Facebook, privacy, and the use of data
Would you give up your firstborn child for free WiFi?
Of course not – if you knew these terms and conditions. Except that is exactly what scores of people did when they were asked if they wanted free WiFi at Picadilly Circus, London. Nobody bothered to read the terms – which contained a clause that forces you to give up your firstborn child.
The same level of unknowing vulnerability applies to Facebook’s terms and conditions. You “freely” enter into a contract that is nonnegotiable and impossible to read, and yet carries implications far beyond the platform.
We now know that Facebook not only took our data, but also gave them to Cambridge Analytica, among many others. But which others? We don’t know.
Why not? The answer to that question breaks up into three pieces:
The first is that Facebook is a de facto monopoly. Its business model is based on avoiding competition at all cost. Buying Instagram was a perfect example.
The second is that the authorities by and large ignore Facebook’s monopoly position. They seem to think that, just because a monopoly is de facto, it can be left alone.
Of course, European law is quite clear on the question of monopolies: they are bad. The law offers both the authorities and private parties, such as customers or the competition, many tools to challenge monopoly actors. But European authorities have yet to adopt such a bold approach.
The third is that the law offers Facebook additional monopoly power in the form of “Intellectual Property” and “Trade Secrets.” Because of these monopoly rights, Facebook can shield, from you, the way it uses your data — e.g. the algorithms that decide which news is fake enough for you. In return, the governments get, oh, nothing. Neither do you.
The common element of these three pieces is monopoly. And here lies the solution: to break down Facebook’s monopolies.
Is that hard?
Yes and no. It can be done today, within the framework of existing law and policies. The only thing you need is common understanding of the issue, and political will to push through an effective solution.
One example would be to deny Facebook “protection” of the algorithms, code and APIs it uses to harvest your data. A practical way to do that would be to force Facebook to open up to anyone the terms on which data can be obtained and publish who does it and how much they pay for it. Logistically, that’s easy for Facebook to do: it’s basically opening part of their financial reporting with all the details.
And then you apply a couple of very simple principles:
First, Facebook may not use its monopolies to discriminate between anyone who uses the data. It must offer Fair, Reasonable, Open and Non-Discriminatory (FROND) licensing terms on the data it holds.
Second, Facebook needs to publish its algorithms and how they are used to select things such as your newsfeed.
Third, Facebook APIs to third parties may not be closed or materially altered by Facebook without the approval of the third parties who use them, and Facebook may not discriminate between third parties who use its APIs.
A second example would be to set up unionization of Facebook users. The terms and conditions of using the platform would then no longer be imposed by Facebook, but by its users, who negotiate those terms on their own behalf.
How do you enforce that? Again, by applying the law that forbids cartels and monopolies. Those laws already exist, and, when used properly, can be very effective.
The only problem is, of course, that any politician who would propose such rules might suddenly find themselves unelectable, because of some fake news stories selected by some secret algorithm, shown to the very people who could vote her out of office.
Joren is a founding member of DSC Brussels and elected member of the Belgium NC of DiEM25. He’s a serial entrepreneur and investor in tech startups.
DiEM25 strongly condemns last night’s US-led strikes in Syria
DiEM25 strongly condemns last night’s US-led strikes in Syria. We condemn bombing as a cowardly, ineffectual move that will most certainly make the situation in Syria worse, not better. If chemical weapons were used by the Assad regime, the West’s bombs will not help the victims, nor avert further use of misanthropic weapons and methods by Assad or other combatants in Syria.
“But we must do something, mustn’t we?”, cry out the Establishment – like they cried out in 2003 when supporting the invasion of Iraq – which led to Syria’s tragedy.
- They want us to forget that doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing.
- While fully supporting the Saudi Arabian regime and its lethal war against the people of Yemen, they want to perpetuate the myth of liberal imperialism and regime change.
DiEM25 does believe that we must do something. But first we must recall that:
- Over 400,000 people have died in Syria and across the region since 2011. Continued bombing has only worsened the situation. Foreign military intervention in Syria has been a key driver of the refugee crisis and the instability in that region.
- Almost thirty years of continuous military operations in the region underscore the West’s total failure in creating the conditions for peace, while increasing the danger of wider war.
