Month: October 2018

Reading09: Net Neutrality

Net neutrality has always been a difficult issue for me. I usually tend to be skeptical of any sort of government regulation, but the idea of a multi-tiered Internet is not something I am comfortable with on the surface.  To be completely honest, my views on the subject tend to shift every time I think about it, so what follows will be the current iteration of my constantly evolving position.

According to Amy Nordrum in her IEEE Spectrum article, network neutrality is the idea that “ISPs such as Verizon and Comcast ought to deliver all online content to consumers in the same way, without granting preferential treatment to any particular content.” If net neutrality rules are enacted (they actually were by the FCC in 2015 before being repealed in 2017), ISPs would be forbidden from creating a system in which content creators would be forced to pay for higher speeds, which would essentially create a higher cost fast lane. The heart of the net neutrality debate centers on whether a multitiered system would help or hurt innovation.

I think there is definitely a strong case to be made that a multitiered system would be bad for innovation.  For instance, as noted in the Wired article, if internet providers blocked or severely limited video streaming in the mid-2000s, we might not have Netflix or YouTube today.  I agree that allowing internet providers to choose favorites is a definite threat to innovation.  However, I also agree with the argument that creating a fast lane is a completely reasonable practice with a lot of precedent.  Highways often have separate tolled lanes where the speed limit is higher, and shipping companies usually offer different shipping speeds at different prices.  Almost nobody is uncomfortable with those arrangements, so it is definitely reasonable to ask why the Internet is different.

Considering these arguments, I think I come out on the side of a limited form of net neutrality.  The scariest part to me about ISPs being able to price discriminate or even refuse to carry content is that it would theoretically give them the ability to suppress or promote certain content (or even speech).  Net neutrality would prevent this.  Especially given that the Internet is basically a requirement for modern life, I think all bytes should be treated equally.  And though I tend to be wary of more regulation, I think net neutrality is probably a necessity akin to antitrust regulations.

However, there is one element of full net neutrality that I think should not be implemented.  Some ISPs have created payment systems where their own content does not count against data limits.  For instance, AT&T does not count programs streamed through its own DirecTV Now service against customers’ monthly data limit.  I see no reason why a company should be forbidden from promoting its own content.  Under my version of net neutrality, AT&T’s program would be allowed, but it would not be legal for a different content provider to pay AT&T to have their content created similarly.  I think this would be a decent compromise to still give ISPs some freedom while keeping the Internet fair.

 

Reading08: Corporate Personhood

Put simply, corporate personhood is the concept that corporations should be afforded the same rights as individuals.  Importantly, this does not just mean that the individuals that own/make up a corporation should receive their individual rights when performing corporate activities; it means that the corporations themselves receive these rights as an entity separate from the humans associated with it.  This is an extremely powerful concept with far reaching implications.  Legally, at least as applied in the United States, corporate personhood means that corporations receive most, but not all, of the constitutional rights that individuals receive.  For instance, corporations are generally protected by the fourteenth and first (especially following the Citizens United decision) amendments but not by the fifth amendment. The most important legal ramification of corporate personhood is that it allows corporations to enter contracts and be sued/prosecuted – thus holding these collectives accountable for its agreements and actions.

However, the fact that corporations are not actually persons makes punishing them for wrongdoings somewhat strange.  You cannot jail an entity like you can a person, and even if you fine a corporation, the individuals within it will most likely be fine themselves.  Thus, it can be argued that because corporations cannot be punished in the same way as individuals, they should not receive the same rights. I do not agree with this logic because though it is correct that corporations cannot be jailed, they can be severely fined and even broken up and thus have strong legal incentives to not break the law (not to mention the desire to avoid a crippling public backlash). Therefore, I believe that as long as strong enough laws are in place to limit corporate abuses and these laws are actually enforced, corporate personhood should persist.

One interesting case study of corporate citizenship was the recent EU Google antitrust fine.  In July of 2018, Google was hit by a record $5 billion fine for allegedly abusing its Android market dominance in three key areas (according to The Verge): – “Google has been bundling its search engine and Chrome apps into the operating system. Google has also blocked phone makers from creating devices that run forked versions of Android, and it made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators to exclusively bundle the Google search app on handsets.”  I have mixed feelings about this fine.  On one hand, I am a strong supporter of antitrust legislation as I believe it is essential for ensuring markets remain competitive, and I think that competitive markets are the best way to protect consumers from corporate abuses.  I think that the second and third charges against Google probably do represent anticompetitive behavior, especially blocking phone makers from making devices running forked versions of Android. However, I do not think that there is anything wrong with a software company bundling one of its products into another one of its products.  To be completely honest, when I first heard about these fines over the summer I was quite enraged.  This seems like normal corporate activity, and I cannot see any reason why a company should not be allowed to do so.

Finally, I would like to address the question of whether corporations should be expected to have the same ethical and moral obligations as persons given that they receive most of the same rights.  While I would love to say that I think corporations should live up to a certain moral or ethical standard, defining this standard is extremely subjective.  When speaking of personal ethics, most people would say that not everything that is legal is also moral, and I think the same applies to corporations.  So no, I do not think that corporations should have to live up to a certain ethical standard – we should let the free market decide if a corporation is being unethical and punish those that are not.  The only standard that corporations should be forced to follow is the legal standard – just like individuals.

