive order "would make it easier for federal regulators to argue that companies like Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter are suppressing free speech when they move to suspend users or delete posts, among other examples." The changes, if upheld in court, could expose social media companies to more lawsuits.
"Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, online companies have broad immunity from liability for content created by their users," the Times reported. "But the draft of the executive order, which refers to what it calls 'selective censoring,' would allow the Commerce Department to try to refocus how broadly Section 230 is applied, and to let the Federal Trade Commission bulk up a tool for reporting online bias."
David Kaye, United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, called Trump's order "a ploy for him to dominate and eviscerate public oversight of his lies."
Craig Aaron, president and co-CEO of advocacy group Free Press, echoed Kaye:
The executive order comes days after Twitter on Tuesday took the unprecedented step of adding a fact-check label to two tweets in which Trump erroneously attacked mail-in voting. "We believe those Tweets could confuse voters about what they need to do to receive a ballot and participate in the election process," Twitter said in an explanation of its decision.
In response, Trump baselessly claimed Wednesday that social media platforms "totally silence conservatives' voices" and threatened to "strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."
"This will be a Big Day for Social Media and FAIRNESS!" Trump tweeted Thursday, apparently referring to his executive order.
"There are important reasons to restructure the law to make the web more open and free, but this executive order is a distraction."
—Sarah Miller, American Economic Liberties Project
Gaurav Laroia, senior policy counsel at advocacy group Free Press, condemned the order as "a naked attempt by the president to bully into silence Twitter, other social-media sites and anyone who attempts to correct or criticize Trump."
"Trump's threat to use the executive branch's power to punish internet companies for Twitter's mild fact check of his statements is exactly the kind of abuse of power that the Constitution and our First Amendment were written to prevent," Laroia said in a statement. "It's undoubtedly the first step down an increasingly dark path of Trump using the power of his office to intimidate media companies, journalists, activists and anyone else who criticizes him into silence."
Laroia said that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was "written to protect free speech on the open internet."
"Changing Section 230 is Congress' prerogative, not the president's by fiat," said Laroia. "His poorly written executive order is an embarrassment and would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous."
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, tweeted that "whatever else this executive order may be, it is not a good faith effort to protect free speech online."
Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement that while there are important discussions to be had about the outsize power of social media companies and the implications for free expression, Trump's executive order "is a silly distraction from a serious debate."
"There are important reasons to restructure the law to make the web more open and free," said Miller, "but this executive order is a distraction and we should all have learned to ignore distractions like this from Trump by now."
As the novel coronavirus wreaks global havoc, Bill Gates is the new bête noire for conspiracy theorists worldwide including in Africa where a Kenyan politician's false online post has added major fuel to the spread of misinformation.
While Gates's vaccine programs on the continent have long provided ample fodder for speculation, the bogus claims have gained new traction amid the pandemic.
On March 15, Nairobi governor Mike Sonko published an old video of Gates warning about the consequences of a future pandemic, with the caption "Bill Gates told us about the corona virus 2015 (sic)".
While the clip shows the philanthropist telling an audience that the world was unprepared for global outbreaks in his TED talk five years ago, he made no mention of the coronavirus.
Sonko's post generated so many interactions among his two-million plus Facebook followers that it remains the most prolific global post about Gates in the COVID-19 era, according to social media analysis tool CrowdTangle.
So far, it has been shared more than one million times and has garnered 38 million views on social media.
The post highlights the role played by local public figures in spreading false or misleading claims in different parts of the world, according to the Washington-based Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), which studies disinformation globally.
"They typically travel beyond... niche communities when an influencer, such as a prominent celebrity, or even mainstream media source, amplifies them," DFRLab's Zarine Kharazian told AFP.
"Once they've achieved this level of spread, they migrate across languages."
- 'All-powerful elites' -
Rumors about links between Gates and the current pandemic have enjoyed particularly broad appeal among different conspiracy communities worldwide since the virus erupted in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.
Since January, more than 683,000 posts globally from public Facebook pages and groups mentioned Gates, producing nearly 53 million likes, shares and views.
"One commonality of conspiracy theories that seems to span borders, languages, and cultures is a mistrust in 'all-powerful elites' and institutions," Kharazian said.
"Gates's prominent profile, outspokenness and active engagement in international public health work has made him a prime target for this particular strain of conspiracy."
Among the most popular claims in Africa is the idea that Gates wants to control mankind with the use of microchip implants or digital tattoos.