- A transnational political settlement is the only long-term solution to the problems of the Middle East. This is not easy to achieve but it is our duty as Europeans to lead the effort. This, like any other conflict, must be resolved in accordance with international law, respect to human rights and the UN Charter.
DiEM25 believes that, at long last, the West must do the right thing by the people of Syria and other countries ravaged by the repercussions of Western imperialism:
- Establish an objective international inquiry on the use of chemical weapons under the auspices of the UN
- Bomb no one and stop arming anyone who is bombing other people or their own
- Desist from seeking militaristic solutions to problems that militarism created
- Any decision to deploy armed forces against a sovereign nation must be sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council.
Last night’s bombing was a hideous substitute for doing the right thing by the people of Syria. DiEM25 believes that if we want to ease the suffering of the Syrian people, European democrats must first confront our governments’ tendency to embrace militarism.
The painful cost of French ascendency
“France cannot be France without greatness”. In the words of Charles de Gaulle’s “idea of France” can Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy be summed up. Macron believes in a France with a significant global role, a France whose stature is felt on the world stage. It is this belief that informed the red lines he drew last summer on the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, and this belief is behind his bellicose language now.
Macron’s drive to restore France to international standing also lurks behind his domestic agenda. It is, he believes, the answer to tackling the seething domestic discontent with France’s political malaise and economic inequality. The answer that has so far eluded the Socialist and Republican parties. Where reformers have failed in the past, Macron believes that he can make stick sweeping liberalisations in labour and taxation if he presents them as necessary changes to bring France into 21st century global significance. The French President is wagering almost all his chips on his personal charisma and how far he can project strength, leadership and republican patriotism – so appealing a combination to Republican and National Front voters.
It is possible that Macron will be able to push ahead with his domestic and foreign plans. But there are signs that his gamble will not work in the long term as citizens have risen to oppose his reforms. Strikes by energy and waste collection workers have followed those by Air France employees. Pockets of student demonstrations have popped up across the country. Last week rail workers started large scale strike action that will affect 2 out of every 5 days over the next three months. And the industrial action appears to be growing and broadening, with seven of the main public sector trade unions voting in favour of launching strikes next month.
With his reforms in place France is predicted to cut its budget deficit faster than expected and perhaps achieve a surplus at the end of Macron’s term in 2022. But at what cost? Such forecasts are contingent on continuing to favour top earners and the largest corporations: lowering taxes on the wealthiest, while reducing public spending and perhaps creating opportunities for privatisation. When last year’s labour reforms came into effect in January bosses lost no time in laying off thousands of workers, with more expected as the year goes on. Macron’s first budget included tax reform that gave an additional €582,380 to each of France’s 100 wealthiest taxpayers, leaving the majority of the country little or nothing to gain.
Though the CAC 40 may rise, French workers are already feeling short-changed. The French economy might turn out to be the toast of Brussels, but the day to day experience for the French people will not endear them to liberal politics and the one who came to power promising to change it all. Macron may well succeed in liberalising the French economy and exerting France’s influence in the world – but it will be French and Syrian citizens who will pay for it.
Owen is a member of the DiEM25 movement, currently based in Beirut.
Armenia’s youth take to the streets to defend their future
Hundreds of youngsters and concerned citizens have taken to the streets in Armenia’s capital Yerevan to protest the appointment of Serj Sargsyan, the country’s outgoing president, as leader-for-life.
Mr. Sargsyan has acted as president for the last ten years, despite widespread electoral fraud in his two elections of 2008 and 2013. His presidency has been nothing short of disastrous for Armenia: corruption is rampant, the economy is struggling, growth is weighed down by massive external borrowing, the environment has been eroded by mining, the judiciary has lost any semblance of independence, and emigration — especially of the educated youth — has grown to alarming proportions.
Following a fraudulent referendum in 2015, Mr. Sargsyan changed the Constitution and downgraded the presidency while making the republic a parliamentary one, with real powers vested in an unelected Prime Minister. In his characteristic Machiavellian fashion, he now intends to have himself appointed to the Premiership by a parliament that he controls so that he can continue his misrule indefinitely.