Reading07: Advertising

Humans are used to being watched by things like security cameras, speed cameras, and security officials themselves.  However, the recent rise of big data surveillance powered by machine learning presents something entirely new – the aggregation of small bits of freely provided information from an individual into an incredibly accurate portrait of their life and tendencies.  While frightening, such technologies offer extraordinary opportunities.  But in order for their continued use to be morally justified, a conscious effort needs to be made to educate people on exactly what information they are giving up, what it is being used for, and the capabilities of big data as a whole.

Most of the data used in this new surveillance is seemingly not invasive, so people have no qualms with its collection.  The issue is that people do not tend to understand what can be learned from seemingly irrelevant bits of data.  As the article on Facebook likes displays, bizarre predictors exist (such as liking curly fries being a signal for high intelligence), and the aggregation of such predictors can start to paint a creepily accurate picture of a stranger’s life.

The Target pregnancy advertising campaign illustrates the biggest problem with big data advertising– it tends to produce positive results using methods with which we are uncomfortable.  Though the following would not alleviate all concerns, better informing people that their data is being used for surveillance would at least eliminate the surprise many have felt when they realize their data is being used.  I think a big piece of the problem is that consent for data collection is often buried in the fine print that almost nobody reads.  This means that we are legally giving consent for our data to be taken without consciously knowing it, which I believe is a corrupted view of what consent entails.  I strongly believe that affirmative consent must be given for the distribution and use of someone’s personal data to be okay.  A positive change would be to force everyone to actively consent to data collection with some sort of check box reading something like “I acknowledge that the data generated by this action is the property of the Company and can be disseminated as the Company likes.”  The cost of not accepting these terms might be the inability to purchase or use a product, but at least this would ensure that everyone knows that their data is being mined.

We have already seen a concerted effort to regulate data usage in order to prevent abuses (especially following the Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal from the 2016 US election).  In fact, the European community has taken the lead in doing so with its recent passage of the GDPR, which significantly increases the standards for the protection of consumer data and threatens stiff penalties for violators. Notably, it follows my insistence on informed consent and ensures that “companies will no longer be able to use long illegible terms and conditions full of legalese, as the request for consent must be given in an intelligible and easily accessible form, with the purpose for data processing attached to that consent.”  Such regulation is exactly what we need to enable us to enjoy the incredibly possibilities of big data surveillance while maintaining respect for privacy, and the adoption of similar standards elsewhere is crucial as we move forward in our increasingly data-driven world.

The biggest counter-argument to a backlash against targeted advertising is that this advertising allows us to access content for free.  If we take the revenue source away from content creators and social media platforms alike, we will either lose access to the content or platforms or be forced to pay.  We see some of this happening with ad blockers, which are starting to create a tragedy of the commons on the Internet.  Everyone likes free stuff, and almost no one likes advertising, so anyone can get the best of both worlds by using ad blockers.  However, if enough people use blockers, then the revenue source is gone and the above will occur.  I don’t think there is anything unethical about using ad blockers, especially due to the privacy concerns I have raised and the fact that pages are figuring out ways to get around the blockers, but I think it is important for people to understand that content has costs.

 

 

 

Reading06: Snowden

Coming from someone who was appalled by the Chelsea Manning leaks, it should come as no surprise that I am not an Edward Snowden supporter.  Anyone who willingly compromises US national security as Snowden should certainly not be viewed as an American hero (and perhaps could even be labeled an enemy of the state).  However, there are important differences between Snowden’s disclosures and Chelsea Manning’s leaks that I believe make Snowden more justified than Manning.

 

Though he also released far too much data, Snowden showed far more purpose in assembling his leaks than Manning did.  Snowden felt strongly that the NSA surveillance program was both immoral and unconstitutional, and especially given his oath to support and defend the Constitution, he believed that the only moral thing to do was to come forward with the information to inform the public.  This conviction was only further justified when John Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence at the time, lied to Congress claiming that the NSA does not collect “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”  When a concerned individual like Snowden hears a lie like that and has been unsuccessful in his attempts to complain internally about the unconstitutionality of the program, it is easy to see why reporting seems like the only option.

 

In stark contrast, Manning showed absolutely no discretion and demonstrably less purpose in his leaks. She admitted that she was going through a very difficult period mentally while she was leaking secrets in an attempt to justify her actions.  Though there was certainly some troubling information in the Manning leaks, it does not seem as if the foremost purpose of her leaks was to combat a US injustice. If it were, then she could have simply leaked a few documents like the videos showing military attacks that killed civilian targets.  Instead, she indiscriminately leaked an enormous trove of data that put Americans in danger and left authorities struggling to protect them.

 

In the end, though I wish Snowden had done a better job limiting the scope of the documents he released, I am glad that he came forward.  I am inherently skeptical of the ability of any government to avoid abusing power, and in today’s age, information is power.  Therefore, I do not believe that the government should be able to collect data on millions of Americans without their consent or some sort of warrant.  Besides the fact that this is a clear violation of the 4^thAmendment, it also places the executive branch of the government one step too close to authoritarianism.  As we now know from the Russian election manipulation campaign, a devoted party can do enormous damage when armed with information, so just imagine what the NSA would be capable of with their massive trove of metadata on Americans. Note that I am not advocating for surveillance programs to be shut down – they are an essential piece of our counterterrorism efforts today – but I just think that the government should have to follow the constitution that was put in place to restrain it.