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Will the future of work be ethical? Perspectives from MIT Technology Review
Greg M. Epstein is the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Good Without God. Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts to build inclusive, inspiring, and ethical communities for the nonreligious and allies, Greg was also named “one of the top faith and moral leaders in the United States” by Faithful Internet, a project of the United Church of Christ and the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society.
In June, TechCrunch Ethicist in Residence Greg M. Epstein attended EmTech Next, a conference organized by the MIT Technology Review. The conference, which took place at MIT’s famous Media Lab, examined how AI and robotics are changing the future of work.
Greg’s essay, Will the Future of Work Be Ethical? reflects on his experiences at the conference, which produced what he calls “a religious crisis, despite the fact that I am not just a confirmed atheist but a professional one as well.” In it, Greg explores themes of inequality, inclusion and what it means to work in technology ethically, within a capitalist system and market economy.
Accompanying the story for Extra Crunch are a series of in-depth interviews Greg conducted around the conference, with scholars, journalists, founders and attendees.
Below he speaks to two key organizers: Gideon Lichfield, the editor in chief of the MIT Technology Review, and Karen Hao, its artificial intelligence reporter. Lichfield led the creative process of choosing speakers and framing panels and discussions at the EmTech Next conference, and both Lichfield and Hao spoke and moderated key discussions.
Gideon Lichfield is the editor in chief at MIT Technology Review. Image via MIT Technology Review
Greg Epstein: I want to first understand how you see your job — what impact are you really looking to have?
Gideon Lichfield: I frame this as an aspiration. Most of the tech journalism, most of the tech media industry that exists, is born in some way of the era just before the dot-com boom. When there was a lot of optimism about technology. And so I saw its role as being to talk about everything that technology makes possible. Sometimes in a very negative sense. More often in a positive sense. You know, all the wonderful ways in which tech will change our lives. So there was a lot of cheerleading in those days.
In more recent years, there has been a lot of backlash, a lot of fear, a lot of dystopia, a lot of all of the ways in which tech is threatening us. The way I’ve formulated the mission for Tech Review would be to say, technology is a human activity. It’s not good or bad inherently. It’s what we make of it.
The way that we get technology that has fewer toxic effects and more beneficial ones is for the people who build it, use it, and regulate it to make well informed decisions about it, and for them to understand each other better. And I said the role of a tech publication like Tech Review, one that is under a university like MIT, probably uniquely among tech publications, we’re positioned to make that our job. To try to influence those people by informing them better and instigating conversations among them. And that’s part of the reason we do events like this. So that ultimately better decisions get taken and technology has more beneficial effects. So that’s like the high level aspiration. How do we measure that day to day? That’s an ongoing question. But that’s the goal.
Yeah, I mean, I would imagine you measure it qualitatively. In the sense that… What I see when I look at a conference like this is, I see an editorial vision, right? I mean that I’m imagining that you and your staff have a lot of sort of editorial meetings where you set, you know, what are the key themes that we really need to explore. What do we need to inform people about, right?
Yes.
What do you want people to take away from this conference then?
A lot of the people in the audience work at medium and large companies. And they’re thinking about…what effect does automation and AI going to have in their companies? How should it affect their workplace culture? How should it affect their high end decisions? How should it affect their technology investments? And I think the goal for me is, or for us is, that they come away from this conference with a rounded picture of the different factors that can play a role.
There are no clear answers. But they ought to be able to think in an informed and in a nuanced way. If we’re talking about automating some processes, or contracting out more of what we do to a gig work style platform, or different ways we might train people on our workforce or help them adapt to new job opportunities, or if we’re thinking about laying people off versus retraining them. All of the different implications that that has, and all the decisions you can take around that, we want them to think about that in a useful way so that they can take those decisions well.
You’re already speaking, as you said, to a lot of the people who are winning, and who are here getting themselves more educated and therefore more likely to just continue to win. How do you weigh where to push them to fundamentally change the way they do things, versus getting them to incrementally change?
That’s an interesting question. I don’t know that we can push people to fundamentally change. We’re not a labor movement. What we can do is put people from labor movements in front of them and have those people speak to them and say, “Hey, this is the consequences that the decisions you’re taking are having on the people we represent.” Part of the difficulty with this conversation has been that it has been taking place, up till now, mainly among the people who understand the technology and its consequences. Which with was the people building it and then a small group of scholars studying it. Over the last two or three years I’ve gone to conferences like ours and other people’s, where issues of technology ethics are being discussed. Initially it really was only the tech people and the business people who were there. And now you’re starting to see more representation. From labor, from community organizations, from minority groups. But it’s taken a while, I think, for the understanding of those issues to percolate and then people in those organizations to take on the cause and say, yeah, this is something we have to care about.
In some ways this is a tech ethics conference. If you labeled it as such, would that dramatically affect the attendance? Would you get fewer of the actual business people to come to a tech ethics conference rather than a conference that’s about tech but that happened to take on ethical issues?
Yeah, because I think they would say it’s not for them.
Right.
Business people want to know, what are the risks to me? What are the opportunities for me? What are the things I need to think about to stay ahead of the game? The case we can make is [about the] ethical considerations are part of that calculus. You have to think about what are the risks going to be to you of, you know, getting rid of all your workforce and relying on contract workers. What does that do to those workers and how does that play back in terms of a risk to you?
Yes, you’ve got Mary Gray, Charles Isbell, and others here with serious ethical messages.
What about the idea of giving back versus taking less? There was an L.A. Times op ed recently, by Joseph Menn, about how it’s time for tech to give back. It talked about how 20% of Harvard Law grads go into public service after their graduation but if you look at engineering graduates, the percentage is smaller than that. But even going beyond that perspective, Anand Giridharadas, popular author and critic of contemporary capitalism, might say that while we like to talk about “giving back,” what is really important is for big tech to take less. In other words: pay more taxes. Break up their companies so they’re not monopolies. To maybe pay taxes on robots, that sort of thing. What’s your perspective?
I don’t have a view on either of those things. I think the interesting question is really, what can motivate tech companies, what can motivate anybody who’s winning a lot in this economy, to either give back or take less? It’s about what causes people who are benefiting from the current situation to feel they need to also ensure other people are benefiting.
Maybe one way to talk about this is to raise a question I’ve seen you raise: what the hell is tech ethics anyway? I would say there isn’t a tech ethics. Not in the philosophy sense your background is from. There is a movement. There is a set of questions around it, around what should technology companies’ responsibility be? And there’s a movement to try to answer those questions.
