tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/technology-companies-42577/articlesTechnology companies – The Conversation2022-03-06T18:58:57Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1784242022-03-06T18:58:57Z2022-03-06T18:58:57ZThe power of tech giants has made them as influential as nations. Here’s how they’re sanctioning Russia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449966/original/file-20220304-27214-1625isl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7542%2C4937&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world’s five leading tech companies – Google (now Alphabet), Apple, Facebook (now Meta), Amazon and Microsoft – have taken steps to impose significant and (mainly) voluntary sanctions on Russia, in response to its invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>But the decisions didn’t come unprompted. Ukraine has lobbied the major tech companies in the same way it sought assistance from the European Union, NATO and the US government. </p>
<p>Facing the largest military action in Europe since the second world war, Ukraine appealed directly to big tech companies as though they were nation states. It’s a reminder that in today’s world, these giants are major players on the geopolitical stage.</p>
<p>So what impact could the tech-related sanctions have?</p>
<h2>The Big 5’s response</h2>
<p><a href="https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/helping-ukraine/"><strong>Google</strong></a>’s response to the crisis has come in two parts. The first has been finance-related. The company has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60579641">limited the use</a> of Google Pay in Russia for customers or merchants that use a sanctioned bank.</p>
<p>It has also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-pauses-all-ad-sales-russia-2022-03-04/">stopped selling</a> online advertising in Russia across its services, and has removed the ability for Russian state media outlets Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik to monetise content on YouTube (which is owned by Google). RT and Sputnik have also been blocked in Europe. </p>
<p>Foxtel has removed RT in Australia, but it’s still available on YouTube, with ads in the livestream. That means RT can earn direct revenue from advertising in Australia, but no advertising revenue from YouTube. Google Search and Maps both remain available in Russia. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/03/02/no-more-iphones-apple-stops-product-sales-in-russia-and-removes-rt-and-sputnik"><strong>Apple</strong></a> has gone several steps further than Google. The company has suspended all product sales in Russia, and Apple Pay and other services have been limited. It has also blocked RT and Sputnik from the Apple App Store everywhere outside of Russia. </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2022/02/metas-ongoing-efforts-regarding-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/">Meta</a></strong> has removed access to RT and Sputnik on both Facebook and Instagram (which it owns), and has removed the option for state media to monetise content on any of its platforms. It is also demoting posts that contain links to Russian state-controlled media websites on Facebook. </p>
<p><strong>Amazon</strong> has taken the path of supporting cybersecurity efforts in Ukraine and offering logistical support, as announced on Twitter by chief executive Andy Jassy. However, Amazon hasn’t yet taken any action to reduce the revenue it receives from Russia.</p>
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<p><strong><a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2022/02/28/ukraine-russia-digital-war-cyberattacks/">Microsoft</a></strong> has also helped on the cybersecurity front. It identified a potential Russian cyber attack in Ukraine on February 24, helping efforts to thwart it. In addition, it has banned all advertisements from RT and Sputnik across its ad network, and blocked access to both channels in the European Union. </p>
<h2>(Almost) no chips for Russia</h2>
<p>Two of the largest US semiconductor (microchip) manufacturers, <a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-amd-nvidia-tsmc-russia-stop-chip-sales-ukraine-sanction">Intel and AMD</a>, have ceased supplies to Russia. Although the official US sanctions prohibit the export of “dual use” devices with both military and non-military purposes, Intel and AMD have gone a step further and halted all supplies at this stage. </p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, the major Taiwanese supplier <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/25/ukraine-russia-chips-sanctions-tsmc/">TMSC</a> has stopped supplies. TMSC makes chips for Russian manufacturers such as the Russian Scientific and Technical Centre Module, Baikal Electronics and Marvel Computer Solutions. There are no alternative semiconductor fabrication plants in Russia. </p>
<p>Samsung Electronics, another major chip manufacturer, also announced on Saturday that it would suspend shipments. Samsung leads mobile phone supplies in Russia and, prior to the suspension on Saturday, would have stood to benefit from Apple’s decision to stop sales in the country.</p>
<p>But not all tech companies have given in to political pressure. South Korean chip fabricator SK Hynix has not yet decided to limit supplies (as of when this article was written). </p>
<p>It seems the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/skorea-bans-exports-strategic-items-russia-join-swift-sanctions-2022-02-28/">South Korean government</a> wants to continue supplying semiconductors to Russia, as it has sought exemptions from the US in respect to actions that could negatively impact its semiconductor industry.</p>
<h2>Other consequences</h2>
<p>Apart from the more directly imposed restrictions, Some Meta and Google services were also blocked after users subverted them for political messaging. For example, social media users across the globe began using <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-youtube-to-restrict-some-russian-state-controlled-media-across-europe/">Google reviews of restaurants</a> in Moscow and St Petersburg to send information to Russian citizens.</p>
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<p>As a result, new reviews in Russia and Ukraine have now <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/google-tripadvisor-disable-reviews-russia-ukraine-2022-3">been restricted</a> by Google. That is, Google has acted to avoid delivering potential disinformation from either side. </p>
<p>And both <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2022/02/metas-ongoing-efforts-regarding-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/">Meta</a> and <a href="https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/helping-ukraine/">Google</a> have restricted some of their location-based services in Ukraine to limit potential military use.</p>
<h2>What’s the immediate impact?</h2>
<p>The actions of Meta and Google, and any loss of ad revenue they previously afforded, will have an immediate but relatively small impact on the Russian state – much smaller than the impact from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/28/russia-central-bank-rates-rouble-sanctions-economy-ukraine">direct financial sanctions</a>. </p>
<p>And not being able to use Google Pay or Apple Pay is still not as inconvenient for Russian citizens as being <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/long-lines-at-russias-atms-as-bank-run-begins-ruble-hit-by-sanctions.html">unable to use ATMs</a> – many of which have run out of notes. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the loss of access to Apple hardware could have a much more lasting impact on Russian consumers. </p>
<p>The overall effect of the various sanctions will be a slowing down of the Russian economy – especially the digital economy which is reliant on semiconductors. However, this too will have a small <em>immediate</em> impact. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russian-sanctions-are-biting-harder-than-imagined-and-itll-get-worse-178322">Russian sanctions are biting harder than imagined, and it'll get worse</a>
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<h2>Corporate decisions</h2>
<p>There was no legal or regulatory obligation for chip manufacturers and tech companies to limit the export of goods and services to Russia. Instead, the move seems to have been prompted by two key incidents.</p>
<p>First was the very public and direct appeal by Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov to the tech companies, asking them to take action.</p>
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<p>Second was the need to meet stakeholders’ expectations. This can be characterised as “corporate social responsibility”, or as social licence.</p>
<p>Both Apple and Google responded to calls for help from members of the Ukrainian government. Google’s philanthropic arm and its employees are directly contributing <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/collections/how-google-is-supporting-ukraine/">US$15 million</a> to relief efforts in Ukraine.</p>
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<p>While the US sanctions didn’t demand for the tech companies to stop trading with Russia entirely, the signalling from both the US government and Ukrainian officials provided a persuasive context. </p>