Conspiracy theorists have also alleged that Gates stands to profit handsomely from an eventual vaccine and that his foundation patented a treatment years ago before unleashing the novel coronavirus.
Others again believe he created the virus for population control -- a sensitive point in Africa where much of the visible push-back online has focused on the issue of a COVID-19 vaccine and experimental trials on local test subjects.
- Past controversies fuel suspicion -
A history of Western medical abuses in Africa explains some of the backlash, said Sara Cooper, senior scientist at the South African Medical Research Council's Cochrane Centre.
"Over the last few decades, there have been various incidents of medical research conducted in Africa which have involved gross human rights abuses," she told AFP.
They range from forced sterilization experiments carried out in Namibia when it was part of Germany's colonies in the late 1800s, to controversial drug trials conducted by Western pharmaceutical giants in various African nations in the 1990s.
The distrust of Western vaccines was evidenced by a recent viral post, which claimed that French maverick scientist Didier Raoult had warned Africans against using "the Bill Gates vaccine" because it contained "poison".
AFP Fact Check debunked the claim -- Raoult never made the comments and a vaccine does not yet exist.
But it struck a chord: the French version of the post was shared more than 47,000 times before it was taken down.
Politicians in Nigeria have also pushed similar narratives including Femi Fani-Kayode, a former aviation minister notorious for sharing misinformation along political and religious lines.
Fani-Kayode, who has a strong following among Christians from southern Nigeria, has shared multiple posts claiming Gates was part of a secretive power elite, which wanted to achieve world domination using the coronavirus and 5G technology among other things.
- WHO fights back -
As the virus numbers and rumors spiraled, agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO) raced to stem the spread of misinformation by running online campaigns and helping governments to set up dedicated web portals.
The WHO also held a workshop with more than 50 journalists in Nigeria in February.
"Journalists and media are critical to getting the right messages to the community," emergency officer Dhamari Naidoo said.
"We want you to transmit the right information to the people, and to contribute in stopping the spread of rumors."
Amazon shareholders Wednesday turned back a series of proposals put forth by critics at the company's annual meeting aimed at creating new social responsibility goals for the tech giant.
The virtual shareholder meeting rejected all 11 dissident proposals while adopting four measures on board membership, executive compensation and other company business, an Amazon spokesperson said, without elaborating.
The dissident proposals included one to create an independent chair to oversee chief executive Jeff Bezos.
The measures were backed by a group called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice which contended that "toxicity" pervades the Seattle-based company.
Losing proposals also targeted food waste, racism, environmental justice, and sales of technology such as facial recognition software that could be used to violate civil rights.
The meeting comes amid heightened tensions over Amazon's workplace policies as it struggles with the COVID-19 epidemic.
The pressure has led to walkouts at some Amazon facilities and brought out more calls for Amazon to step up efforts for workplace safety -- even as the company has touted dozens of new incentives.
None of the shareholder proposals opposed by the Amazon board got enough votes to pass.
Amazon defended its corporate responsibility efforts in a document provided to shareholders.
"Certain of the shareholder proposals relate to environmental, sustainability, social, or governance issues, often requesting that we prepare a report, adopt a policy, or take some other particular action," the document said.
"In many cases, we already support some of the initiatives or share the concerns addressed in such proposals, and we often already have taken actions that we believe address the underlying concerns of a proposal, but we may disagree with how the proposal seeks to prescribe the manner in which we approach or report on the issue."
"He's the head of integrity and his name is Yoel Roth," Conway said on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday. Roth is actually the head of site integrity.
She then told viewers his Twitter handle, @Yoyoel.
"Somebody in San Francisco will wake him up and tell him he's about to get more followers," she said, apparently signaling to the Trump base to attack him.
Which they did, with astonishingly ignorant, false claims.
"This guy is constantly attacking Trump voters, Trump, Mitch McConnell, you name it. And he's the head of integrity, at Twitter," she repeated, falsely. "@Yoyoel is his Twitter feed."
"Go and read what he said. 'We fly over, you know, the racist flyover country who voted for Tr –'" Conway said, interrupting herself.
"it's just horrible the way he looks at people who otherwise should have a free and clear platform on Twitter," Conway said, again telegraphing Trump's followers to go after him.
Conway is wrong about Roth's job.
He is not the head of "integrity," he's the head of site integrity.
And there's a clear reason Conway is targeting Roth.