A bunch of the technologies that have emerged in the last couple of decades were thought of as being good, as being beneficial. Mainly because they were thought of as being democratizing. And there was this very naïve Western viewpoint that said if we put technology and power in the hands of the people they will necessarily do wise and good things with it. And that will benefit everybody.
And these technologies, including the web, social media, smart phones, you could include digital cameras, you could include consumer genetic testing, all things that put a lot more power in the hands of the people, have turned out to be capable of having toxic effects as well.
That took everybody by surprise. And the reason that has raised a conversation around tech ethics is that it also happens that a lot of those technologies are ones in which the nature of the technology favors the emergence of a dominant player. Because of network effects or because they require lots of data. And so the conversation has been, what is the responsibility of that dominant player to design the technology in such a way that it has fewer of these harmful effects? And that again is partly because the forces that in the past might have constrained those effects, or imposed rules, are not moving fast enough. It’s the tech makers who understand this stuff. Policy makers, and civil society have been slower to catch up to what the effects are. They’re starting to now.
This is what you are seeing now in the election campaign: a lot of the leading candidates have platforms that are about the use of technology and about breaking up big tech. That would have been unthinkable a year or two ago.
So the discussion about tech ethics is essentially saying these companies grew too fast, too quickly. What is their responsibility to slow themselves down before everybody else catches up?
Another piece that interests me is how sometimes the “giving back,” the generosity of big tech companies or tech billionaires, or whatever it is, can end up being a smokescreen. A way to ultimately persuade people not to regulate. Not to take their own power back as a people. Is there a level of tech generosity that is actually harmful in that sense?
I suppose. It depends on the context. If all that’s happening is corporate social responsibility drives that involve dropping money into different places, but there isn’t any consideration of the consequences of the technology itself those companies are building and their other actions, then sure, it’s a problem. But it’s also hard to say giving billions of dollars to a particular cause is bad, unless what is happening is that then the government is shirking its responsibility to fund those causes because it’s coming out of the private sector. I can certainly see the U.S. being particularly susceptible to this dynamic, where government sheds responsibility. But I don’t think we’re necessarily there yet.
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Will the future of work be ethical? Academic perspectives
Greg M. Epstein is the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Good Without God. Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts to build inclusive, inspiring, and ethical communities for the nonreligious and allies, Greg was also named “one of the top faith and moral leaders in the United States” by Faithful Internet, a project of the United Church of Christ and the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society.
In June, TechCrunch Ethicist in Residence Greg M. Epstein attended EmTech Next, a conference organized by the MIT Technology Review. The conference, which took place at MIT’s famous Media Lab, examined how AI and robotics are changing the future of work.
Greg’s essay, Will the Future of Work Be Ethical? reflects on his experiences at the conference, which produced what he calls “a religious crisis, despite the fact that I am not just a confirmed atheist but a professional one as well.” In it, Greg explores themes of inequality, inclusion and what it means to work in technology ethically, within a capitalist system and market economy.
Accompanying the story for Extra Crunch are a series of in-depth interviews Greg conducted around the conference, with scholars, journalists, founders and attendees.
Below, Greg speaks to two academics who were key EmTech Next speakers. First is David Autor, one of the world’s most prominent economists. Autor’s lecture, Work of the Past, Work of the Future, originally delivered as the prestigious 2019 Richard T. Ely Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, formed the basis for the opening presentation at the EmTech Next conference.
Susan Winterberg, an academic who studies business and ethics, was a panelist who brought important, even stirring insights about the devastating impact automation can have on communities and how companies can succeed by protecting people against those effects.
David Autor is the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT. Image via MIT Technology Review
Greg Epstein: Who do you see as the audience for your work — is it more labor or management, and how do different audiences engage with it differently?
David Autor: My primary audience, it can be argued, is other scholars. But I am aware of and pleased that my work has reached beyond that narrow group. I’m aware that it is discussed by policymakers and others and I’m sort of driven by trying to understand what is changing, who is affected, what are the opportunities, what are the challenges.
Could you help me to get a sense to the best of your knowledge of some of the key ways your ideas about the “Work of the Past, [and the] Work of the Future” of work” have been discussed by corporations or sort of those in management and business ownership roles and also by labor organizations or unions, etc.?
I met twice with President Obama. I have spoken with many people in senior governmental policy positions. I’ve spoken to a lot of private sector audiences as well, including private sector research corporations like McKinsey and so on.
I have spoken with labor people. Labor folks were initially quite hostile to my work. I got a huge amount of pushback and have throughout my career, for example, from EPI, the Economic Policy Institute, which is sort of a union shop in DC. The guy who was their chief economist for a long time, Larry Mishel, started attacking my first papers before they were even published, and it’s never stopped.
But I mean increasingly, and I find that super irritating.
In the last couple of years, I think there’s been a lot more receptivity to this discussion from many sides. I’m increasingly of the view that organized labor needs to have a more constructive role, that it’s become too marginalized. There might have been a time in the U.S. when it was too powerful, but now it’s too powerless.
I think organized labor accepted that the world’s changed in ways that are not just because of mean bosses and politicians, but there are underlying economic forces that impact the work people do. So they find the work illuminating.
What is your relationship with some of the more socialistic folks on the Democratic side?
I’m not into that. I believe in the value of the market system. I believe that it has a lot of rough edges, but I don’t think there’s a better system available that I know of. I’m very sympathetic towards market economies like Sweden and Norway and so on. I think the U.S. should move more in that direction. But those are all just variants of market economies. And actually, I think even what’s most often called socialism in the U.S. is actually, just really asking for a different variant of the market system.
That’s why I’m curious: if somebody from the camp of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders or even Elizabeth Warren were to call your office and say, all right, we want your perspective on how right are we getting it, or where would you advise us to course correct in our economic message? What would you say?
I met with Elizabeth Warren. I think some of what she has to say is great and some of it is dumb. I’m strongly in favor of more or better antitrust regulation, more consumer protections, more transparency, of the government doing more of certain things and getting the private sector out of it.
I think her idea, on the other hand, of paying off everyone’s student loans is a terrible idea, just a huge transfer to the affluent. So you know, she’s on the spectrum. She’s not calling for the overthrow of the state. She’s just calling for another variant of a market economy.
I take very strong issue, for example, with Bernie Sanders and his condemnation of charter schools, which I think shows how totally out of touch he is, that he doesn’t realize how much good charter schools have done for poor minority inner-city kids. He’s probably never met one. And so his white liberal teacher’s union view of, you know, charter schools are harming the public school system is just utterly, utterly misguided.
Are you familiar with a guy named Nick Hanauer? Do you consider yourself to be in his camp in some way?
