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< | National Firewalls as Ineffective Responses to Big Tech |
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> | Facebook and Third World Democracies |
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< | -- By AikenLarisaSerzo - 22 Oct 2021 |
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> | -- By AikenLarisaSerzo - 15 Jan 2021 |
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< | I. Context |
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> | I. The Spawns of Facebook: Dutertismo and a Marcos Return |
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< | A handful of companies dominate the way we share content, host files, conduct search and e-commerce -- Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The market share of these companies translates to situations where the majority of a country’s digital population (i.e. individuals with access to the internet) get their information from the foregoing platforms. Such dominance has demonstrated to influence national governments and communities, with heavy implications for a country’s sociopolitical experience: from news, protests, to national elections. |
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> | The Philippine political landscape, since the election of President Duterte, has largely been shaped by populism fueled by the weaponization of social media platforms (with the firepower of disinformation, and troll farms). Unsurprisingly, the leading candidate for the upcoming presidential elections is Bongbong Marcos Jr., the son of the late authoritarian dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. Historical accounts, court cases (both local and abroad), and academic journals have documented the human rights abuses and plunder of Marcos senior, as well as the complicity of all his heirs including today’s leading candidate. Despite the ease by which the population can access these materials through the web, polls suggest that voters believe these accounts are outright falsehoods and are mere propaganda by Marcos’ political rivals. Surveys show that almost half of the voters would elect Bongbong Marcos. The incredible success of the Marcoses at whitewashing history may be attributed to a decades-long effort by the Marcos family to reform its legacy and revise history. Such revisionism has been facilitated by social media, with some help from Cambridge Analytica. Alternative histories — shown through YouTube? videos, forged documents, and memes — which purport to establish that the Marcos patriarch legitimately owned tons of gold even before he was President; and that the martial law regime was a golden age of economic and cultural superfluity are widely accepted by Marcos supporters. Economic data and academic journals are ignored. In the words of Imelda Marcos – “perception is real, the truth is not.” An opposition senator is sent to languish in jail without trial; an award-winning journalist is charged with multiple civil and criminal charges on flimsy pieces of evidence – all with hardly any uproar from the public. The government is repeatedly rewarded with record-breaking satisfaction ratings. |
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< | As a response, governments have considered instituting regulations that limit the activities and control of the reigning platforms, with the aim of protecting democratic processes, privacy rights of its citizens, and the integrity of community activities. |
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< | Such regulations may also have been crafted to protect and encourage the growth of domestic tech players. It could be argued that the embedded-ness and stickiness of the dominant platforms have made it impossible for local competitors to operate and survive. Hence, governments argue that fencing off foreign platforms will allow local companies to grow and eventually compete globally. |
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< | However, an analysis of such regulations shows that giving the government a freehand in determining what limitations will be put in place may be problematic. It is also not a guarantee that regulations will lead to more democratic and ethical technologies, and ultimately a more privacy-conscious or freer society. |
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> | II. The Philippines as Facebook's Playground |
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> | The Philippines is an optimal petri dish for Big Tech platforms to test out its power and political experiments. The exposure of its population to social media, coupled with the lackadaisical information literacy makes it easy for social media-savvy PR companies and campaign teams to shape narratives. The country remains the top in social media and internet usage. The platforms provided superficial solutions in response to calls made by journalists and minority lawmakers for greater accountability. Recently, YouTube? announced that all videos pertaining to the martial law regime of Marcos Sr will contain information panels that would provide links to Wikipedia. Facebook, in response to backlash on the troll farms on its platforms, started conducting online literacy workshops to educate Filipinos to be more critical about disinformation. A closer look reveals that these workshops train Filipinos to bury themselves deeper into the platform: how to use hashtags, engage users, and create bigger networks. Facebook also actively trains local governments in the country to use Facebook as its main engagement platform. The workshops, disguised as a CSR activity, only entrenches Facebook more in the nation’s sociopolitical psyche. |
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< | II. Form of Firewalls |
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> | Platforms are the new public squares where narratives and opinions are created. The danger is that now these public squares are operated by supranational entities for private profit. Traditionally, the responsibility to regulate private activity is lodged with government. However, this is impossible given the cross-border nature of internet services and the powerlessness of some countries to influence companies headquartered abroad. China’s taken the extreme approach of instituting national firewalls when it comes to tech companies. This is obviously not a democratic alternative as it merely replaces a tyrant with another. |
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< | Government regulation on digital protectionism usually takes any or a combination of the following forms: (i) regulations that limit participation in media, internet businesses, and telecommunications to domestic entities; (ii) regulations that impose a priori registration or licensing requirements before being able to engage in the said industries; or (ii) regulations that mandate data localization or data sovereignty. As corollary tools, unscrupulous regimes may intrude into the operations of platforms by requiring the disclosure of certain types of information to the government. |
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> | Similarly, platforms may not be trusted to self-regulate. Regulation of troll farms are antithetical to the platforms’ revenue models where the user is the resource. At the end of the day, the interests of a tyrannical government are aligned with Big Tech’s. |
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< | III. Effect: Misalignment between intended objectives and actual effects |
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> | Beyond winning the elections through a campaign of disinformation, the Duterte regime used Facebook to further perpetuate its power. Official government pages are used to redtag critics and activists. This is amplified by other pages. Facebook eventually took down some of the pages months after the red tagging – too late the hero. |