NPR's Ari Shapiro earlier this year interviewed Roth, explaining what Roth's job is:
"Intelligence officials have warned that Russia is interfering in the 2020 presidential campaign as it did four years ago. Back then, it used social media to spread disinformation and hoaxes. Yoel Roth is in charge of fighting these efforts on Twitter."
Roth's job description, for those who want to get technical, from his LinkedIn page:
"Yoel is the Head of Site Integrity at Twitter. He leads the teams responsible for developing and enforcing Twitter’s rules on platform manipulation, spam, and API access, as well as Twitter’s investigation and attribution efforts related to state-backed information operations. Before joining Twitter, Yoel received his PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focused on the intersecting dynamics of privacy, safety, and self-expression in online dating apps."
There's another reason, too.
Roth once compared Conway to the Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels.
One consequence of the public’s compliance with social distancing and quarantines during the COVID-19 pandemic is a sharp decline in most types of crime. It looks like people staying home made communities less conducive to crime.
Unfortunately, the news isn’t as good as those numbers alone suggest. Other settings are seeing an increase in crime following the stay-at-home orders. One is the household, where domestic violence is likely to have increased in the past two months.
As researchers who study cybercrime, we’re finding that criminal activity seems to be on the rise in the online world, as well. At the same time, many people are relying more heavily than before on online services for work, entertainment and shopping. This makes them more likely to become the targets of different types of online crimes. And the websites and online platforms that these internet users access become more attractive targets to motivated hackers who aim to take them over and deface them.
Wave of website defacing
Website defacement is the online equivalent of graffiti vandalism. It occurs when a hacker infiltrates a server on which a website is hosted and changes the content of the website with images and text of their own choosing.
Unlike more sophisticated forms of hacking, the act of website defacement does not require hackers to have highly sophisticated skills. In fact, several hacker typologies suggest that this form of online crime can be a stepping stone to involvement in more sophisticated hacking, as well as a way to gain a reputation in the hacking community.
A website of a U.K.-based canoe and kayak club was recently defaced.
sreen grab by David Maimon
The harm suffered by victims of this online crime varies from loss of trust in the owner of the website to loss of revenue. When business websites are taken down by hackers, they can’t process transactions. During the coronavirus pandemic, many merchants have been forced to shift from face-to-face trade to e-commerce, which means it’s likely that more businesses will become victims of cybercrime.
Findings from a recent analysis we conducted based on information about website defacement activities reported on the hacker information site Zone-h, suggest that the average daily number of website defacement attacks reported in April 2020 is 50% higher than the average daily number of attacks reported in April 2019. Moreover, the volume of website defacement attacks reported by mid May 2020, has already surpassed the volume of attacks reported in May 2019 for the entire month.
This steady increase in the number of daily website defacement attacks started in late March 2020, while January and February stayed steady. This leads us to believe that the pervasive isolation imposed by governments around the globe has given hackers more time to spend online, which became the driving force behind this trend.
Smaller sites in the crosshairs
Our investigation of the types of websites that are being targeted by hackers reveals that large corporations and government entities are less likely to be the victims. The average daily number of sophisticated defacements against government agency and large private business websites have increased from 17.75 attacks per day in February to 21.6 attacks per day in April.
However, the frequency of those attacks is substantially lower than the overall average daily number of website defacements reported by hackers during that period. It appears that websites of small businesses, social clubs and private individuals are being disproportionately targeted by hackers.
Website defacers prefer to attack extremely vulnerable websites because many of them are inexperienced hackers, often referred to as script kiddies. They lack the skills required to attack high-profile targets, but are motivated to gain status among their online peers.
Findings from our analysis suggest that the number of newbie hackers who experiment with website defacement has grown rapidly during the COVID-19 crisis. The average number of reports of defacements by first-time hackers in February was 3.41 per day. In April the number was 6.31 per day, a 77% increase in the number of first-time hackers.
With more new hackers attempting to establish a reputation by attacking vulnerable websites, it is imperative that small business owners and individuals protect their websites from attacks. Protection strategies should include keeping the software used to maintain websites up to date, using strong passwords to access the servers that host the websites, preventing website users from uploading files, allowing users to connect to websites via the secure internet protocol (HTTPS) and using website security tools. Fortunately, visitors to defaced websites are generally not at risk.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday remote work is here to stay, and that half of the social network's staff could be doing jobs from afar within a decade.
Zuckerberg devoted a live-streamed "town hall' meeting with employees to how a remote-work trend compelled by the pandemic is being embraced by employees without affecting productivity.