I don’t know if I’m in his camp. I think he’s really concerned the level of inequality is unsustainable, and I’m concerned about that too. But again, other market economies don’t have the same level of inequality as the United States. But you could have a lot less inequality and then you’d be Germany or you could have still less and then you’d be Sweden. Right? But you’d still be a market economy.
So just to be clear. I mean, I consider myself a progressive. And before I came to MIT, before I even went to grad school I spent several years working in nonprofits doing skills education for the poor. A lot of my work has been driven by that.
What kind of skills education were you doing?
I did computer skills training for the poor at a black Methodist church in San Francisco for three years, and then I did related work as a volunteer in South Africa.
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Facebook staff demand Zuckerberg limit lies in political ads
Submit campaign ads to fact checking, limit microtargeting, cap spending, observe silence periods or at least warn users. These are the solutions Facebook employees put forward in an open letter pleading with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and company leadership to address misinformation in political ads.
The letter, obtained by The New York Times’ Mike Isaac, insists that “Free speech and paid speech are not the same thing . . . Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for.” The letter was posted to Facebook’s internal collaboration forum a few weeks ago.
The sentiments echo what I called for in a TechCrunch opinion piece on October 13th calling on Facebook to ban political ads. Unfettered misinformation in political ads on Facebook lets politicians and their supporters spread inflammatory and inaccurate claims about their views and their rivals while racking up donations to buy more of these ads.
The social network can still offer freedom of expression to political campaigns on their own Facebook Pages while limiting the ability of the richest and most dishonest to pay to make their lies the loudest. We suggested that if Facebook won’t drop political ads, they should be fact checked and/or use an array of generic “vote for me” or “donate here” ad units that don’t allow accusations. We also criticized how microtargeting of communities vulnerable to misinformation and instant donation links make Facebook ads more dangerous than equivalent TV or radio spots.
The Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, testified before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday October 23, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
More than 250 employees of Facebook’s 35,000 staffers have signed the letter, which declares, “We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.” It suggests the current policy undermines Facebook’s election integrity work, confuses users about where misinformation is allowed, and signals Facebook is happy to profit from lies.
The solutions suggested include:
- Don’t accept political ads unless they’re subject to third-party fact checks
- Use visual design to more strongly differentiate between political ads and organic non-ad posts
- Restrict microtargeting for political ads including the use of Custom Audiences since microtargeted hides ads from as much public scrutiny that Facebook claims keeps politicians honest
- Observe pre-election silence periods for political ads to limit the impact and scale of misinformation
- Limit ad spending per politician or candidate, with spending by them and their supporting political action committees combined
- Make it more visually clear to users that political ads aren’t fact-checked
A combination of these approaches could let Facebook stop short of banning political ads without allowing rampant misinformation or having to police individual claims.
Facebook’s response to the letter was “We remain committed to not censoring political speech, and will continue exploring additional steps we can take to bring increased transparency to political ads.” But that straw-man’s the letter’s request. Employees aren’t asking politicians to be kicked off Facebook or have their posts/ads deleted. They’re asking for warning labels and limits on paid reach. That’s not censorship.
Zuckerberg had stood resolute on the policy despite backlash from the press and lawmakers, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). She left him tongue-tied during a congressional testimony when she asked exactly what kinds of misinfo were allowed in ads.
But then Friday, Facebook blocked an ad designed to test its limits by claiming Republican Lindsey Graham had voted for Ocasio-Cortez’s Green Deal he actually opposes. Facebook told Reuters it will fact-check PAC ads.
One sensible approach for politicians’ ads would be for Facebook to ramp up fact-checking, starting with presidential candidates until it has the resources to scan more. Those fact-checked as false should receive an interstitial warning blocking their content rather than just a “false” label. That could be paired with giving political ads a bigger disclaimer without making them too prominent-looking in general and only allowing targeting by state.
Deciding on potential spending limits and silent periods would be more messy. Low limits could even the playing field and broad silent periods, especially during voting periods, and could prevent voter suppression. Perhaps these specifics should be left to Facebook’s upcoming independent Oversight Board that acts as a supreme court for moderation decisions and policies.
Zuckerberg’s core argument for the policy is that over time, history bends toward more speech, not censorship. But that succumbs to utopic fallacy that assumes technology evenly advantages the honest and dishonest. In reality, sensational misinformation spreads much further and faster than level-headed truth. Microtargeted ads with thousands of variants undercut and overwhelm the democratic apparatus designed to punish liars, while partisan news outlets counter attempts to call them out.
Zuckerberg wants to avoid Facebook becoming the truth police. But as we and employees have put forward, there is a progressive approach to limiting misinformation if he’s willing to step back from his philosophical orthodoxy.
The full text of the letter from Facebook employees to leadership about political ads can be found below, via The New York Times:
We are proud to work here.
Facebook stands for people expressing their voice. Creating a place where we can debate, share different opinions, and express our views is what makes our app and technologies meaningful for people all over the world.
We are proud to work for a place that enables that expression, and we believe it is imperative to evolve as societies change. As Chris Cox said, “We know the effects of social media are not neutral, and its history has not yet been written.”
This is our company.
We’re reaching out to you, the leaders of this company, because we’re worried we’re on track to undo the great strides our product teams have made in integrity over the last two years. We work here because we care, because we know that even our smallest choices impact communities at an astounding scale. We want to raise our concerns before it’s too late.
Free speech and paid speech are not the same thing.
Misinformation affects us all. Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for. We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.
Allowing paid civic misinformation to run on the platform in its current state has the potential to:
— Increase distrust in our platform by allowing similar paid and organic content to sit side-by-side — some with third-party fact-checking and some without. Additionally, it communicates that we are OK profiting from deliberate misinformation campaigns by those in or seeking positions of power.
— Undo integrity product work. Currently, integrity teams are working hard to give users more context on the content they see, demote violating content, and more. For the Election 2020 Lockdown, these teams made hard choices on what to support and what not to support, and this policy will undo much of that work by undermining trust in the platform. And after the 2020 Lockdown, this policy has the potential to continue to cause harm in coming elections around the world.
Proposals for improvement
Our goal is to bring awareness to our leadership that a large part of the employee body does not agree with this policy. We want to work with our leadership to develop better solutions that both protect our business and the people who use our products. We know this work is nuanced, but there are many things we can do short of eliminating political ads altogether.
These suggestions are all focused on ad-related content, not organic.
1. Hold political ads to the same standard as other ads.
a. Misinformation shared by political advertisers has an outsized detrimental impact on our community. We should not accept money for political ads without applying the standards that our other ads have to follow.