<p>It has raised the spectre of multinational tech companies deciding which “side” to support based on a stakeholder perspective, rather than a legislated one. It seems in the end, stakeholder views are still the chief driver of Big Tech’s response to ethical dilemmas.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-tilting-the-political-playing-field-more-than-ever-and-its-no-accident-148314">Facebook is tilting the political playing field more than ever, and it's no accident</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Nicholls is a member of the UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation from which he receives research funding. He is also the faculty lead for the UNSW Institute for Cyber Security (IFCYBER), which provides support. UNSW has received an untied gift from Facebook, which is used to fund some of Rob's research.</span></em></p>Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft have each taken some form of action against Russia — but the actual impact it will have isn’t clear.Rob Nicholls, Associate professor in regulation and governance, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1464212020-09-18T12:58:57Z2020-09-18T12:58:57ZWhy Arm’s sale to Nvidia has stunned the tech industry<p>Arm, the Cambridge-based microchip designer is a British tech success story. The firm designs software and semiconductors that are used in a multitude of consumer favourites, including Apple and Samsung smartphones, Nintendo consoles and many more. Its chip designs are increasingly used in the growing Internet of Things industry. </p>
<p>Much of Arm’s success comes from its neutrality, as it doesn’t compete with any of the companies it licenses its designs to. But there are fears this could all change. Arm’s owners, Softbank have announced a deal with tech giant Nvidia <a href="https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-to-acquire-arm-for-40-billion-creating-worlds-premier-computing-company-for-the-age-of-ai">worth up to US$40 billion</a> (£31 billion). A closer look at Arm’s success reveals why the tech industry is stunned by the news and why it poses potential problems for Arm going forward.</p>
<p>Arm defied the traditional notion of how a technology company competes in the global market place. To begin with, it does not manufacture any of its products. This is in sharp contrast to competitors Intel and AMD, who spend a lot of time, money and effort in manufacturing and marketing the microchips that they design. Instead, Arm licenses its patented designs to customers who can then easily modify, manufacture and market microchips around them. </p>
<p>Further, Arm has been a pioneer in building an ecosystem around itself, which currently consists of thousands of partners, vendors and manufacturers. This is a collaborative ecosystem, where many of Arm’s customers and partners have built their business models around Arm’s designs, secure in the knowledge that it is not a competitor.</p>
<h2>The Switzerland of semiconductors</h2>
<p>Arm’s model of collaborating instead of competing has resulted in a 90% share of the smartphone market alongside a reach that greatly exceeds that of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36827769">rivals Intel and AMD</a>. It is one of a handful of firms in the world that have successfully scaled a multibillion-dollar business built solely around research and development (R&D). </p>
<p>Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-15/nvidia-deal-threatens-arm-s-status-as-the-switzerland-of-chips">describes</a> the company as “the Switzerland of the semiconductor industry” because of this neutral approach. With this ethos holding strong for 30 years, thousands of companies have pegged their products to Arm’s R&D efforts. </p>
<p>This is in stark contrast to how the tech industry usually works. R&D investment is normally used as a tool to beat competitors, and it is quite common for large tech firms to compete fiercely with their own partners and customers. For example, Microsoft builds laptops and tablets that compete with many of the companies it sells its software to. Similarly, Google sells its Android software to other smartphone makers, while also competing with these customers with its Pixel phones.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Stylised microchip on circuitboard" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358807/original/file-20200918-14-112hp2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358807/original/file-20200918-14-112hp2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358807/original/file-20200918-14-112hp2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358807/original/file-20200918-14-112hp2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358807/original/file-20200918-14-112hp2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358807/original/file-20200918-14-112hp2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358807/original/file-20200918-14-112hp2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Arm’s chip designs are in 90% of smartphones.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/ai-circuit-board-technology-background-central-1196754286">Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Arm’s acquisition by Nvidia puts its Switzerland position at an obvious risk. Hauser said as much <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/14/arm-holdings-sale-nvidia-uk-us-security-job-losses">to the Guardian newspaper</a>: “It is very much in Nvidia’s interest to kill Arm.” </p>
<p>Nvidia has <a href="https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/09/13/jensen-employee-letter-arm/">promised to</a> keep the Arm brand, maintain its neutrality and continue licensing its chip designs to customers. But many clients are concerned, with none of Arm’s big customers publicly backing the deal. </p>
<p>Nvidia is a US-based chip maker. It is the market leader in graphics processing units (GPUs), which power high-fidelity video games and increasingly handle data-intensive machine learning tasks. Leaps in microchip designs is one of the main ways it competes in its industry. </p>
<p>If this acquisition completes as planned, Nvidia would have gained a treasure trove of IP and patents that give it unparalleled power in the industry. Arm’s customers fear that they will become second-class citizens, with Nvidia first in line to its innovative new chip designs.</p>
<p>Another dimension to this deal is the fact that Nvidia is taking over Arm in the middle of the US-China trade war. This could put pressure on Arm’s China business, which represents about <a href="https://www.sourcetoday.com/supply-chain/article/21867077/arm-divests-majority-stake-in-chinese-operations-for-775-million">20% of its revenues</a>. In fact, in 2018, Arm divested its majority ownership in its China operations to give peace of mind to Beijing, which was increasingly worried about its dependence on foreign designed microchips. Such bold moves seem unlikely under Nvidia.</p>
<p>The deal will take up to 18 months to go through, as both Nvidia and Arm will have to get formal approval from competition commissions in the US, China, Europe and other major markets to proceed. But Nvidia’s <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/13/nvidia-confirms-40b-purchase-of-arm-bringing-together-two-chip-giants/#:%7E:text=Nvidia%20is%20buying%20all%20of,core%20mobile%20chip%20design%20business.">assurances</a> that it will keep Arm in Cambridge and expand its chip research there should go a long way toward assuage the British government at least.</p>
<p>In terms of Arm giving up its neutrality, <a href="https://www.kearney.com/mergers-acquisitions/article/?/a/transformation-through-m-a-integration">research shows</a> that mergers and acquisitions of this size can change acquiring companies as much as the targets they acquire. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has alluded to his <a href="https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/09/13/jensen-employee-letter-arm/">plans</a> to sell Nvidia’s GPU designs to Arm’s clients as part of a bundled offering. He also consistently speaks about his admiration of Arm’s unique place in the microchip ecosystem, and says he has no intentions to disrupt it. </p>
<p>Perhaps Arm will make Nvidia more neutral rather than the other way around. We will find out soon enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hamza Mudassir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Arm defied the traditional notion of how a technology company competes in the global market place. That could all change.Hamza Mudassir, Visiting Fellow in Strategy, Cambridge Judge Business SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1429482020-07-17T21:00:20Z2020-07-17T21:00:20ZTwitter hack exposes broader threat to democracy and society<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348184/original/file-20200717-29-ua0h8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C89%2C4166%2C2673&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Twitter mediates so much in the public sphere that weak points at the company are weak points in society.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/twitter-logo-is-seen-on-a-computer-screen-in-this-photo-news-photo/868675394?adppopup=true"> NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In case 2020 wasn’t dystopian enough, <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/07/whos-behind-wednesdays-epic-twitter-hack/">hackers on July 15 hijacked the Twitter accounts</a> of former President Barack Obama, presidential hopeful Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian and Apple, among others. Each hijacked account posted a similar fake message. The high-profile individual or company wanted to philanthropically give back to the community during COVID-19 and would double any donations made to a bitcoin wallet, identical messages said. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53425822">donations followed</a>. </p>
<p>The hack on the surface may appear to be a run-of-the-mill financial scam. But the breach has chilling implications for democracy.</p>
<h2>Serious political implications</h2>
<p>As a scholar of internet governance and infrastructure, I see the underlying cybercrimes of this incident, such as hacking accounts and financial fraud, as far less concerning than the society-wide political implications. Social media – and Twitter in particular – is now the public sphere. Using a hijacked account, it would be simple to wreak economic damage, start a national security crisis or create a social panic.</p>