He outlined steps Facebook will take to adapt operations to remote work for the long-term, saying it is quite possible that about half of the company's employees could doing their jobs that way within 10 years.
"I think we're going to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work, at our scale for sure," Zuckerberg said.
"But, we're going to do this in a way that is measured and thoughtful and responsible and in phases over time."
Initial steps will include "aggressively" hiring remotely instead of requiring face-to-face interviews with candidates.
"Most of us are working remotely at this point, so it doesn't make sense for us to bring people into offices that a lot of them aren't going to be able to go into anyway," Zuckerberg said.
About 95 percent of Facebook employees work remotely due to pandemic concerns, and the company has told them they can continue to do their jobs that way through next year if desired.
Shifting aggressively to remote work brings opportunity to hire talented candidates who don't live near cities where Facebook has offices, sparing them commutes, congestion and the high living costs of tech-company towns.
Zuckerberg said he wanted to protect Facebook workplace culture shaped on Silicon Valley campuses, known for playful, creative atmospheres, gourmet meals and other fun perks.
"This is fundamentally about changing our culture and the way that we are all going to work longterm," Zuckerberg said.
"I am optimistic, but I want to make sure that we move forward a measured way."
The move by Facebook follows an announcement from Silicon Valley rival Twitter, which recently announced that most of its workforce may continue telework indefinitely.
Some tech firms have said they don't expect to bring most employees back to the office before 2021.
Earlier Thursday, Facebook said it was bulking up the Workplace version of its social network that helps employees get their jobs done remotely.
Workplace, which now has some five million paying users, is taking advantage of innovations in other parts of Facebook, adding virtual "rooms" where as many as 50 people can drop in for video chats and integrating services from its Portal smart screens and Oculus virtual reality.
“In a world where the wealthy elite control the media, elections and lives of working people, we’re faced with two choices – accept it or fight for something better.”
That’s the premise of Tonight We Riot, a new video game for touted as a leftist response to the “neocon fantasies” like Call of Duty.
Too many games “enforce this idea that the very best way to make the world a better place is by massive military force, that you don’t need organisation and societal change”, developer Stephen Meyer has explained. “In our tiny little way, we were trying to be an answer to that.”
But it’s a seductively simplistic answer for anyone serious about worker liberation in 2020.
Tonight We Riot is “an explosive crowd brawler with retro vibes”. It’s a revolutionary fantasy in which worker liberation is achieved through violent street battles.
Sure, it’s fun. But some might think this fantasy epitomises the modern movement for worker liberation.
It doesn’t.
Rather than dreaming of some wild uprising, many are implementing a quiet grassroots revolution. They are getting on with addressing the key problem told by Tonight We Riot: “Those who do not own the means of production will never know real freedom.”
A solution to not owning the means of production is to own it, through democratic and worker-owned enterprises.
Cooperative principles, on the other hand, are opposed to coercion. Their agenda isn’t to simply smash capitalism but build something better.
The Mondragon example
One of the better known examples of a worker ownership is in Mondragón, in the Basque region. This area was ravaged by the Spanish Civil War and then neglected by the victorious regime of Francisco Franco.
In 1956 a handful of workers established a cooperative that has grown into the Mondragón Corporation, a network of more than 100 cooperatives employing and empowering about 82,000 workers.
These cooperatives include Caja Laboral, a co-operative bank; Orbea, Spain’s largest bicycle maker; and Eroski, one of Spain’s biggest supermarket chains.
The Eroski supermarket chain, with nearly 1,000 outlets across Spain. is a worker-consumer hybrid co-operative within the Mondragón Corporation group.
Shutterstock
Mondragón’s successes demonstrate the virtues of economic democracy. Yet worker co-operatives remain relatively unknown. In part, this is because both news and entertainment media prefer the drama of conflict and competition over cooperation.
Our research, however, suggests worker ownership should be a central plank to rebuild more sustainable, equal and resilient post-COVID-19 economies.
Labour hires capital
A capitalist business is owned by whoever puts up the money. Capital employs labour. The point is to make a profit for the owner/s.
In a worker-owned enterprise, labour hires capital. The workers are the shareholders. The point is to provide dignified work that supports workers and society at large.
In most other respects the business models are similar. Both need a viable turnover and have boards of directors. But in the worker-owned business the workers elect the board, and maximising profit comes second to providing livelihoods and serving the community.
Jobs come first
As a result, worker-owned co-operatives are more responsive than purely for-profit business to the communities and environments in which they operate. They create social trust more quickly and foster worker innovation. They don’t send their own jobs offshore.