2. Stronger visual design treatment for political ads.
a. People have trouble distinguishing political ads from organic posts. We should apply a stronger design treatment to political ads that makes it easier for people to establish context.
3. Restrict targeting for political ads.
a. Currently, politicians and political campaigns can use our advanced targeting tools, such as Custom Audiences. It is common for political advertisers to upload voter rolls (which are publicly available in order to reach voters) and then use behavioral tracking tools (such as the FB pixel) and ad engagement to refine ads further. The risk with allowing this is that it’s hard for people in the electorate to participate in the “public scrutiny” that we’re saying comes along with political speech. These ads are often so micro-targeted that the conversations on our platforms are much more siloed than on other platforms. Currently we restrict targeting for housing and education and credit verticals due to a history of discrimination. We should extend similar restrictions to political advertising.
4. Broader observance of the election silence periods
a. Observe election silence in compliance with local laws and regulations. Explore a self-imposed election silence for all elections around the world to act in good faith and as good citizens.
5. Spend caps for individual politicians, regardless of source
a. FB has stated that one of the benefits of running political ads is to help more voices get heard. However, high-profile politicians can out-spend new voices and drown out the competition. To solve for this, if you have a PAC and a politician both running ads, there would be a limit that would apply to both together, rather than to each advertiser individually.
6. Clearer policies for political ads
a. If FB does not change the policies for political ads, we need to update the way they are displayed. For consumers and advertisers, it’s not immediately clear that political ads are exempt from the fact-checking that other ads go through. It should be easily understood by anyone that our advertising policies about misinformation don’t apply to original political content or ads, especially since political misinformation is more destructive than other types of misinformation.
Therefore, the section of the policies should be moved from “prohibited content” (which is not allowed at all) to “restricted content” (which is allowed with restrictions).
We want to have this conversation in an open dialog because we want to see actual change.
We are proud of the work that the integrity teams have done, and we don’t want to see that undermined by policy. Over the coming months, we’ll continue this conversation, and we look forward to working towards solutions together.
This is still our company.
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Apple’s control over the App Store is no longer sustainable
Last week, Apple caved to the Chinese government and pulled an app called HKmap.live that was being used by Hong Kong protestors to crowdsource the location of police forces.
While Apple CEO Tim Cook defended Apple’s stance, the move is a reminder that Apple is the only judge and jury regarding what’s acceptable in the App Store — but as mobile devices are integrated into more aspects of our lives, it’s getting harder to justify such tight control over their software.
The current state of the App Store is a great example of the risks of running a marketplace that becomes too big. It also shows that we can expect wide-ranging marketplace regulation in the near future.
The App Store as video game console
Before Apple introduced the App Store in 2008, companies could distribute third-party apps and web services without oversight; consumers could buy floppy disks, download software from the internet or connect to any website.
But with the App Store, Apple decided to control the user experience from approval to distribution. And it has been a massive economic success. There are more than 2.2 million apps in the App Store that have generated over 130 billion downloads.
In many ways, the iOS app ecosystem works more like a video game console than a computer — developers submit games and apps to the maker of the platform, which starts a review process to see if third-party content complies with guidelines. If so, developers may list their game or app on the platform.
The PlayStation 4 has been around for six years and Sony has approved 2,294 games in total, around 380 games per year. Due to the sheer size of the App Store, Apple has faced challenges that console manufacturers have never faced.
Review guidelines are poorly enforced
Apple has written the App Store Review Guidelines, a lengthy document intended to answer all questions about what’s acceptable — but those rules are not enforced consistently, and the App Store isn’t a level playing field, discrepancies I’ve pointed out in the past.
As an example: rule 4.3, titled “Spam:”
Don’t create multiple Bundle IDs of the same app. If your app has different versions for specific locations, sports teams, universities, etc., consider submitting a single app and provide the variations using in-app purchase. Also avoid piling on to a category that is already saturated; the App Store has enough fart, burp, flashlight, and Kama Sutra apps already. Spamming the store may lead to your removal from the Developer Program.
And yet, customers can find plenty of categories with app duplicates and companies trying to game the App Store. For example, I found 13 different VoIP apps released by four companies. Each company had multiple versions of the same app in order to pick different names, keywords and categories to optimize search results.
When I pointed this out to Apple, they removed most of the duplicates in less than 24 hours, but it can’t remain the single source of truth if it doesn’t enforce its own rules properly.
Similarly, as Under the Radar recently pointed out, some developers will always find ways to abuse the App Store. For instance, shady developers acquire apps with a lot of positive ratings, transfer those apps to their own developer account, push updates with expensive weekly recurring subscriptions and take advantage of Apple’s obscure process to cancel subscriptions.
Economic interests first
In its most recent earnings release, Apple reported that Greater China represented 17% of the company’s revenue. The company also manufactures the vast majority of its products in Chinese factories. Apple has a lot to lose in China.
That’s why Apple’s actions in China don’t reflect the company’s principles. Cupertino claims to care deeply about privacy, but it uploads iCloud user data to a state-owned mobile operator in China.
The company says that it cares deeply about privacy but uploads iCloud user data to a state-owned mobile operator in China
Apple first removed HKmap.live from the App Store, then authorized the app again before removing it one more time. The only thing that changed between the first second removal is that the Chinese government started openly criticizing Apple about that specific case.
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Labor leaders and startup founders talk how to build a sustainable gig economy
Over the past few years, gig economy companies and the treatment of their labor force has become a hot button issue for public and private sector debate.
At our recent annual Disrupt event in San Francisco, we dug into how founders, companies and the broader community can play a positive role in the gig economy, with help from Derecka Mehrens, an executive director at Working Partnerships USA and co-founder of Silicon Valley Rising — an advocacy campaign focused on fighting for tech worker rights and creating an inclusive tech economy — and Amanda de Cadenet, founder of Girlgaze, a platform that connects advertisers with a network of 200,000 female-identifying and non-binary creatives.
Derecka and Amanda dove deep into where incumbent gig companies have fallen short, what they’re doing to right the ship, whether VC and hyper-growth mentalities fit into a sustainable gig economy, as well as thoughts on Uber’s new ‘Uber Works’ platform and CA AB-5. The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Where current gig companies are failing
Arman Tabatabai: What was the original promise and value proposition of the gig economy? What went wrong?
Derecka Mehrens: The gig economy exists in a larger context, which is one in which neoliberalism is failing, trickle-down economics is proven wrong, and every day working people aren’t surviving and are looking for something more.