<p>Consider some of the potential threats to society posed by the takeover of technology infrastructure.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Market stability. Coordinated rogue tweets from the accounts of Apple, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Microsoft could easily crash the stock market, at least temporarily, eroding confidence in markets.</p></li>
<li><p>Societal panic. A false warning about an impending terrorist attack from a major media company account could create a dangerous public panic.</p></li>
<li><p>National security. Twitter is the platform of choice for President Donald Trump. A foreign adversary hijacking his account and announcing a nuclear strike on North Korea could be catastrophic.</p></li>
<li><p>Democracy. Hijacked accounts could sow well-timed political disinformation that sways or seeks to delegitimize the 2020 presidential election.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>As such, what happened is not about financial crime. It is a serious threat to us all.</p>
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<img alt="Screen shot of Joe Biden's hacked account." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348175/original/file-20200717-19-1vhb5da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Screen shot of Joe Biden’s hacked account.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter via the New York Times</span></span>
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<p>Politicians are rightly calling for hearings and investigations. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform ranking member, Kentucky Republican James Comer, <a href="https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Letter-to-J.-Dorsey-re-Twitter-hack-071620.pdf">issued a letter demanding answers from Twitter</a> CEO Jack Dorsey about what happened. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-directs-state-conduct-full-investigation-twitter-hack">ordered a full investigation of the hack</a>, warning that “Foreign interference remains a grave threat to our democracy.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/16/21327701/fbi-twitter-hack-attack-investigation-national-security-risk-cybersecurity">FBI is investigating</a> the incident.</p>
<h2>Social engineering</h2>
<p>On the day of the attack, Dorsey <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1283571658339397632">tweeted</a>, “Tough day for us at Twitter. We all feel terrible this happened.” But <a href="https://threatpost.com/the-great-twitter-hack-what-we-know-what-we-dont/157538/">what did happen</a>?</p>
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<p>Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283957911841054721">disclosed that approximately 130 accounts</a> were affected and that “attackers were able to gain control of the accounts and then send Tweets from those accounts.” The affected accounts seemed to be “verified accounts” with the blue check mark meant to authenticate the identities of high-profile public figures. </p>
<p>Because these accounts are potential hacking targets, Twitter recommends <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/twitter-verified-accounts">additional security</a> such as having a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-age-of-hacking-brings-a-return-to-the-physical-key-73094">second log-in verification check</a>, and requiring personal information such as a phone number to reset a password.</p>
<p>How were the accounts taken over? There are two general possibilities: Either hackers gained the login credentials, including passwords, or gained access to systems from inside the company. Twitter has, as of this writing, <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283591846464233474">described the attack</a> as having “successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.” In other words, it may have originated inside Twitter’s secure system.</p>
<p>But this explanation raises more questions. Are Twitter employees (or hackers) with unauthorized access to “internal systems” actually able to tweet from the account of someone like Joe Biden? Another major question is whether the hackers also were able to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/16/twitter-passwords-hack-direct-messages/">read the private direct messages in each of these accounts</a>.</p>
<p>To begin to regain trust, Twitter will have to clarify what happened and explain what the company will do to mitigate such an attack in the future.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="person working at computer screens" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348183/original/file-20200717-25-nho9lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Outsiders were apparently able to take over Twitter accounts of high-profile individuals by ‘social engineering,’ which allowed them to convince Twitter employees to provide access to its systems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/rear-view-of-female-computer-hacker-coding-at-desk-royalty-free-image/1159379067?adppopup=true">Maskot via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In terms of the tactics used, <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283591846464233474">Twitter described the incident</a> as having used social engineering, a term that refers to a cyberattack exploiting some human action. Examples include phishing attacks that prompt someone to click on a malicious link in an email or divulge a password or personal information. These techniques date back decades, such as the infamous <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/tech/iloveyou-virus-computer-security-intl-hnk/index.html">I Love You attack of 2000</a>, when emails with the subject line “I Love You” prompted people to download a virus-infected file, creating massive economic damage to companies. It can be a <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/">range of activities</a> aimed at deceiving people into providing information useful to another party, such as a hacker trying to penetrate a company’s network.</p>
<p>The essential feature of a social engineering attack is that a human being is prompted to make an error in judgment. If anyone ever thought an individual has no agency in cybersecurity, simply recall the Democratic National Committee <a href="https://theconversation.com/spearphishing-roiled-the-presidential-campaign-heres-how-to-protect-yourself-68274">email data breach</a> in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. That incident in part originated via a phishing attack that tricked someone <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-clinton-arizona-hack/">into disclosing email credentials</a>. Cybersecurity is a problem of human psychology and cyberliteracy as well as a complex technical area. Not only do Twitter employees appear to be victims of social engineering, according to the initial explanation, but so too were those people who were tricked into giving bitcoin donations. </p>
<h2>Not just a tech company problem</h2>
<p>Cybersecurity is the great human rights issue of our time simply because the security of everything in our society – from elections to health care to the economy – is dependent upon the security of the digital world. Private companies now mediate the public sphere and so they bear great responsibility for this security. From the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/30/774749376/facebook-pays-643-000-fine-for-role-in-cambridge-analytica-scandal">Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal</a> to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/technology/yahoo-hack-3-billion-users.html">Yahoo! data breach</a>, tech companies have had trust problems. At the same time, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/societys-dependence-on-the-internet-5-cyber-issues-the-coronavirus-lays-bare-133679">COVID-19 pandemic lays bare how much we need the digital world</a> and must get cybersecurity right. </p>
<p>The disclosure that the Twitter hack originated via a social engineering technique is a reminder that cybersecurity is an individual human responsibility as much as a technical or institutional one. We are <a href="https://theconversation.com/cybersecuritys-weakest-link-humans-57455">all responsible</a>. Twitter was originally not designed to be something so politically relevant. Now we all know it is. That’s why this latest attack is so serious.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura DeNardis receives funding from the Hewlett Foundation. </span></em></p>Hackers demonstrated they can take over Twitter’s technology infrastructure, a brazen move that hints at how such an attack could destabilize society.Laura DeNardis, Professor and Interim Dean, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1050072018-11-06T11:42:02Z2018-11-06T11:42:02ZA game plan for technology companies to actually help save the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242837/original/file-20181029-76411-1xzi1i9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Working together, people and technology companies can make a lot of progress.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/saving-world-10199140">Pedro Tavares/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Smartphones, computers and social media platforms have become indispensable parts of modern life, but the technology companies that make them and write their software are under siege. In any given week, <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/9/28/17915864/facebook-data-breach-mark-zuckerberg-hack-personal-data">Facebook</a> or <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/google-is-losing-users-trust.html">Google</a> or <a href="https://gizmodo.com/new-documents-show-amazons-face-scanning-tech-for-cops-1830032358">Amazon</a> does something to erode public trust in them. Now could be a moment for the industry to make good on Bill Gates’s promise of technology to do good, by “<a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/11/bill-gates-wired-essay/">unlocking the innate compassion</a> we have for our fellow human beings” and improving the world – or Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of building a “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-global-community/10154544292806634">new social infrastructure</a> to create the world we want for generations to come.”</p>