During past economic difficulties, co-operatives within the Mondragon network have prioritised saving jobs by worker-owners voting to forsake dividends or accept lower pay instead of seeing co-workers sacked.
The support the cooperative give each other is also crucial. In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, for example, one of the network’s largest and oldest co-ops (Fagor, a white-goods manufacturer) failed (one of a few to ever do so). The Mondragon network responded by retraining and finding jobs with other co-operatives for the 2,000 affected workers.
One of the best-known is Hotel Bauen in Buenos Aires, which went bust in late 2001. In 2003 former hotel staff occupied the shuttered building and began running it themselves. It is still going.
Hotel Bauen, a recuperated business in Buenos Aires.
As of 2018, Argentina had about 400 recuperated enterprises. These provided livelihoods to 16,000 workers in industries from metallurgy to textiles and education.
Our research in Argentina shows democratic enterprises pay workers equally, open premises up to community initiatives, and direct their surpluses into local development.
Their response to the COVID-19 pandemic is notable too, with a number converting their operations to produce medical supplies.
Australia has a long tradition of consumer cooperatives, particularly in financial services and agriculture. But worker cooperatives remain few in number. Three examples are:
The Co-operative Life, established to improve outcomes for both clients and providers in the home-care sector
Though the ethos of cooperation is self-help, government policies play a critical role in their establishment and growth.
Many people would like to start a cooperative. But they need help with business skills and access to capital.
Countries with more developed cooperative sector give such support. Italy, for example, has laws to encourage “negotiated conversions” of businesses to cooperatives. This includes funding to assist worker buyouts and training in business management skills, as well the skills required for democratic decision-making.
Both federal and state governments need to ensure laws and business support programs don’t exclude the needs of cooperatives. Specific support for start-up funds, education and training is key.
More generally, the cooperative movement is also impeded by a lack of public awareness. In a 2017 survey, for example, just 47% of Australians said they had heard of co-operatives or mutual enterprises, yet 85% were actually members of one.
Ironically, the developers of Tonight We Riot, Pixel Pushers Union 512, are also organised as a worker co-operative.
Perhaps the principles of co-operative and mutual enterprise would not have made for a headline-grabbing video game. But unlike dreams of street-fought revolution, the work of creating more democratic workplaces and economies is already underway. It is as important as ever.
One of the most famous Twitter accounts belongs to the president of the United States: @RealDonaldTrump now has at least 80 million Twitter followers. Meanwhile, a parody account, @RealDonaldTrFan, has over 314,000 followers. The parody account has been blocked by @RealDonaldTrump — and reporter Jerry Lambe, in Law & Crime, explains why President Donald Trump “appeared to violate a federal court order” by blocking @RealDonaldTrFan.
“In the days leading up to being blocked,” Lambe explains, “the parody account had lampooned Trump for his performances during press conferences, for promulgating the ‘Obamagate’ conspiracy theory, and most recently, for claiming he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent himself from contracting the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.”
Trump isn’t the only well-known Republican who has been lampooned by a parody Twitter account. Rep. Devin Nunes of California infamously filed a lawsuit against the owners of the Twitter account, Devin Nunes’ Cow, which mocked him from the perspective of a fictional cow — and sought $250 million in damages. But the issue with @RealDonaldTrFan is a different type of issue from the one with @DevinCow. Nunes went way beyond blocking @DevinCow on Twitter: he didn’t even believe that the account had a right to mock him in a defamatory way.
Experts on constitutional law would agree that @RealDonaldTrFan has a right to ridicule and mock the president. But does Trump have a right to block a Twitter account if he finds it offensive? Trump believes that he does, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has said otherwise.
In July 2019, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Lambe notes, “unanimously ruled” that “Trump violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution when he blocks users who follow him on Twitter.” And on Tuesday, May 19, Trump blocked @RealDonaldTrFan. A Twitter notice reads, “You can’t follow or see @RealDonaldTrump’s tweets.”
In that July 2019 ruling, Lambe points out, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals “rejected the government’s contention that Trump’s use of the social media platform was merely personal.”
“The Second Circuit opinion, which held Trump was constitutionally prohibited from blocking Twitter followers, resulted from a lawsuit filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University,” Lambe recalls. “The lawsuit argued that the manner in which President Trump and his aides used the official @RealDonaldTrump Twitter account made it a ‘key channel for official communication’ from the government, and that meant access to it was protected by the First Amendment.”