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< | Digital protectionism in its various iterations may prove to be inadequate or incompatible with the objectives of protecting democracy and the fundamental rights of individuals. It may also be ineffective at creating an environment that will spur the growth of domestic entrepreneurship. |
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> | III. Breaking the Cycle |
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< | A Ownership Limitations and Licensing Requirements as Ineffective Tools to Achieve Superior Tech |
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> | It is difficult to know the way forward for a country where the majority of its population are living on a day to day basis; where education takes a backseat in political debates, and where Facebook is the only free platform that may be accessed by the masses. |
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< | It is doubtful whether digital protectionism will achieve the objective of supporting and empowering local tech startups to be globally competitive. |
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> | There is a sliver of hope. Several approaches may be simultaneously pursued. |
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< | Digital protectionism alone will not address infrastructure shortages such as low broadband speeds, lack of bandwidth and geographical coverage. Another crucial issue is to ensure that the education system and continuous skills development programs are sufficient and accessible for the demands of a burgeoning tech industry. Policies should also be aimed at educating the population about the use and implications of technology. |
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> | In addition to being the top in terms of social media use, Filipinos also ranked above the average when it comes to concern about misuse of personal information and fake news. Academe and privacy advocates should continue providing digestible information on how platforms process users’ personal data to create a continuous data-heavy profitable business model that is harmful for individual freedoms. Those in the minority should advocate for independent and open source platforms which users can utilize for information sharing. It will take a while for the population to appreciate and adopt alternative technologies. Funding and lobbying for alternatives outside of BigTech? would be easily crushed by BigTech? ’s own lobbyists. This already happened to congressional bills seeking to regulate fake news and online commerce in the Philippines. |
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< | A culture of regulation may lead to an increase in a priori requirements for tech companies. For example, engaging in certain types of activities may require additional approvals and clearances. It may also increase compliance and management cost. |
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> | Lawyers could further use the country’s strong anti-graft laws to prevent Facebook from providing services to government. The Philippine’s Anti-Graft law prohibits government officers from providing any unwarranted benefit to private entities. Facebook may argue that its training programs for local governments is for gratis, however, a strong argument may be made that such programs enable Facebook to monetize comprehensive data about populations as well as the local government. |
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< | Such requirements increase operational costs and regulatory risks for tech companies, thereby slowing down innovation and disincentivizing tech development. Hence, there is a weak probability that said policies will lead to better technology or even increase local competencies. |
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> | Until a substantial portion of the local population becomes more educated and IT literate (and eventually get out of poverty), Facebook, YouTube? , propagandists, and the new Philippine political elite can rest easy on the successful ecosystem they have created that ensures each other’s coexistence. In the meantime, Philippine democracy can be one of the many mummified trophies hanging on the wall of Big Tech. |
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< | Further, reliance on government limitations on competitors may economically disincentivize local companies to invest in research and development. There is no need to come up with superior tech if the entity’s market position is protected by government-imposed barriers.
B Ownership limitations and A Priori Requirements as Ineffective Tools to Bring About More Democratic Technologies
More importantly, these limitations will not translate to technology that is more democratic and ethical. Such policies may only replace big tech with local oligopolies or a tyrannical government.
For countries with weak institutions, an environment with increased regulatory barriers is also vulnerable to patronage politics and corruption.
The non-tariff trade barriers that are currently existing in South East Asia are illuminating were tech regulations are primarily hinged around ownership limitations. However, it is questionable whether these regulations provide better consumer protection. There is no rule to ensure that algorithms of local tech companies are explainable, or if the processing of personal information of citizens is conducted in a manner which sufficiently informs the data subjects about the extent and purposes of such processing. The Philippines implemented a strict consent-based framework (with criminal consequences for violations) which is even more onerous than the GDPR. However, this only led to long and legalese consent forms. Arguably, such frameworks enabled the legal exploitation of data without empowering privacy rights.
The China experience may further be illustrative. The Chinese firewall was effective in allowing the growth of local technology companies that could go against the likes of Google, Facebook, and Amazon. It helped that China’s population can sustain fenced-in companies without the need for the latter to expand offshore to maximize revenue.
However, such companies are dependent on government imprimatur. The privilege of becoming technology behemoths comes at the price of cooperating with, and largely being controlled by, the Chinese Communist Party. Tiktok for example faced domestic criticism when it tried to sell its US arm. As for the rest of the population, information provided by homegrown platforms enabled governments to crackdown on dissidents. It also allowed Chinese companies and the government to effectively exclude individuals that do not pass certain criteria from accessing certain services.
IV. Conclusion
Digital protectionism or any type of response centered on government regulation may be a misguided approach in solving the economic and ethical challenges attributable to the dominance of US Big Tech. Each country has different issues and more ad hoc solutions should be considered. A reallocation of resources towards raising access to quality education, coupled with an affordable and open telco infrastructure may be better alternatives. Such efforts should be towards educating the general population about the breadth and ability that can be offered by technology. Hopefully, this will pressure the market to provide better and more ethical services.
I'm not sure what the real thesis of this draft is. I don't think anyone believes that national territorial routing designed to exclude platforms is a privacy measure. I don't think any government has formulated, let alone enacted or enforced, measures to strengthen denocracy in the Net. So I'm not sure what the minimalist conclusions possible on this present account are actually about. Perhaps the best way to think of this draft, then, is a brush-clearing, preparation to begin the inquiry suggested in the last paragraph, which would be about the positive construction necessary.
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