It shouldn’t surprise us that there are opportunities for bad actors to damage democracies, says News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson.
News Corp CEO Robert Thomson gives speech on Big
Digital
OPINION: It shouldn’t surprise us that
there are opportunities for bad actors to damage democracies, says News Corp
chief executive Robert Thomson.
Robert Thomson News Corp Australia Network MARCH 8, 2019 8:03PM
Facebook
and Google have been put on notice
This is an edited version of a speech by News Corp
chief executive Robert Thomson in London on Friday titled Big Digital: After
the Awakening, the Reckoning:
I
COME from a journalistic background. Dog Bites Man is never a story. Man Bites
Dog is certainly a story. Bytes Dog Man — that is THE story.
Almost
12 years ago as editor of The Times I gave evidence to a House of Lords
committee:
‘The
problem that we have as a society is that there is a significant number of
people who have grown up in a different information environment … surrounded by
much more information, but whose provenance is not clear … The rumours will be
believed, the fiction will be thought of as fact and the political agendas,
among other agendas, will be influenced by interest groups who are coming from
some quite strange trajectory to issues based on collective understanding that
is founded on falsity.’
And
so it shouldn’t surprise us that there are problems with provenance and
opportunities for bad actors to damage democracies.
Thankfully,
there is indeed a more contemplative crew of contemporary politicians and
regulators, not merely dazzled by the digital, or falling for the fashionable —
they are able to divine the difference between artificial intelligence and the
artifice of intelligence. Let’s be very clear — the digital world has brought
manifold benefits, in choices and chances, in efficiency and efficacy. It is
core not a coda. And because its core we need to be conscious of consequences,
and not diss dissent as has happened for too long. At last we are discussing
more seriously the fine lines between engagement and addiction, between
repurposing and piracy and pillage, between belonging and bullying, between
identity and insecurity, all of which are magnified digitally.
I
was with the astute, acute Senator Graham in Washington last week, and he
clearly understands the potency of dominant algorithms and the anti-social
potential of social media. As the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and
with the respect of both parties, he will be a profoundly important voice in
coming years as the awakening becomes a reckoning.
That
word has biblical overtones and so who will ultimately be the cyber Solomon,
ensuring that the digital ecosystem develops to its undoubted potential? One
certain outcome will be less dominance by a few players whose reach across
horizontals and deep into verticals is a fundamental contradiction, whether in
content or in commerce. No one wants the reckoning to be a wrecking ball but
the digital debris trail is already rather long.
There is generally an
understanding in business that connections lead to partnerships lead to
relationships with responsibilities — and that’s the implied social contract,
but digital relationships very quickly descended into abusive relationships.
Serial cheating, digital denials, haughtiness, smugness, playing content
creators for suckers who don’t understand the ecosystem. Allowing rampant
piracy, sometimes actually encouraging it; it was core to the business model
for some, not all. It’s not a compliant culture — it’s a complaint culture. You
complain about the most obvious, egregious, outrageous abuse and these
companies may eventually be compliant. But complaint compliance is neither
sincere nor a sustainable strategy.
Originally
published as Be conscious of the digital
world’s consequences
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