<p>Around the globe, countries and societies are <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/report/2018/TheSustainableDevelopmentGoalsReport2018.pdf">falling behind</a> on reducing social inequalities and meeting goals for economic development and environmental sustainability. The <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> is issuing increasingly dire warnings about the effects climate change will have on human life on Earth – the beginnings of which are already unfolding. </p>
<p>I lead a major research initiative called <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/">The Digital Planet</a> at the Fletcher School at Tufts where we study how technology is changing lives and livelihoods around the world. Here is an outline of how technology giants or nimble startups could help make Gates’s and Zuckerberg’s promises a reality.</p>
<h2>Identify a big hairy problem</h2>
<p>There is a long list of global problems to combat, including hunger, drought, poverty, bad health, polluted water and poor sanitation. One that’s connected to all the others is the recent <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/">bombshell news</a> that climate change is accelerating: Over the next 20 years, Earth’s atmosphere will reach average temperatures as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels. Consequently, extreme weather and natural disasters, food shortages, inundated coastlines and the near-elimination of coral reefs will likely happen even sooner than previously anticipated. </p>
<p>The scope of climate change gives <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-tech-isnt-one-big-monopoly-its-5-companies-all-in-different-businesses-92791">companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon</a> excellent opportunities to find specific approaches that would have meaningful effects.</p>
<h2>Trace the root causes</h2>
<p>There are, of course, many elements driving climate change. Consider the agriculture sector, which <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708">produces one-third</a> of all greenhouse gas emissions. Farms emit the <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708">largest share</a> and could benefit from a range of technologies, such as data analytics and artificial intelligence. As a bonus, innovating in agriculture could help <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/report/2018/TheSustainableDevelopmentGoalsReport2018.pdf">feed more people</a>. </p>
<h2>Identify how technology can make a big difference</h2>
<p>Technological tools could help farmers collect and use data to <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2013/10/farmer-innovation-improving-africa%E2%80%99s-food-security-through-land-and-water-management">manage their crops more precisely</a> in ways that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions – such as using less fertilizer and plowing and planting fields more efficiently. Specifically, better data on soil and plant health could help farmers know where they need to increase or decrease irrigation or pesticide and fertilizer use. These practices save farmers money and increase farms’ productivity, generating more food with less waste. </p>
<h2>Recognize how you can make money from it</h2>
<p>If companies are to get involved, there needs to be an opportunity to earn money – and the more, the better. </p>
<p>One estimate suggests that making changes in farming and food practices that enhance productivity, promote sustainable methods and reduce waste could produce <a href="http://report.businesscommission.org/uploads/BetterBiz-BetterWorld_170215_012417.pdf">commercial opportunities and new savings worth US$2.3 trillion</a> overall worldwide annually.</p>
<p><a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/">Our research team</a>, in work that is ongoing, has estimated that of that $2.3 trillion a year, $250 billion could come from the application of artificial intelligence and other analytics for precision farming alone – $195 billion of which would be in the developing world, with $45.6 billion in South Asia and $13.4 billion in East Africa. Other estimates for the effects of AI and analytics are less specific, but still within the same range – <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/artificial-intelligence/visualizing-the-uses-and-potential-impact-of-ai-and-other-analytics">between $164 billion and $486 billion</a> annually. There is indeed money to be made by technology companies interested in developing climate-friendly, productivity-improving interventions in agriculture.</p>
<h2>Innovate to overcome the many barriers to change</h2>
<p>Before the commercial value can be unlocked, however, there are many barriers to consider. Many rural areas, even in the developed world, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/19/digital-gap-between-rural-and-nonrural-america-persists/">don’t have affordable high-speed internet connections</a> and, particularly in the developing world, the farming community is not as technology savvy as other professions. Further, farming practices have been handed down through generations and the idea of using data to make modifications to such long-held beliefs and methods can be countercultural. </p>
<p>In addition, there are many practical realities: <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/Y3918E/y3918e10.htm">83 percent of the world’s cultivated land</a> is fed only by rain, with no irrigation systems to make use of better data. Beyond that, in most parts of the world, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/feb/02/pioneer-firms-feed-world-agriculture-india-mozambique-profit">seeds and fertilizer are not high-quality</a>, lowering crop efficiency. Further, a lot of <a href="http://www.postharvest.org/home0.aspx">farms’ output is wasted</a> because of lack of refrigeration and slow transportation from fields to consumers.</p>
<p>With all those obstacles, it is understandable that investments in data-driven agriculture <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-big-data-hasnt-yet-made-a-dent-on-farms-1494813720">dropped 39 percent</a> from 2015 to 2016.</p>
<p>There are groups still working, though. <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/farmbeats-iot-agriculture/">FarmBeats</a> is a Microsoft project that combines low-cost sensors in the ground with drones that both create aerial maps and act as wireless data relay points. Nigeria’s <a href="http://zenvus.com/">Zenvus</a> and India’s <a href="http://www.aibono.com/">Aibono</a> analyze soil data. Kenya’s <a href="https://farmdrive.co.ke/">FarmDrive</a> develops credit scores for people without formal bank accounts or standard borrowing histories by using alternative data, like mobile phone and social media activity, together with local agricultural and economic information. Ghana’s <a href="https://farmerline.co/">Farmerline</a> tells farmers about weather forecasts, market information and financial tips. </p>
<p>These are creative efforts to solve deep and complex problems, but clearly there is room for large, well-resourced technology companies to step in, make a difference with big ideas, deep pockets and global support.</p>
<h2>Invest in partnerships</h2>
<p>Technology entrepreneurs will need to develop business models and organizational structures that are better at collaborating with local agricultural communities and businesses, to navigate personal and political relationships as well as regulations and government programs. Technology will not, on its own, be some sort of silver bullet that will unlock prosperity. </p>
<p>Changing technology companies into agents for widespread global good will not be easy – and it can be done in areas beyond agricultural innovation, too. </p>
<p>There has been no shortage of talk about these ideas: <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/23/50-tech-ceos-come-to-paris-to-talk-about-tech-for-good/">50 CEOs</a> met with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss socially positive technologies; World Economic Forum events around the world discuss societal benefits of a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab">Fourth Industrial Revolution</a>; and some companies, such as <a href="https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-us/sustainability-and-corporate-responsibility/sustainable-development-goals">Ericsson</a> and <a href="https://www.sap.com/dmc/exp/2018-01-unglobalgoals/">SAP</a>, are already committed to fulfilling <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300">United Nations goals for global sustainability</a>. </p>
<p>We still have a long way to go. There is still a chance for technology companies to move fast and fix things by truly helping save the world – but sea levels are rising, so the time is now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bhaskar Chakravorti has founded and directs the Institute for Business in the Global Context at Fletcher/Tufts that has received funding from Mastercard, Microsoft, the Gates Foundation and the Onassis Foundation. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings India and a Senior Advisor on Digital Inclusion at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.