The hundreds of young Armenians protesting yesterday are doing what they can to prevent this from happening, but without outside support and the solidarity of progressive forces in Europe, their efforts will be doomed — and Armenia will face many more years of kleptocratic rule, corruption and poverty.
We at DiEM25 must stand in solidarity with these youngsters who seek a future they can believe in — a future that is not built around an elite serving itself and destroying the many. Their voices must be heard and respected.
Tigran is a member of DiEM25 living in Cyprus
Europe: Syria calling!
The Syrian crisis is not only a crisis in Syria. It is also a crisis of Europe itself.
Unfortunately, it is nothing new.
Already in the late 1920s, imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime, the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci described in his Prison Notebooks the difference between what he calls “world politics” and “European politics” in the following way:
“They are not the same thing. A duel between Berlin and Paris or between Paris and Rome does not turn the winner into the master of the world. Europe has lost its importance and world politics depend more on London, Washington, Moscow, Tokyo than the continent”.
In a similar manner, at the height of the Cold War, the former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger asked the famous question: “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?”
The point of these two assessments of Europe’s role in global geopolitics — although they come from opposite corners of the political spectrum — is the same: the authorized voice of Europe is unknown. Is there such a thing as a common and unified “foreign policy” of Europe?
With the rapidly deteriorating crisis in Syria, the question finds new urgency. Although particular European countries (France, Germany, Spain, UK) are already involved in the long-standing conflict — either through lucrative arm sells to Turkey and Saudi Arabia, or through sending their own troops to Syria — it is still impossible to get one single phone number for Europe.
This phone number is, of course, a metaphor. But it is a useful one, as it shows that from Gramsci to Kissinger — from the early 20th century to the early 21st century, from a left and from a right-wing perspective — Europe never arrived at a strategic concept that would allow it to be an important – and responsible – player in world politics.
The future of Syria today depends largely on “Washington, Moscow” rather than Europe, or any single European state. And again, it is not only Gramsci who was already aware of this problem.
Just a year before he died, another leading geopolitical strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski, published an article under the telling title “Toward a Global Realignment.”
What Brzezinski correctly pointed out in his prophetic article is that we are currently living in the times of a major “global realignment,” which can be characterized as the end of the era of the global dominance of the United States. Of course, Brzezinski is advocating that the United States take the lead in realigning the global power architecture, but his thoughts on Europe are interesting. First, he states that “Europe is not now and is not likely to become a global power”, and then he adds that “it can play a constructive role in taking the lead in regard to transnational threats to global wellbeing and even human survival”.
Who wouldn’t agree with Brzezinski? Of course, the true meaning of this assessment comes when you ask a more difficult question: where should Europe align itself in the new global realignment? The answer Brzezinski gives is pretty much expected: it should align itself with the United States. The next naive question should be – but which United States?
When Brzezinski was writing his prophetic article, well far away from Donald Trump and his hawkish advisor John Bolton, but yet he succeeded to grasp the crucial problem of the times to come. He said, thinking about the United States, that “the alternative to a constructive vision” (which would include cooperation with Russia and China), and “especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome, can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility”.
Unfortunately, today’s European foreign policy can be best described as “export-import”. First, we “export” wars — either by selling arms or moving ahead with our own military interventions. Then we “import” refugees, precisely from the areas devastated by European bombs and troop invasions.
In our current moment — faced with ongoing war, the mass displacement of refugees, and a looming ecological catastrophe — human survival is at stake. With the US superpower in decline, desperately trying to take the lead in the current global realignment by its intervention in Syria, it is Europe’s historical responsibility to create a common and sustainable foreign policy based not on allegiance to the United States but on decency, humanity, and diplomacy.
Unfortunately, today’s European foreign policy can be best described as “export-import”. First, we “export” wars — either by selling arms or moving ahead with our own military interventions. Then we “import” refugees, precisely from the areas devastated by European bombs and troop invasions. Isn’t the same going to happen after the intervention in Syria? Instead of solving the structural problem – which is the necessity for a sustainable global realignment – Europe is yet again just reacting on its back foot, if it is reacting at all.
Europe still lacks a phone number, denying its shared responsibility to build a better global geopolitics — and ignoring its complicity in the crises of Syria and across the world.
The Syrian crisis is a crisis of Europe itself.