And so you have a situation in which the system we put together to create employment, to create our communities, to build our housing, to give us jobs is dysfunctional. And within that, folks are going to come up with disruptive solutions to pieces of it with a promise in mind to solve a problem. But without a larger solution, that will end up, in our view, exacerbating existing inequalities.
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Why each Libra member’s mutiny hurts Facebook
There’s a strategic cost to the defection of Visa, Stripe, eBay, and more from the Facebook -led cryptocurrency Libra Association . They’re not just names dropping off a list. Each potentially made Libra more useful, ubiquitous, or reputable. Now they could become obstacles to the token’s launch or growth.
Fearing regulators’ inquiries not just into their Libra involvement but the rest of their businesses, these companies are pulling out at least for now. None had made precise commitments to integrating Libra into their products, and they’ve said they could still get involved later. But their exit clouds the project’s future and leaves Facebook to absorb more of the blowback.
Here’s what each of the departing Libra Association members brought to the table and how they could spawn new challenges for the cryptocurrency:
Visa
With one of most widely-accepted payment methods, Visa could have helped make Libra universally spendable. It’s also one of the most prestigious names in finance, lending deep credibility to the project. Visa’s departure leaves Libra looking more like tech companies barging into payments, conjuring fears of their move fast, break things approach that could cause financial ruin if Libra runs into problems. It also could leave Libra with a much weaker presence in brick-and-mortar shops. No one will want to own a cryptocurrency that doesn’t appreciate in value and can’t be easily spent.
MasterCard
The involvement of MasterCard alongside Visa made Libra look like the incumbents adapting to modern technologies. This made it less threatening, and gave cryptocurrency an air of inevitability. MasterCard would have also brought an even wider network of locations where Libra could one day be used for payment. Now MasterCard and Visa might actively work against Libra to prevent their payment methods being made obsolete by Libra and its elimination of transaction fees through the blockchain. Two of Libras biggest allies could become its biggest foes.
PayPal
Facebook has repeatedly told regulators that its Calibra app plus integrations into Messenger and WhatsApp would not be the only Libra wallets, pointing to PayPal . Facebook’s head of Libra David Marcus told Congress when asked about the social network’s outsized power to exploit Libra through its own Calibra wallet that “you have companies like PayPal and others that will, of course, collaborate, but [also] compete with us”. Now Facebook won’t have a scaled payment method it doesn’t own to point to as a likely alternative for people who don’t want to trust Facebook’s Calibra, Messenger, or WhatsApp to be their Libra wallet. The Libra Association also loses PayPal’s enormous network of online merchants that accept it, plus the inroad to integration into its peer-to-peer payback app Venmo. PayPal convinced the mainstream public to trust online payments — the exact kind of trust Facebook desperately needs. The fact that Marcus was also the former president of PayPal but couldn’t keep it in the association raises concerns about the group’s coalition-building prowess.
Stripe
Stripe’s enormous popularity with ecommerce vendors made it a valuable Libra Association member. Together with PayPal, Stripe facilitates a huge portion of online transactions outside of China. Its ease of integration made it a top pick for developers Facebook surely hoped would build atop Libra. Stripe’s exit destroys a critical bridge to the fintech startup ecosystem that could have helped institutionalize Libra. Now the association will have to work on engineering payment widgets from scratch without Stripe’s assistance, which could slow adoption if it ever launches.
There’s a clear reason all these payment processors bailed. Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) wrote a letter to Visa, MasterCard, and Stripe’s CEOs this week explaining that “If you take this on, you can expect a high level of scrutiny from regulators not only on Libra-related activities, but on all payment activities.”
eBay
As one of the longest standing ecommerce companies, eBay bolstered beliefs that Libra could be used to power transactions between untrusted strangers without a costly middleman. It might have also put Libra into practice on one of the top western online marketplaces outside of Amazon. Without destinations like eBay onboard, average netizens will have fewer opportunities to be exposed to Libra’s potential to eliminate transaction fees.
Mercado Pago
One of the lesser-known Libra Association members, Mercado Pago helps merchants receive payments via email or in installments. The idea of connecting financially underserved populations has been core to Facebook’s pitch for why Libra should exist. The Libra Association has been light on the details of how exactly it serves this demographic, relying on the inclusion of partners like Mercado Pago to help it figure this out later. Mercado Pago’s departure leaves Libra looking more like a financial power grab rather than a tool to assist the disadvantaged.
Who’s Left?
On Monday, the remaining Libra Association members will meet to finalize the initial member list, elect a board, and create a charter to govern the project. This forced the hands of the companies above, who had their last chance to depart this week before being pulled deeper into Libra.
UNITED STATES – JULY 16: David Marcus, head of Facebook’s Calibra digital wallet service, prepares to testify during the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on “Examining Facebook’s Proposed Digital Currency and Data Privacy Considerations” on Tuesday, July 16, 2019. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
Who’s left includes venture capital firms, ride sharing companies, non-profits, and cryptocurrency companies. They are less tied up with the status quo of payment processing, and therefore had less to lose. The blockchain-specific companies were likely hoping to piggyback on financial giants like Visa to get Libra approved and create more legitimacy for their industry as a whole.
These partners could help fund an ecosystem of Libra developers, create daily use cases, spread the system in the developing world, and push for alliances between Libra and cryptocurrency players. Facebook will need to fight to keep them aboard if it wants to avoid Libra looking like a unilateral disruption of the economy.
For Libra to actually launch, Facebook needs to make serious concessions and divert from its initial vision. Otherwise if it continues to butt heads with regulators, more members could flee. One option floated by Libra Association member Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z Crypto partner Chris Dixon was for Libra to be denominated in US dollars instead of a basket of international currencies. That might lessen fears that Libra intends to compete directly with the dollar.
It’s become apparent that Facebook will not get its ideal cryptocurrency out the door. This is the brand tax of 100 scandals coming back to bite it. Now the best it can hope for is to get even a watered-down version launched, prove it can actually help the underbanked, and then hope to convince regulators it’s well-intentioned.
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Daily Crunch: Apple pulls Hong Kong app
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
Less than a day after Apple was criticized by Chinese state media for allowing HKmap in the App Store, the crowdsourced map app said it had been delisted.
This is Apple’s second reversal on the issue, which it explained with a statement claiming it learned that the app “has been used in ways that endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong.”
2. Grammarly raises $90M at over $1B+ valuation for its AI-based grammar and writing tools
Grammarly provides a toolkit used today by 20 million people to correct their written grammar, suggest better ways to write things and moderate their tone depending on who will be doing the reading.
3. Okta wants to make every user a security ally
Okta is giving end users information about suspicious activity involving their login, while letting them share information with the company’s security apparatus.