</span></em></p>Amazon, Facebook and Google have lofty goals for their effects on global society. But people around the world are still waiting for the positive results. Here’s what the tech giants could do.Bhaskar Chakravorti, Dean of Global Business, The Fletcher School, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1018592018-08-21T10:35:03Z2018-08-21T10:35:03ZHow sovereign wealth funds are inflating the Silicon Valley bubble<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232860/original/file-20180821-149484-1jawcyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elon Musk has spoken to Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund about taking Tesla private.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nvidia/16660212029">NVIDIA / flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Elon Musk jolted markets and shareholders when he tweeted his intention to take his electric car company, Tesla, private. Saudi billions, he proposed, could help the company escape the pressures of being publicly listed. In a <a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-taking-tesla-private">blog post</a>, Musk said that “the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund [had] approached [him] multiple times about taking Tesla private”.</p>
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<p>Oil wealth meets futuristic electric cars may sound like an odd mix. But there is growing precedent for this kind of investment from sovereign wealth funds, which are motivated by social as well as financial aims. So much so that they are disrupting how capital markets work.</p>
<p>The result could be calamitous. A look at the history of large inflows into specific asset classes does not bode well for the venture capital industry. When petrodollars were funnelled into the eurodollar market in the 1960s, it drove asset spikes <a href="https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/01/25/2151037/petrodollars-are-eurodollars-and-eurodollar-base-money-is-shrinking/">and then resets</a>. Similarly, Japanese investment in American real estate fuelled a spectacular bubble – and then crash – <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-21/business/fi-2537_1_japanese-real-estate">in the early 1990s</a>. US investment bank lending in Latin American debt in the 1980s ultimately culminated in a <a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/latin_american_debt_crisis">“decade of lost growth”</a>. </p>
<p>A typical refrain is that “this time it’s different”. But it’s never different. We argue that the global rise of sovereign wealth fund investments into venture capital is driving a similar cycle of asset inflation that will end in tears. </p>
<h2>Huge sums of money</h2>
<p>The reason that sovereign wealth fund money could prove destabilising for venture capital (VC) comes from the nature of the way VC works. Traditionally, nimble investment firms, led by experienced partners with technical and operational expertise, would identify potentially disruptive technologies and then work with the fledgling firms on strategy, hiring and product. This “smart money” is said to have catapulted Silicon Valley technology firms <a href="https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/08/building-the-venture-capital-state/">into global powerhouses</a>. </p>
<p>But the small scale and scrappy nature of venture capital is a relic of the 20th century. Today, VC funds are backed by some of the world’s largest investors, including funds like Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Singapore’s GIC. Sovereign wealth funds are investing huge sums of money, both as limited partners in VC funds and as venture capitalists themselves. </p>
<p>The entrance of sovereign wealth funds into the previous cottage industry of venture capital has fuelled <a href="http://docs.preqin.com/quarterly/pe/Preqin-Quarterly-Private-Equity-Update-Q1-2018.pdf">unprecedented levels of “dry powder”</a> (money that the VCs need to invest). With more money at their disposal than ever before, VC managers are investing more money in each deal, and making more deals. Recent quarters have seen a <a href="https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/xx/pdf/2018/04/kpmg-venture-pulse-q1-2018.pdf">previously unforeseen number and size</a> of “mega deals” (deals worth more than US$1 billion). </p>
<p>This all means that when – as historical precedent shows is likely – the VC bubble bursts, the fallout will be massive. And in the wake of such a bubble burst, there will be scant capital available for the many start-ups that have raised early-stage funding on hefty valuations. Investors, including the sovereign wealth funds, will be burned by the big losses, and so unwilling to invest in risky start-ups, or in venture capital funds, for years.</p>
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<p>The increasing exposure of sovereign wealth funds to venture capital comes with national development strategies and the revival of industrial policy. State-owned investment funds have started to embrace disruptive technology investment from AI to biotech. Countries with big funds, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-policy-factbox/factbox-made-in-china-2025-beijings-big-ambitions-from-robots-to-chips-idUSKBN1HR1DK">such as China</a>, have made clear their determination to move up in the global value chain in order to keep growing.</p>
<p>In a similar fashion, big oil exporters like Saudi Arabia are keen to diversify their economies <a href="https://theconversation.com/saudi-arabias-liberal-crown-prince-is-a-year-into-his-tenure-how-is-he-doing-99743">away from oil</a>. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 strives to position the oil kingdom as a global technology and financial hub.</p>
<p>Leading the charge is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. PIF made a US$45 billion investment in SoftBank’s mammoth US$100 billion venture capital <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbanks-vision-fund-hiring-deutsche-banks-chief-for-saudi-arabia-1533055230">Vision Fund</a> launched in 2017, and in June 2016, directly invested <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a7e31c58-282c-11e6-8b18-91555f2f4fde">US$3.5 billion in Uber</a>. More recently, in March 2018, it led a late-stage VC investment of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-goes-high-tech-in-approach-to-investing-1534325402">nearly US$1 billion</a> in augmented reality startup Magic Leap. Now it is in talks with Musk about <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-saudi-fund-asked-about-taking-tesla-private-1534166024">taking Tesla private</a>.</p>
<h2>Beware of the burst</h2>
<p>With the billions of dollars suddenly flowing in from sovereign wealth funds, the size of VC funds is ballooning – and so are the cheques they are writing. Early-stage, seed-round investments, which were typically US$500,000 can now be up to US$5m. </p>
<p>With so much money to invest, there is a sharp drop in the number of deals in which multiple funds participate and less of a need for start-ups to go public. This results in fewer brains being on hand to offer advice. It also means that decisions are made more quickly, with less input from multiple sources. This can be both good (decisions can be made more quickly) and bad (there are fewer checks and balances).</p>
<p>When previous floods of capital proved irresponsible, a diversification of investment opportunities – geographically and in terms of asset class – could have helped reduce the systemic risk. </p>
<p>But measures can be put in place today to neutralise the rollercoaster that sovereign wealth fund investment in venture capital is propelling, so that the global exuberance for supporting start-ups around the world proves sustainable. </p>
<p>Funds should be modest in their VC investment activity, for example, placing small bets in line with the workings of the VC industry, rather than deploying cheques in line with the size of their funds. Their appeal as buy-out partners, as Elon Musk claims, is not simply an easy alternative to the demands of being publicly listed. The long-term health of Silicon Valley and aspiring Silicon Valleys around the world depends on their discretion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Talk of Saudi Arabia helping Elon Musk take Tesla private is the latest example of a long line of sovereign wealth fund investments.Robyn Klingler-Vidra, Lecturer in Political Economy, King's College LondonJuergen Braunstein, Postdoctoral Fellow Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/869832018-07-11T11:13:22Z2018-07-11T11:13:22ZSilicon Valley, from ‘heart’s delight’ to toxic wasteland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221590/original/file-20180604-175451-enx1j4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Once lauded for their vision and promise, Silicon Valley giants have made life so hard for locals that residents regularly protest the companies, including their amenities like charter buses to save workers from the region's terrible traffic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/San-Francisco-Tech-Bus-Protest/e1a36cfdc907429890f81e24bdb1f53a/1/0">AP Photo/Richard Jacobsen</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There was a time when California’s Santa Clara Valley, bucolic home to orchards and vineyards, was known as “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_Valley#The_Valley_of_Heart's_Delight">the valley of heart’s delight</a>.” The same area was later dubbed “Silicon Valley,” shorthand for the high-tech combination of creativity, capital and California cool. However, a <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/has-the-silicon-valley-hype-cycle-finally-run-its-course">backlash</a> is now well <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/22/tech-year-in-review-2017">underway</a> – even from the loyal <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/the-honeymoon-is-over-in-silicon-valley-facebook-google-twitter/">gadget-reviewing press</a>. Silicon Valley increasingly conjures something very different: exploitation, excess, and <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=1432">elitist detachment</a>. </p>