Facebook on Tuesday unveiled free tools for retailers hit by the pandemic to create online storefronts at the social network and Instagram.
The initiative by the massive social network aims to assist the retail sector, which has been crushed by the coronavirus lockdowns around the world.
Merchants can easily set up shops on Facebook and Instagram, customize looks and display products, according to the California-based internet giant.
"This is the biggest step that we've taken yet to enable commerce across our family of apps," Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said.
"If you're running a small business or if you're thinking about starting one even from your living room, you have a whole suite of tools available that can help."
The primary focus of Facebook's "Shops" is to make it easy businesses to have online storefronts to survive during the crisis and ride the online shopping trend into the future, according to Zuckerberg.
"We really hope that our commerce solutions help businesses not only survive but thrive during coming months, and adapt to new consumer behavior," said Instagram Shopping product lead Layla Amjadi.
Facebook is already involved in e-commerce, with a Marketplace for selling goods and as a venue where businesses court customers through pages at the social network or Instagram.
Businesses have an option to buy Facebook ads to direct customers to their online shops. Sales can be consummated at websites off the social network.
Merchants in the US can use a Facebook checkout service to handle transactions, paying a nominal fee.
Shops will roll out in coming months to some 160 million businesses that already use the social network.
- Virtual dressing rooms -
Zuckerberg said information about what people buy will be kept private unless shoppers want to tell friends about purchases.
Facebook plans to eventually weave Shops into its Messenger and WhatsApp communication platforms.
Facebook is also working on ways to sell products hawked during live video broadcasts, a popular form of content at the social network.
"People have been using live video on our apps to showcase products for years, from shoe stores announcing new sneakers to beauty influencers trying on different lipsticks," Facebook said.
"Now, we’re making it easier to shop for products in real time."
Facebook is also working on free tools including augmented reality to let shoppers see how they will look in outfits, cosmetics or other items for sale, according to Zuckerberg.
"I hope that we can at least help build some of the infrastructure that businesses need not only in this moment but going forward as well," Zuckerberg said.
"Because even when this period and the lockdowns pass... we're going to continue living more of our lives, and doing business, online."
Australia's competition watchdog suggested Tuesday that local media could organise a "collective boycott" of Google and Facebook to force the tech giants to pay for news they put on their platforms.
The radical idea was among a series of possible bargaining tools put forward by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) as it considers a mandatory code of conduct for the tech firms.
Other mechanisms laid out in a 33-page "Concepts Paper" included bilateral negotiations between Australian media organizations and the two tech behemoths and collective bargaining involving all the country's news companies.
But acknowledging the global reach and immense power of Google and Facebook, it said an "alternative bargaining framework" could be needed if direct negotiations fail.
"A collective boycott, or the threat of a collective boycott, may encourage each of Google and Facebook to offer news media businesses more appropriate remuneration for the use of their content," it said.
In a process being closely watched across the world, Australia last month announced plans to force major internet firms to share advertising revenues earned from news content featured in their services.
While the initial targets of the anti-trust move involved a range of tech firms, including Twitter and Verizon Media, the ACCC said Tuesday it was narrowing its focus to Google and Facebook.
"Facebook and Google were the digital platforms currently benefitting from a significant imbalance in bargaining power in their commercial negotiations with Australian news media businesses," it said.
The ACCC is tasked with drawing up a "code of conduct" for payments and addressing other competition concerns with the tech titans.
Its concept paper posed a series of questions about what kind of news should be compensated and how best to determine its value, and gave stakeholders until June 5 to submit recommendations.
The ACCC then has until the end of July to draw up the final code, which the government has said it will quickly implement.
- Industry struggling -
Last week the head of Nine Entertainment, one of Australia's biggest media companies, called for Google and Facebook to pay news organisations 10 percent of their annual Australian advertising revenue, which is estimated by the government at Aus$6.0 billion (US$3.9 billion).
Other industry leaders have suggested payments of up to Aus$1.0 billion per year.
Google and Facebook vehemently oppose any mandatory fees and insist they have invested millions of dollars in initiatives helping Australia's struggling news industry.
The two firms have had a huge impact on media companies across the globe as they capture the lion's share of online advertising spending.
In response to falling revenues, Australian news outlets have slashed 20 percent of jobs in the last six years.
The crisis has only deepened in the economic and advertising downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has already forced the closure of many smaller news publishers.
An estimated 17 million Australians use Facebook each month and spend an average of 30 minutes on the platform a day, while 98 percent of Australian mobile searches use Google.