4. Waymo to customers: ‘Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way’
Waymo’s existing programs all use a human safety driver behind the wheel. Now the Alphabet-owned company is getting ready for completely driverless rides.
5. Calm and Room made a $4,000 branded ‘meditation booth’
From the looks of it, the Calm Booth by Room is little more than a standard Room booth, with frosted glass, softer lighting and “a soothing misty forest interior.” But it’s a pretty smart partnership between two white-hot startups.
6. Creators of modern rechargeable batteries share Nobel prize
The prize this year honors M. Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino, all of whom contributed to the development of what is today the most common form of portable power.
7. Silicon Valley’s competing philosophies on tech ethics with The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz
Marantz has in recent years trained his attention on the tech world and its contribution to social unrest in the United States and beyond. And he has just published a new book, “Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation.” (Extra Crunch membership required.)
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Daily Crunch: China pressures Apple
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
1. China attacks Apple for allowing Hong Kong crowdsourced police activity app
Apple’s decision to greenlight an app called HKmaps, which is being used by pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong to crowdsource information about street closures and police presence, is attracting the ire of the Chinese government.
Specifically, an article in Chinese state mouthpiece China Daily attacks the iPhone maker for reversing an earlier decision not to allow the app to be listed on the iOS App Store.
2. What the hell is up with this Essential device?
Essential CEO Andy Rubin tweeted photos of what he called a “radically different formfactor” — basically, it’s a long, skinny phone.
3. Uber’s newest feature alerts drivers that pets will be joining the ride
With Uber Pet, riders will pay a “small surcharge” for the privilege of taking their pets with them. And drivers will have the option of avoiding trips with non-service animals by opting out of Uber Pet trips.
4. Twitter admits it used two-factor phone numbers and emails for serving targeted ads
Twitter finds itself in the same boat as Facebook, which last year was caught using phone numbers and email addresses — given to Facebook to secure users’ accounts — for targeted advertising.
5. Google’s Grasshopper coding class for beginners comes to the desktop
A larger screen and access to a keyboard makes learning to code on the desktop significantly easier than on mobile. For example, in the desktop app Google is able to put columns for the instructions, the code editor and the results next to each other.
6. Amazon, Walmart confront India’s slowing economy as holiday season growth stalls
Even India’s biggest festive season, featuring blinding marketing blitzkrieg and heavy discounts from Amazon India and Walmart’s Flipkart, has failed to escape the pains of a slowing economy.
7. With $15M round and 100K tablets sold, reMarkable CEO wants to make tech ‘more human’
The reMarkable tablet is a strange device in this era of ultra-smart gadgets, with a black and white screen meant for reading, writing and sketching — and nothing more. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
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Europe’s recharged antitrust chief makes her five-year pitch to be digital EVP
Europe’s competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, set for a dual role in the next Commission, faced three hours of questions from members of four committees in the European Parliament this afternoon, as MEPs got their chance to interrogate her priorities for a broader legislative role that will shape pan-EU digital strategy for the next five years.
As we reported last month, Vestager is headed for an expanded role in the incoming European Commission with president-elect Ursula von der Leyen picking her as an executive VP overseeing a new portfolio called “Europe fit for the digital age.”
She is also set to retain her current job as competition commissioner. And a question she faced more than once during today’s hearing in front of MEPs, who have a confirming vote on her appointment, was whether the combined portfolio wasn’t at risk of a conflict of interest?
Or whether she “recognized the tension between objective competition enforcement and industrial policy interests in your portfolio,” as one MEP put it, before asking whether she would “build Chinese walls” within it to avoid crossing the streams of enforcement and policymaking.
Vestager responded by saying it was the first question she’d asked herself on being offered the role — before laying out flat reasoning that “the independence in law enforcement is non-negotiable.”
“It has always been true that the commissioner for competition has been part of the College. And every decision we take also in competition is a collegial decision,” she said. “What justifies that is of course that every decision is subject to not one but 2x legal scrutiny if need be. And the latest confirmation of this set up was two judgments in 2011 — where it was looked into whether this set up… is in accordance with our human rights and that has been found to be so. So the set up, as such, is as it should be.”
The commissioner and commissioner-designate responded capably to a wide range of questions reflecting the broad span of her new responsibilities — fielding questions on areas including digital taxation; platform power and regulation; a green new deal; AI and data ethics; digital skills and research; and small business regulation and funding, as well as queries around specific pieces of legislation (such as ePrivacy and Copyright Reform).
Climate change and digital transformation were singled out in her opening remarks as two of Europe’s biggest challenges — ones she said will require both joint working and a focus on fairness.
“Europe is filled with highly skilled people, we have excellent infrastructure, fair and effective laws. Our Single Market gives European businesses the room to grow and innovate, and be the best in the world at what they do,” she said at the top of her pitch to MEPs. “So my pledge is not to make Europe more like China, or America. My pledge is to help make Europe more like herself. To build on our own strengths and values, so our society is both strong and fair. For all Europeans.”
Building trust in digital services
In her opening remarks Vestager said that if confirmed she will work to build trust in digital services — suggesting regulation on how companies collect, use and share data might be necessary to ensure people’s data is used for public good, rather than to concentrate market power.
It’s a suggestion that won’t have gone unnoticed in Silicon Valley.
“I will work on a Digital Services Act that includes upgrading our liability and safety rules for digital platforms, services and products,” she pledged. “We may also need to regulate the way that companies collect and use and share data — so it benefits the whole of our society.”
“As global competition gets tougher we’ll need to work harder to preserve a level playing field,” she also warned.
But asked directly during the hearing whether Europe’s response to platform power might include breaking up overbearing tech giants, Vestager signaled caution — saying such an intrusive intervention should only be used as a last resort, and that she has an obligation to try less drastic measures first. (It’s a position she’s set out before in public.)
“You’re right to say fines are not doing the trick and fines are not enough,” she said in response to one questioner on the topic. Another MEP complained fines on tech giants are essentially just seen as an “operating expense.”
Vestager went on to cite the Google AdSense antitrust case as an example of enforcement that hasn’t succeeded because it has failed to restore competition. “Some of the things that we will of course look into is do we need even stronger remedies for competition to pick up in these markets,” she said. “They stopped their behavior. That’s now two years ago. The market hasn’t picked up. So what do we do in those kind of cases? We have to consider remedies that are much more far reaching.
“Also before we reach for the very, very far reaching remedy to break up a company — we have that tool in our toolbox but obviously it is very far reaching… My obligation is to ensure that we do the least intrusive thing in order to make competition come back. And in that respect, obviously, I am willing to explore what do we need more, in competition cases, for competition to come back.”