<p>Today there are <a href="https://ofmpub.epa.gov/apex/cimc/f?p=CIMC:LIST:18425648058001:::35:P35_STREET,P35_BF_ASSESS_IND,P35_BF_ASSESS_PILOT_IND,P35_BF_CLEANUP_IND,P35_BF_RLF_IND,P35_BF_RLF_PILOT_IND,P35_BF_128A_IND,P35_BF_TBA_IND,P35_FF_BRAC_IND,P35_FF_RCRA_IND,P35_FF_SF_IND,P35_RCRA_CURRENT_IND,P35_RCRA_REMEDY_SEL_IND,P35_RCRA_CONSTR_COMPLT_IND,P35_RCRA_REMEDY_COMPLT_IND,P35_RCRA_REMEDY_NYS_IND,P35_SF_NPL_CODE,P35_SF_NPL_CODE_F,P35_SF_NPL_CODE_D,P35_STIMULUS_SF_IND,P35_STIMULUS_BF_IND,P35_BF_MULTIPURPOSE_IND,P35_BF_AWP_IND,P35_FD1,P35_FD2,P35_FD3,P35_FD4,P35_State_code,P35_county_name,P35_BASIC_QUERY:,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,P,F,,,,,,,,,,California,Santa%20Clara,(SF_NPL_CODE=%27P%27)OR(SF_NPL_CODE_F=%27F%27)">23 active Superfund toxic waste cleanup sites</a> in Santa Clara County, California. <a href="https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2018/01/17/getting-free-of-toxic-tech-culture/">Its culture is equally unhealthy</a>: Think of the <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/10/the-secret-about-gamergate-is-that-it-cant-stop-progress/">Gamergate misogynist harassment campaigns</a>, the entitled “<a href="https://qz.com/622452/tech-bros-and-their-sense-of-entitlement-will-be-silicon-valleys-undoing/">tech bros</a>” and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-google-gender-manifesto-really-says-about-silicon-valley-82236">rampant sexism and racism</a> in Silicon Valley firms. These same companies demean the online public with <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-data-security-problems-threaten-consumers-privacy-54798">privacy breaches</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cambridge-analyticas-facebook-targeting-model-really-worked-according-to-the-person-who-built-it-94078">unauthorized</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-facebooks-data-crisis-5-essential-reads-94066">sharing</a> of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/technology/facebook-device-partnerships-criticized.html">users’ data</a>. Thanks to the companies’ influences, it’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-workers-cant-afford-silicon-valley-housing-prices-2018-2">extremely expensive to live in the area</a>. And transportation is so clogged that there are <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42738709">special buses bringing tech-sector workers</a> to and from their jobs. Some critics even perceive <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-killing-democracy-with-its-personality-profiling-data-93611">threats</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-will-google-defend-democracy-96838">democracy</a> itself. </p>
<p>In a word, Silicon Valley has become toxic.</p>
<p>Silicon Valley’s rise is well documented, but the backlash against its distinctive culture and unscrupulous corporations hints at an imminent twist in its fate. As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pLxPBeQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">historians of technology</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BQE9RXgAAAAJ&hl=en">and industry</a>, we find it helpful to step back from the breathless champions and critics of Silicon Valley and think about the long term. The rise and fall of another American economic powerhouse – Detroit – can help explain how regional reputations change over time.</p>
<h2>The rise and fall of Detroit</h2>
<p>The city of Detroit became a famous node of industrial capitalism thanks to the pioneers of the automotive age. Men such as Henry Ford, Horace and John Dodge, and William Durant cultivated Detroit’s image as a center of technical novelty in the early 20th century. </p>
<p>The very name “Detroit” soon became a metonym for the industrial might of the American automotive industry and the <a href="https://www.history.com/how-detroit-won-world-war-ii">source of American military power</a>. General Motors President Charles E. Wilson’s remark, “<a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2016/04/when-a-quote-is-not-exactly-a-quote-general-motors/">For years I thought what was good for our country</a> was good for General Motors, and vice versa,” was an arrogant but accurate account of Detroit’s place at the heart of American prosperity and global leadership.</p>
<p>The public’s view changed after the 1950s. The auto industry’s leading firms slid into bloated bureaucratic rigidity and <a href="http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Race/R_Overview/R_Overview4.htm">lost ground to foreign competitors</a>. By the 1980s, Detroit was the image of blown-out, depopulated <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/">post-industrialism</a>. </p>
<p>In retrospect – and perhaps as a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley – the moral decline of Detroit’s elite was evident long before its <a href="https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/6/12/the-psychology-of-decline">economic decline</a>. Henry Ford became famous in the pre-war era for the cars and trucks that carried his name, but he was also an <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/henryford-antisemitism/">anti-Semite, proto-fascist and notorious enemy of organized labor</a>. Detroit also was the source of defective and deadly products that Ralph Nader criticized in 1965 as “<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/unsafe-at-any-speed-hits-bookstores">unsafe at any speed</a>.” Residents of the region now <a href="https://theconversation.com/detroits-recovery-the-glass-is-half-full-at-most-69752">bear the costs of its amoral industrial past</a>, beset with high unemployment and <a href="https://theconversation.com/piping-as-poison-the-flint-water-crisis-and-americas-toxic-infrastructure-53473">poisonous drinking water</a>.</p>
<h2>A new chapter for Silicon Valley</h2>
<p>If the story of Detroit can be simplified as industrial prowess and national prestige, followed by moral and economic decay, what does that say about Silicon Valley? The term “<a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/who-named-silicon-valley/">Silicon Valley</a>” first appeared in print in the early 1970s and gained widespread use throughout the decade. It combined both place and activity. The Santa Clara Valley, a relatively small area south of the San Francisco Bay, home to San Jose and a few other small cities, was the base for a computing revolution based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-silicon-the-search-for-new-semiconductors-55795">silicon chips</a>. Companies and workers flocked to the Bay Area, seeking a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-silicon-valley-industry-polluted-the-sylvan-california-dream-85810">pleasant climate, beautiful surroundings and affordable land</a>.</p>
<p>By the 1980s, venture capitalists and <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/making-silicon-valley">companies</a> in the Valley had mastered the silicon arts and were getting filthy, stinking rich. This was when “Silicon Valley” became shorthand for an <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=654">industrial cluster</a> where universities, entrepreneurs and capital markets fueled technology-based economic development. <a href="https://archive.org/details/valleyofheartsde00malo">Journalists fawned</a> over successful companies like Intel, Cisco and Google, and analysts filled shelves with books and reports about how other regions could become the “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7859.html">next Silicon Valley</a>.” </p>
<p>Many concluded that its culture set it apart. Boosters and publications like Wired magazine celebrated the combination of the <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3773600.html">Bay Area hippie legacy</a> with the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/cyberselfish-a-critical-romp-through-the-terribly-libertarian-culture-of-high-tech/oclc/898998860">libertarian individualism</a> embodied by the late Grateful Dead lyricist <a href="https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence">John Perry Barlow</a>. The libertarian myth masked some crucial elements of Silicon Valley’s success – especially <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-cold-war-and-american-science/9780231522205">public funds</a> dispersed through the U.S. Defense Department and Stanford University.</p>
<p>In retrospect, perhaps that ever-expanding gap between Californian dreams and American realities led to the undoing of Silicon Valley. Its detachment from the lives and concerns of ordinary Americans can be seen today in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/business/elon-musk-tesla-twitter-media.html">unhinged Twitter rants</a> of automaker Elon Musk, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/fashion/peter-thiel-donald-trump-silicon-valley-technology-gawker.html">extreme politics of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel</a>, and the <a href="https://www.wired.com/2008/03/ff-kurzweil/">fatuous dreams of immortality</a> of Google’s vitamin-popping director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil. Silicon Valley’s moral decline has never been clearer, and it now struggles to survive the toxic mess it has created.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86983/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Big technology firms are becoming known for mistreating workers, customers and society as a whole. Is an economic powerhouse about to collapse like Detroit did years go?Andrew L. Russell, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences; Professor of History, SUNY Polytechnic InstituteLee Vinsel, Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Virginia TechLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/927912018-03-23T18:56:55Z2018-03-23T18:56:55Z‘Big Tech’ isn’t one big monopoly – it’s 5 companies all in different businesses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211745/original/file-20180323-54898-1dnsu0o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1029%2C0%2C1844%2C1255&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It may seem convenient to think of technology companies as similar, but they're really not.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Public <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/facebook-cambridge-analytica/555866/">concern</a> about Facebook’s power in society – and in politics – has skyrocketed in the wake of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election">revelations</a> that users’ data was analyzed by a U.K.-based marketing firm and used to construct highly targeted political propaganda in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Other technology giants have also sparked concern: <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9554a8bc-5b12-11e7-b553-e2df1b0c3220">Google</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/08/apple-google-european-commission-spotify.html">Apple</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/tech-investor-warns-amazon-against-abusing-its-power-to-influence-users.html">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/microsoft-a-case-of-justice-or-abuse-of-power/">Microsoft</a> have all faced objections from users, the public and even government agencies. </p>