Srećko is co-founder of DiEM25 and member of its Coordinating Collective.
Scientific research is the next victim of the EU’s democratic deficit
Science advances through its publications. To make the most of scientific progress, then, findings should be free, open, and objective. But in practice, the field aims at profit, with a publishing industry dependent on reaping profit from scientific progress. Only a handful of dominant publishers have come together as an oligopoly to control the market with limited input from scientists — and no democratic control from the society.
And now, an additional hurdle for scientific progress is coming from seemingly unrelated legislation. The EU wants to introduce new copyright laws, despite their ongoing public controversies (see here and here). Our clicks on social media already generate unthinkable profit; the new legislation not only legalizes this practice, but also extends it. Scientific publications are equally ensnared by the proposed laws. Objectivity and sound scientific research will be officially replaced by visibility, commercialization and marketing so that publishers’ profits can skyrocket. As in gene therapy, publicly-funded science has become a publishers’ gold mine.
At DiEM25 we resist the capitalization of public goods and fight for a transparent and democratic Europe. Scientific advancements, especially those developed with public funds, should be available for all people. We all need to speak up, scientists too! Start by joining us here.
Aris is a member and volunteer of the DiEM25 movement.
You are a member of DiEM25 – MeRA25? You’re fired! Political persecutions in 2018
“So, I lived to see that, too! Today I got fired from my job as Scientific Advisor for an organization that cooperates with a German organization. The “justification” given was I am involved in DiEM25 and MeRA25 (I’m a member of DiEM’s Validating Council and I’ve also signed MeRA’s Inaugural Manifesto). I guess some people are too scared even at the thought of displeasing our European partners, the Germans. Political persecutions in the Europe of the peoples, in the year 2018 …unbelievable?”
Orbán's re-election: hardly a fair fight
Viktor Orbán has secured his third term as Hungary’s Prime Minister. His party, Fidesz, won more than 50% of the vote in an electoral system that has been modified to enable big wins by a main party and eliminate the opportunities for small parties to form alliances. Sunday’s election was hardly a fair fight.
The win comes on the back of an election campaign that scapegoated Muslim immigrants in what many see as a diversion from ongoing allegations of Orbán’s misconduct. He has promised to uphold so-called “Christian values” against what an alleged crime wave at the hands of new migrants to Hungary. Orbán has invested millions in this hate campaign over recent years.
In 2017, Hungary was ranked 66 out of 180 countries on the Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index. Hungary is also suffering from widening income gaps and deteriorating public services, while Orbán’s friends and relatives have been accused of riding on the gravy train of EU awarded state funds.
Hungary has incurred the EU’s wrath for its efforts to curb the independence of the judiciary, challenge data protection laws, and eliminate its central bank’s independence. With this election win, however, Orbán gains another term and a freer hand to enact his ‘democratic mandate.’ It remains to be seen how much more draconian Hungary will become in this new term.
DiEM25 campaigns against corruption in all spheres of politics and advocates for member states, through the EU, to be fully democratic.
Jane is a member of our London DSC and blogs at www.ambitiousmamas.co.uk on feminism, politics and race. You can also follow her on Twitter.
Lula's imprisonment: What’s at stake is the legitimacy of the elections and the stability of a region
The politically motivated conviction and imprisonment of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is an offensive against the Brazilian people and their right to democratic self-determination. Lula is Brazil’s leading candidate — and if elections were held today, he would be its next President. The crooked crop of politicians that are currently in power fear Lula’s popularity. His sentence opens serious questions about the independence of judges and the integrity of Brazil’s justice system more broadly.
At stake is the legitimacy and stability of the region. An election without Lula will hurt Brazil’s democratic legitimacy and promote unrest in a country that already lacks the capacity to guarantee the safety of its prominent social leaders, as the brutal assassination of Marielle Franco told the world.
You cannot defeat a politics through the persecution of one leader, and we wish courage to all those fighting to truly represent the needs and wishes of the Brazilian people at this time. But the persecution against Lula must end, his political rights as a presidential candidate must be restored, and a serious investigation into the political motivations of his arrest should be launched promptly, to restore democratic order to Brazil.
Renata is a member of DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective. You can also follow her on Twitter.