Competition law enforcers in Europe will have to consider how to make sure rules enforce fair competition in what Vestager described as a “new phenomenon” of “competition for a market, not just in a market” — meaning that whoever wins the competition becomes “the de facto rule setter in this market.”
Regulating platforms on transparency and fairness is something on which European legislators have already agreed — earlier this year. Though that platform to business regulation has yet to come into force. “But it will also be a question for us as competition law enforcers,” Vestager told MEPs.
Making use of existing antitrust laws but doing so with greater speed and agility, rather than a drastic change of competition approach, appeared to be her main message — with the commissioner noting she’d recently dusted off interim measures in an ongoing case against chipmaker Broadcom; the first time such an application has been made for 20 years.
“It’s a good reflection of the fact that we find it a very high priority to speed up what we do,” she said, adding: “There’s a limit as to how fast law enforcement can work, because we will never compromise on due process — on the other hand we should be able to work as fast as possible.”
Her responses to MEPs on platform power favored greater regulation of digital markets (potentially including data), markets which have become dominated by data-gobbling platforms — rather than an abrupt smashing of the platforms themselves. So not an Elizabeth Warren “existential” threat to big tech, then, but from a platform point of view Vestager’s preferred approach might just sum to death by a thousand legal cuts.
“One of course could consider what kind of tools do we need?,” she opined, talking about market reorganization as a means of regulating platform power. “[There are] different ways of trying to re-organize a marketplace if the competition authority finds that the way it’s working is not beneficial for fair competition. And those are tools that can be considered in order to sort of re-organize before harm is done. Then you don’t punish because no infringement is found but you can give very direct almost orders… as to how a market should be organized.”
Artificial intelligence with a purpose
On artificial intelligence — which the current Commission has been working on developing a framework for ethical design and application — Vestager’s opening remarks contained a pledge to publish proposals for this framework — to “make sure artificial intelligence is used ethically, to support human decisions and not undermine them” — and to do so within her first 100 days in office.
That led one MEP to question whether it wasn’t too ambitious and hasty to rush to control a still emerging technology. “It is very ambitious,” she responded. “And one of the things that I think about a lot is of course if we want to build trust then you have to listen.
“You cannot just say I have a brilliant idea, I make it happen all over. You have to listen to people to figure out what would be the right approach here. Also because there is a balance. Because if you’re developing something new then — exactly as you say — you should be very careful not to over-regulate.
“For me, to fulfill these ambitions, obviously we need the feedback from the many, many businesses who have taken upon them to use the assessment list and the principles [recommended by the Commission’s HLEG on AI] of how to create AI you can trust. But I also think, to some degree, we have to listen fast. Because we have to talk with a lot of different people in order to get it right. But it is a reflection of the fact that we are in hurry. We really need to get our AI strategy off the ground and these proposals will be part of that.”
Europe could differentiate itself — and be “a world leader” — by developing “AI with a purpose,” Vestager suggested, pointing to potential applications for the tech such as in healthcare, transportation and combating climate change, which she said would also work to further European values.
“I don’t think that we can be world leaders without ethical guidelines,” she said of AI. “I think we will lose it if we just say no let’s do as they do in the rest of the world — let’s pool all the data from everyone, no matter where it comes from, and let’s just invest all our money. I think we will lose out because the AI you create because you want to serve humans. That’s a different sort of AI. This is AI with a purpose.”
On digital taxation — where Vestager will play a strategic role, working with other commissioners — she said her intention is to work toward trying to achieve global agreement on reforming rules to take account of how data and profits flow across borders. But if that’s not possible she said Europe is prepared to act alone — and quickly — by the end of 2020.
“Surprising things can happen,” she said, discussing the challenge of achieving even an EU-wide consensus on tax reform, and noting how many pieces of tax legislation have already been passed in the European Council by unanimity. “So it’s not undoable. The problem is we have a couple of very important pieces of legislation that have not been passed.
“I’m still kind of hopeful in the working way that we can get a global agreement on digital taxation. If that is not the case, obviously we will table and push for a European solution. And I admire the Member States who’ve said we want a European or global solution, but if that isn’t to be we’re willing to do that by ourselves in order to be able to answer to all the businesses who pay their taxes.”
Vestager also signaled support for exploring the possibility of amending Article 116 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, which relates to competition-based distortion of the internal market, in order to enable tax reform to be passed by a qualified majority, instead of unanimously — as a potential strategy for getting past the EU’s own current blocks to tax reform.
“I think definitely we should start exploring what would that entail,” she said in response to a follow-up question. “I don’t think it’s a given that it would be successful, but it’s important that we take the different tools that the treaty gives us and use these tools if need be.”
During the hearing she also advocated for a more strategic use of public procurement by the EU and Member States — to push for more funding to go into digital research and business innovation that benefits common interests and priorities.
“It means working together with Member States on important projects of common European interest. We will bring together entire value chains, from universities, suppliers, manufacturers all the way to those who recycle the raw material that is used in manufacturing,” she said.
“Public procurement in Europe is… a lot of money,” she added. “And if we also use that to ask for solutions well then we can have also maybe smaller businesses to say I can actually do that. So we can make an artificial intelligence strategy that will push in all different sectors of society.”
She also argued that Europe’s industrial strategy needs to reach beyond its own Single Market — signaling a tougher approach to market access to those outside the bloc.
And implying she might favor less of a free-for-all when it comes to access to publicly funded data — if the value it contains risks further entrenching already data-rich, market-dominating giants at the expense of smaller local players.
“As we get more and more interconnected, we are more dependent and affected by decisions made by others. Europe is the biggest trading partner of some 80 countries, including China and the U.S. So we are in a strong position to work for a level global playing field. This includes pursuing our proposal to reform the World Trade Organization. It includes giving ourselves the right tools to make sure that foreign state ownership and subsidies do not undermine fair competition in Europe,” she said.
“We have to figure out what constitutes market power,” she went on, discussing how capacity to collect data can influence market position, regardless of whether it’s directly linked to revenue. “We will expand our insights as to how this works. We have learned a lot from some of the merger cases that we have been doing to see how data can work as an asset for innovation but also as a barrier to entry. Because if you don’t have the right data it’s very difficult to produce the services that people are actually asking for. And that becomes increasingly critical when it comes to AI. Because once you have it then you can do even more.