<p>Because all of these companies provide services relating to computers, there is a tendency to lump them together, calling them “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/is-big-tech-too-powerful-ask-google.html">Big Tech</a>” or the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/technology/the-frightful-five-want-to-rule-entertainment-they-are-hitting-limits.html">Frightful Five</a>” or even “<a href="https://qz.com/303947/us-cultural-imperialism-has-a-new-name-gafa/">GAFA</a>” – the acronym for the first four of them, leaving Microsoft out. Conceiving of “<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/11/how_silicon_valley_became_big_tech.html">big tech</a>” as a single industry makes the threat and influence overwhelming. </p>
<p>In the U.S., when an industry gets so large it exerts political pressure on society, people often label the industry as a whole, like “<a href="https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920328,00.html">Big Oil</a>,” “<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/big-tobacco-is-still-in-the-business-of-deceiving-americans_us_5a202d96e4b0392a4ebbf5f3">Big Tobacco</a>” or “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/big-pharma-is-americas-new-mafia">Big Pharma</a>.” The so-called big tech companies certainly are big: In 2017, they were the top five <a href="https://247wallst.com/investing/2017/10/29/market-cap-of-5-largest-us-companies-up-36-in-most-recent-year/">most valuable public companies</a> in the U.S. But, as a <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/we-now-disrupt-broadcast">scholar of the media marketplace</a> that many of these firms are beginning to explore, I know that lumping them together hides the fact they’re very separate and distinct – not just as companies, but in terms of their business models and practices.</p>
<p>Understanding these companies in their proper business contexts makes it easier to understand their power in the marketplace and society at large. It also suggests ways to assess, regulate and manage that power to protect competition and <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-killing-democracy-with-its-personality-profiling-data-93611">even democracy itself</a>. </p>
<h2>Google: Advertising revenue from searches</h2>
<p>Google and Facebook are most frequently discussed together, likely because of their domination of internet advertising. Together, the two companies <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Google-Facebook-Tighten-Grip-on-US-Digital-Ad-Market/1016494">collected 63 percent</a> of U.S. digital advertising dollars in 2017. Both companies earn most of their revenue from advertising: 97 percent for <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-5-tech-giants-make-billions/">Facebook</a> and 88 percent for <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/business-google.asp">Google’s</a> parent company Alphabet in 2016. But what they offer to advertisers and what users want from them are very different.</p>
<p>Google’s value proposition is helping users find things. Many – even most – of the <a href="http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/">3.5 billion</a> searches Google performs each day aren’t monetized at all. Google only gets paid if a searcher clicks on a paid link; the top three results are often labeled as “Ads,” in addition to several on the right side of a computer user’s search results screen. </p>
<p>Advertisers like Google because they only pay if their <a href="https://adwords.google.com/home/pricing/">ads are clicked</a>. That is a far better deal than what is offered in traditional media advertising, where payment is for how many people are shown an ad, rather than customers’ responses. In addition, Google’s position as a <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/mobile-search-consumer-behavior-data/">leading place</a> where people look for information on products and services means an ad reaches a consumer exactly at the moment they’re looking for a product. This timing is more valuable than just showing ads to people in general – so much so that advertisers paid Google <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/">US$79.38 billion</a> in 2016.</p>
<h2>Facebook: Ad revenue from attention-grabbing content</h2>
<p>Facebook operates more like a traditional ad-supported media company. It provides interesting content that attracts an audience, and sells their attention to advertisers – just as television, radio and print have done for decades. The key difference between Facebook and these legacy media businesses is where the content comes from: Rather than Facebook paying to create the material that draws users, the users add it themselves for free, posting personal messages and shared links. </p>
<p>Like traditional media, Facebook charges advertisers based on how many people see a message, not on how many take action by clicking. The value Facebook offers over traditional advertising is its ability to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertisers-to-reach-jew-haters">target very particular groups</a> with a <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2010/11/26/tech/marketers-you">customized advertising message</a>. This is precisely the type of <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-cambridge-analytica-data-mining-and-trump-what-you-need-to-know/">targeting</a> that happened during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which generated widespread public criticism.</p>
<h2>Apple: Selling electronic hardware</h2>
<p>In contrast to the advertising businesses of Google and Facebook, Apple remains a hardware technology company, deriving <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-5-tech-giants-make-billions/">84 percent</a> of its 2016 revenue from the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers. The profits on those sales let Apple use <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/1784824/great-tech-war-2012">very different strategies</a> than the non-hardware companies with which it is often compared. The profit margins on each device are so substantial it <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/1784824/great-tech-war-2012">doesn’t have to dominate</a> the hardware market the way Google and Facebook control online advertising. Despite the seeming ubiquity of iPhones in some social circles, iPhones <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/216459/global-market-share-of-apple-iphone/">rarely top 20 percent</a> of worldwide phone sales, and account for <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/09/us-iphone-sales-ios-market-share-kantar/">about 30 percent</a> of U.S. sales.</p>
<p>Apple has other elements to its business, too – such as its iTunes music distribution business. But it’s important to keep the relative scale of those elements in mind. Mostly, they are <a href="https://www.thecontenttrap.com/">complementary businesses</a> that Apple uses strategically in support of its primary focus as a hardware company. Taken together, iTunes, its App Stores, iBooks Store, Apple Music, Apple Care, Apple Pay and other even more ancillary sales added up to <a href="http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1628280-16-20309&CIK=320193#A201610-K9242016_HTM_SE78948B641FF55EDB70F7F75DDCB7673">just 11 percent</a> of the company’s revenue in 2016. Even the company’s plan to spend <a href="http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/apple-1-billion-original-tv-shows-movies-budget-1202529421/">$1 billion on original video</a> is hard to understand, except as a support to branding and marketing efforts that boost its hardware sales.</p>
<h2>Microsoft and Amazon: Mixed retail, computing and media</h2>
<p>Much like Apple, Microsoft blends many revenue streams: It sells Surface computers, Azure cloud services, software (like the Microsoft Office Suite), gaming consoles and search engine advertising. The company once stood alone as a <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/47043/1/CentrePiece_12_1.pdf">poster child</a> for massive technology corporations. Lately, it may draw less attention because competitors like Google’s G Suite have challenged its market share. Also, Microsoft has not aggressively entered social media, a sector now under great scrutiny.</p>
<p>Finally, Amazon also operates in many different business sectors. Primarily, it is a goods retailer: That’s where <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-5-tech-giants-make-billions/">70 percent</a> of its annual revenue came from in 2016. Its Amazon Web Services content hosting and cloud computing business contributed 9 percent, and Amazon’s media businesses provided roughly 18 percent of the company’s $136 billion of annual revenue. That $24 billion of media revenue is nearly three times that of Netflix, but still not Amazon’s core business.</p>
<h2>Regulate markets and behavior, not ‘tech’</h2>
<p>It’s not that these companies are so different as to be unrelated or incomparable to each other. They all involve – to varying degrees – computers and services built on internet connection that provide services to customers in ways that never existed before. All five gather data on their users and analyze behavior using algorithms to create personal experiences in ways that are new and have been challenging for companies with long histories in sectors such as media, transportation or retail to match.</p>
<p>But despite simple perception of them all as “<a href="https://www.inc.com/magazine/201605/marli-guzzetta/tech-company-definition.html">tech</a>” companies, their core revenue sources are clearly different. And those distinctions suggest ways people can understand and respond to anxieties about their growing economic and cultural influence.</p>
<p>In fact, what is most concerning is the extent to which these companies aren’t in the same businesses: They’re not competing with each other, or really anyone else.</p>
<p>In prior eras, Americans learned that major industries they first viewed as innovators and economic saviors were more complicated and less magnanimous than initially believed. So now today, big tech isn’t unlike everything that came before. In fact, big tech <a href="https://al3x.net/2012/05/08/what-is-and-is-not-a-technology-company.html">isn’t really a thing</a> at all. Assessing these companies based on what they do, rather than mythologizing them, is the first step forward.</p>
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<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248895/original/file-20181204-133100-t34yqm.png?w=128&h=128">
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<header>Amanda Lotz is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/we-now-disrupt-broadcast">We Now Disrupt This Broadcast:
How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All</a></p>
<footer>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Lotz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When thinking about regulating them, it’s useful to know Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft have some similarities. But generally they’re not competing with each other – or anyone else.Amanda Lotz, Fellow, Peabody Media Center; Professor of Media Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/831852017-08-31T00:06:43Z2017-08-31T00:06:43ZWhat is the online equivalent of a burning cross?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184062/original/file-20170830-927-1qf7sdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Online hate isn't always as easy to spot as it might appear.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/word-hate-written-red-keyboard-buttons-328962281">Lukasz Stefanski/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>White supremacy is woven into the tapestry of American culture, online and off – in both physical monuments and online domain names. A band of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/us/white-nationalists-rally-charlottesville-virginia.html?mcubz=0">tiki-torch-carrying white nationalists</a> gathered first online, and then at the site of a Jim Crow-era Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia.</p>
<p>Addressing white supremacy is going to take much more than toppling a handful of <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/19/544678037/duke-university-removes-robert-e-lee-statue-from-chapel-entrance">Robert E. Lee statues</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/magazine/how-hate-groups-forced-online-platforms-to-reveal-their-true-nature.html">shutting down a few white nationalist websites</a>, as technology companies have started to do. We must wrestle with what freedom of speech really means, and what types of speech go too far, and what kinds of limitations on speech we can endorse.</p>
<p>The First Amendment right to free speech was never meant to protect the kind of hate-filled rhetoric that summoned the mass gathering in Charlottesville, during which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/13/woman-killed-at-white-supremacist-rally-in-charlottesville-named">anti-racist demonstrator Heather Heyer</a> was killed. In 2003, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-1107.ZS.html">the Supreme Court ruled</a>, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_v._Black">Virginia v. Black</a>, that “cross burning done with the intent to intimidate has a long and pernicious history as a signal of impending violence.” In other words, there’s no First Amendment protection because a burning cross is meant to intimidate, not start a dialogue. But what constitutes a burning cross in the digital era?</p>
<h2>Stormfront, the epicenter of hate online</h2>
<p>I’ve been researching white supremacists for more than 20 years, and that work has straddled either side of the digital revolution. In the 1990s, I explored their movement through printed newsletters culled from the Klanwatch archive at the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>. As the web grew, my research shifted to the way these groups and their ideas moved onto the internet. My studies have included two white supremacist websites, one decommissioned and the other still active – Stormfront and martinlutherking.org. One is widely viewed as having run afoul of free speech protections; the other, at least as disturbing, has not yet been seen that way.</p>
<p>The Stormfront website, the online progenitor of (as its tagline touted) “white pride worldwide,” launched in 1995. Over more than two decades, Stormfront amassed more than <a href="http://mashable.com/2017/08/28/stormfront-white-supremacist-site-down/">300,000 registered users</a> and offered a haven for hate online. Since 2009, there have been nearly <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/stormfront">100 homicides</a> attributable to registered members of the site, prompting the Southern Poverty Law Center to call it “the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20140401/white-homicide-worldwide">murder capital</a> of the internet.” </p>
<p>All that time it was largely ignored by the tech companies that effectively allowed it to exist, by selling server space and offering domain name registration.</p>
<p>Since July 2017, the <a href="https://lawyerscommittee.org/mission/">Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law</a>, a civil rights nonprofit founded at the <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zFtYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YPoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6608,1876816&dq=lawyers+committee+for+civil+rights+under+law&hl=en">suggestion of President John F. Kennedy</a>, had been trying to focus tech companies’ attention on the violent and hateful content on Stormfront. The argument the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and its allies made was that “Stormfront crossed the line of permissible speech and incited and promoted violence,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/29/stormfront-neo-nazi-hate-site-murder-internet-pulled-offline-web-com-civil-rights-action">the group’s executive director told the Guardian</a>. </p>
<p>In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, that effort gained significant traction, ultimately chasing Stormfront off the internet. First, there was a move to <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/racist-daily-stormer-goes-down-again-as-cloudflare-drops-support/">boot The Daily Stormer</a>, a different white supremacist site, offline. Then, Network Solutions responded to the Lawyers’ Committee’s requests and <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/28/another-neo-nazi-site-stormfront-is-shut-down/">revoked Stormfront’s domain name</a>. Without an active domain name, ordinary web users can’t access the site, even though the content still remains on Stormfront’s servers. </p>
<p>(The sites have not been completely silenced: Some of their content is accessible to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/24/daily-stormer-has-officially-retreated-to-the-dark-web/">people using the Tor Network</a>, and some <a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/what-happens-when-the-internet-tries-to-silence-white-supremacy-20170828">is being posted on the social networking site Gab</a>, which supporters are then distributing on larger social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.)</p>
<p>With its decades-long trail of destruction, Stormfront is certainly a digital-era version of a cross burning. That makes it a soft target for fighting white supremacy online: Of course we should hold its hosting companies accountable and demand that its advocacy of white supremacist terror and violence be taken offline.</p>
<p>But more foreboding in some ways, and more difficult to address, are what are called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809105345">cloaked sites</a>,” those that conceal their authorship to disguise a political agenda – a precursor to today’s “fake news” sites.</p>
<h2>Looking for Dr. King</h2>
<p>At first glance, the martinlutherking.org website appears to be a clumsy tribute to the civil rights leadership of <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html">Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr</a>. “It looks, you know, just like an individual created it,” said one of the young people <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742561588/Cyber-Racism-White-Supremacy-Online-and-the-New-Attack-on-Civil-Rights">I interviewed</a> about their impressions of the site. Only at the very bottom of the page – where most people would never see it – does the page reveal its true source: “Hosted by Stormfront.” </p>
<p>Don Black, an <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/don-black">ideologically committed white supremacist</a>, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-thomson/white-supremacist-site-ma_b_809755.html">launched this cloaked site in 1999</a>, a few years after he started Stormfront, and it has been online continuously since then. As of August 30, the site <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170830180836/http://martinlutherking.org/">remains online</a>.</p>
<p>The site’s invitation to “Join the MLK Discussion Forum” might seem innocuous, but the discussion is not only about King himself or racial justice in America. The topics in the forum read like excerpts from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html">FBI’s efforts</a> to <a href="http://www.salon.com/2000/01/24/mlk/">defame King</a>, alleging communism, plagiarism and sexual infidelity. The site is an attempt to undermine hard-won legal, political, social and moral <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/initiatives/civil-rights-history-project">victories of the civil rights era</a>. </p>
<h2>The harm of white supremacy</h2>
<p>The fact that Stormfront is offline but martinlutherking.org isn’t suggests that we aren’t very sophisticated yet in our thinking about what kinds of risks white supremacy poses. While Stormfront is an obvious, overt threat to people’s lives, the cloaked site is a more subtle and insidious threat to the underlying moral argument for civil rights. Both are dangers to democracy. </p>
<p>White supremacy is corrosive. <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/02/i-dont-think-were-free-in-america-an-interview-with-bryan-stevenson/">Bryan Stevenson</a>, a legal scholar, activist and a leading critic of our failure to address racism in the U.S., <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/30545-bryan-stevenson-on-mass-incarceration-racial-injustice-we-all-need-mercy-we-all-need-justice">says</a> “the era of slavery created a lasting ideology of white supremacy; a doctrine of ‘otherness’ got assigned to people of color with dreadful consequences. That narrative has never seriously been confronted.” </p>
<p>What is at stake in both the fight over monuments and domain names is the same: our collective decision to perpetuate – or undo – the system of ideas that claims those in the category “white” are more deserving than everyone else of citizenship, voting, jobs, health, safety, of life itself.</p>
<p>If Americans are serious about wanting to dismantle white supremacy (and this remains an open question), then we are going to have to learn to see burning crosses in our midst, and seriously confront how this destructive set of ideas is part of the fabric of our culture. But if we want a society that respects human rights and rejects white supremacy, we can begin, in my view, by refusing to grant platforms for harmful ideas, on white nationalist websites and in monuments to the Confederacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessie Daniels has received funding from The MacArthur Foundation, Mellon Foundation and Ford Foundation. </span></em></p>Two websites, one taken offline, the other still active, raise hard questions about how prepared Americans are to deal with free speech about white supremacy, in both monuments and domain names.Jessie Daniels, Professor, City University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.