“I think we have to discuss what we do with all the amazing publicly funded data that we make available. It’s not to be overly biblical but we shouldn’t end up in a situation where ‘those who have shall more be given.’ If you have a lot already then you also have the capabilities and the technical insight to make very good use of it. And we do have amazing data in Europe. Just think about what can be assessed in our supercomputers… they are world-class… And second when it comes to both [EU sat-nav] Galileo and [earth observation program] Copernicus. Also here data is available. Which is an excellent thing for the farmer doing precision farming and saving in pesticides and seeds and all of that. But are really happy that we also make it available for those who could actually pay for it themselves?
“I think that is a discussion that we will have to have — to make sure that not just the big ones keep taking for themselves but the smaller ones having a fair chance.”
Rights and wrongs
During the hearing Vestager was also asked whether she supported the controversial EU copyright reform.
She said she supports the “compromise” achieved — arguing that the legislation is important to ensure artists are rewarded for the work they do — but stressed that it will be important for the incoming Commission to ensure Member States’ implementations are “coherent” and that fragmentation is avoided.
She also warned against the risk of the same “divisive” debates being reopened afresh, via other pieces of legislation.
“I think now that the copyright issue has been settled it shouldn’t be reopened in the area of the Digital Services Act,” she said. “I think it’s important to be very careful not to do that because then we would lose speed again when it comes to actually making sure there is remuneration for those who hold copyright.”
Asked in a follow-up question how, as the directive gets implemented by EU Member States, she will ensure freedom of speech is protected from upload filter technologies — which is what critics of the copyright reform argue the law effectively demands that platforms deploy — Vestager hedged, saying: “[It] will take a lot of discussions and back and forth between Member States and Commission, probably. Also this parliament will follow this very closely. To make sure that we get an implementation in Member States that are similar.”
“One has to be very careful,” she added. “Some of the discussions that we had during the adoption of the copyright directive will come back. Because these are crucial debates. Because it’s a debate between the freedom of speech and actually protecting people who have rights. Which is completely justified… Just as we have fundamental values we also have fundamental discussions because it’s always a balancing act how to get this right.”
The commissioner also voiced support for passing the ePrivacy Regulation. “It will be high priority to make sure that we’re able to pass that,” she told MEPs, dubbing the reform an important building block.
“One of the things I hope is that we don’t just always decentralize to the individual citizens,” she added. “Now you have rights, now you just go and force them. Because I know I have rights but one of my frustrations is how to enforce them? Because I am to read page after page after page and if I’m not tired and just forget about it then I sign up anyway. And that doesn’t really make sense. We still have to do more for people to feel empowered to protect themselves.”
She was also asked for her views on adtech-driven microtargeting — as a conduit for disinformation campaigns and political interference — and more broadly as so-called “surveillance capitalism.” “Are you willing to tackle adtech-driven business models as a whole?,” she was asked by one MEP. “Are you willing to take certain data exploitation practices like microtargeting completely off the table?”
Hesitating slightly before answering, Vestager said: “One of the things I have learned from surveillance capitalism and these ideas is it’s not you searching Google it is Google searching you. And that gives a very good idea about not only what you want to buy but also what you think. So we have indeed a lot to do. I am in complete agreement with what has been done so far — because we needed to do something fast. So the Code of Practice [on disinformation] is a very good start to make sure that we get things right… So I think we have a lot to build on.
“I don’t know yet what should be the details of the Digital Services Act. And I think it’s very important that we make the most of what we have since we’re in a hurry. Also to take stock of what I would call digital citizens’ rights — the GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] — that we can have national authorities enforce that in full, and hopefully also to have a market response so that we have privacy by design and being able to choose that. Because I think it’s very important that we also get a market response to say, well, you can actually do things in a very different way than just to allow yourself to feel forced to sign up to whatever terms and conditions that are put in front of you.
“I myself find it very thought-provoking if you have the time just once in a while to read the T&Cs now when they are obliged, thanks to this parliament, to write in a way that you can actually understand that makes it even more scary. And very often it just makes me think, thanks but no thanks. And that of course is the other side of that coin. Yes, regulation. But also us as citizens to be much more aware of what kind of life we want to live and what kind of democracy we want to have. Because it cannot just be digital. Then I think we will lose it.”
In her own plea to MEPs, Vestager urged them to pass the budget so that the Commission can get on with all the pressing tasks in front of it. “We have proposed that we increase our investments quite a lot in order to be able to do all this kind of stuff,” she said.
“First things first, I’m sorry to say this, we need the money. We need funding. We need the programs. We need to be able to do something so that people can see that businesses can use funds to invest in innovation, so that researchers can make their networks work all over Europe. That they get the funding actually to get there. And in that respect I hope that you will help push for the multi-annual financial framework to be in place. I don’t think that Europeans have any patience for us when it comes to these different things that we would like to be real. That is now, that is here.”
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Checking in on the state of ISAs
Income share agreements (ISAs) rose to public awareness this year — if measured in press articles and discussion on “VC Twitter” — after several years of niche experimentation among a small community of education advocates. An ISA in a financing model where the student participates in an education program without paying tuition, then pays a certain percentage of their income for a set period of time in return.
As I mentioned in my analysis of ISAs back in April, there is rapid growth in ISA pilots by traditional universities in the US and by vocational training programs but there’s also a lot of regulatory uncertainty. This isn’t a scenario where private sector leaders are seeking less regulation and activists wanting more: private sector leaders are actively lobbying more regulation so there are protections against discrimination and predatory behavior — many fear one bad actor ruining the reputation of the entire movement — and are seeking legal clarity on a range of issues like the tax implications of an ISA on all parties involved.
The ISA Student Protection Act is currently making its way through Congress with bipartisan sponsorship from Senators Todd Young (R-IN), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mark Warner (D-VA), and Chris Coons (D-DE). The Department of Education’s Diane Auer Jones said the department is planning to pilot an ISA program, to which Senator Elizabeth Warren issued a letter demanding detailed explanation of the plan and the potential negative impacts.
I asked several of the entrepreneurs, investors, and policy experts at the forefront of ISAs to share their perspectives on the current state of the ISA movement:
- Tonio DeSorrento, Vemo Education
- Ethan Pollack, Aspen Institute
- Shaan Hathiramani, Flockjay
- Austen Allred, Lambda School
- Alison Griffin, Whiteboard Advisors
- Sam Lessin, Slow Capital
- Terri Burns, GV
- Kristen Sharp, Entangled Solutions
- Leo Polovets, Susa Ventures
- Jan Lynn-Matern, Emerge Education
Here’s what they had to say…
Image via Getty Images / manopjk
Tonio DeSorrento, Founder & CEO of Vemo Education
“What’s been really fascinating, in recent years, is the innovation that is occurring at colleges and universities that are using ISAs to support and improve student success.
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