
Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech - rahuldottech
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/13/760478177/microsoft-president-democracy-is-at-stake-regulate-big-tech
======
GreaterFool
> that governments need to put some "guardrails" around engineers and the tech
> titans they serve

The evil engineers! Not the managers, CEOs and so on, but engineers. The true
root of evil.

Finally someone recognizes who's really at fault </sarcasm>

~~~
skrebbel
Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts
people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been
better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse.

I, for one, hope more engineers involved in fraud (eg VW), privacy breaches
(eg Facebook) etc get tried and punished. It might help make programmers
realize that yes, your work actually affects real humans and yes, you're
partly responsible for getting it right.

If your boss makes you write evil crap, quit and get a better job. No need to
be all courageous and write an angry blog post, most of us are wimps and
that's fine. But that doesn't mean you can't vote with your feet. We need
engineers to stop being willing to work anywhere as long as the pay is good
and the tech is cool.

~~~
jhall1468
The moment you open that door you have created the ultimate scapegoat in every
corporate decision. Now every engineer is personally responsible for corporate
decisions. It's easy when you look at VW and Facebook, but the more nuanced
these things get, the more that what your advocating for is that programmers
have to be lawyers as well.

This horrible precedent and pushes the blame for _everything_ downstairs.
Meanwhile, corporate execs have the very corporate shielding you're advocating
that _engineers_ don't. Maybe you think they too shouldn't have such
protections, but how you can advocate for personal liability for programmers
without _first_ implementing personal liability for executives is beyond me.

This so incredibly short-sighted.

~~~
skrebbel
I don't advocate that corporate execs have shielding and the engineers don't.
Where did you read that?

It sounds to me that you're misreading my comment on purpose, to make an us-
vs-them argument that I fundamentally disagree with. This isn't about
engineers vs bosses, it's about doing the right thing no matter what's on your
business card.

The argument "if we can't shift the blame up, it'll automatically go down"
simply doesn't make sense to me. You, and you alone, can choose to stop
building evil shit.

~~~
jhall1468
I read that by the fact that you only talked about punishing engineers.

And I'm not misreading your comment on purpose, trust me I had to read it 4
times just to make sure I wasn't crazy and I was actually reading what I
thought I was: someone advocating that bottom of the food chain employees be
criminally liable for code they write.

You are making an us-vs-them argument, to be sure. Your "us" is consumers and
your "them" are employees, rather than corporate executives that make the
decisions.

I'm not a lawyer. I expect if I'm being asked to do something, it's been
vetted by our corporate legal team. I should not be expected to know every
aspect of criminal and civil law to protect myself _from my employer_.

What you are suggesting is absurd, but fortunately, I think most would agree
with me on that.

~~~
goatherders
Disagree. The idea that whatever you are asked to do has been vetted by others
is an abdication of ethical responsibility. At present, a lot of what tech
companies do is still legal, but that doesnt make it right. It's still legal
because the maps of cyber law are largely still uncharted. An engineer working
on a project that tracks user behavior without consent (for example) shouldn't
be absolved or responsibility because their manager said it was okay.

~~~
eitland
Sometimes it is not clear cut.

Getting the same result in different ways can legal or not:

 _Obvious example:_

Saving a x amount of money from taxes using a legal loophole is legal.

An exact equal company trying to save the exact same amount of money by lying
to is doing something illegal.

 _Far less obvious example:_

Around here (and possibly elsewhere, I don't know) if you make a drink from
wine and spirits you have to pour the spirit first because increasing the
strength of wine is illegal, but decreasing the strengt of spirits are OK.

~~~
shard
A curious alcohol law with an interesting side effect. Where are you located?

~~~
eitland
Norway.

I thought it was an old joke, but someone I have reason to believe said it was
true and you could get in trouble for it.

------
mattmcknight
The threats to democracy arguments are so overblown. We're about to have a
huge election. There is no literal threat to democracy. Hmmm...it must be some
kind of metaphor.

So what do people mean when they say this? The NPR piece says Smith suggests
"the Internet giants will cannibalize the very fabric of this country". This
metaphor seems hyperbolic as well. To use "cannibalize" means that something
will eat itself. So, they Internet giants are the fabric of the country and
they will eat the fabric. Something is missing there.

The next paragraph then negatively describes Smith's regret of his previous
calls for deregulation. This seems firmly unrelated to democracy, as all forms
of government have regulation, and regularly adjust regulation to get better
effects. However, it does seem related to the power of government over
organizations such as Microsoft. Is the "threat to democracy" really meant to
indicate the loss of the power of the government over individuals relative to
increases of power of other organizations?

"For one, he argues, it's time to reform the U.S. law that says Internet
platforms are not liable for just about any of the content running through
their pipes" This would dismantle the Internet. Did he forget to read
[https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Words-That-Created-
Interne...](https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Words-That-Created-
Internet/dp/1501714414) ? It would force your ISP to become a censor. It's the
complete opposite of the idea of moving power towards an elected government
and away from corporations.

Anyway, I was worried for a bit reading the headline, but it looks like our
elected government is safe for the time being and this is just more hyperbolic
bullshit.

~~~
mch82
> There is no literal threat to democracy.

What would you consider a threat to democracy?

~~~
mattmcknight
New limitations on which candidates can run for election.

New limitations on which citizens can vote.

Interference with the vote collecting and counting processes.

Not respecting the outcome of an election.

Those would all be threats to democracy. What isn't a threat is Google,
Facebook and Amazon trying to guess which ads you'll click on.

------
treebeard901
The claim that big tech itself is a threat to democracy needs to be debated.
While they do manipulate their customers and sell their personal information
for profit, the companies themselves have also been manipulated by the various
groups in the world that are the actual threat to democracy.

The political polarization might not be caused by technology but instead only
amplifies it.

One example where the tech companies are "guilty" is by having everyone live
in their own confirmation bias bubble which is enabled by the algorithms they
created. What we seem to forget is that we all lived in confirmation bias
bubbles before the internet.

We all believed our own local version of what the United States was until the
various points in history where the dissonance was interrupted.

Now globalization and social media have shown people how different their
respective views happen to be, feeding the polarization even more, and we find
it easy to put the blame on technology.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
The only part of your argument that's relevant is the part about selling
personal information for profit. The rest is immaterial to the problem with
unregulated industry, and in fact incorrect when it comes to the end-result of
things like "political polarization". Governments and private companies are
_more than happy_ to see the mass organization and demonstrations of the 20th
century turn into yelling at auntie on Facebook. Social media is the /dev/null
of critical thought; a pressure valve for grievances that can be quickly
assuaged by faves. The polarization of views online just makes us more silent
IRL, much to the delight of our employers.

~~~
warbird
The article itself barely touches upon the titular "stake." NPR inserts
"election interference" and Smith is quoted in reference to personal data
acquisition as a potentially dangerous wealth transfer/concentration.

Since election interference is widely reported and understood to have been an
intel operation aimed at polarizing U.S. public opinion with legitimate and
illegitimate information, I dont see how treebeard is irrelevant.

Sidenote: It's still unclear, to me anyway, just how effective the influence
was. In these crazy times, I should clarify that I'm not denying it occured.

~~~
dmix
Even beyond how effective the election manipulation was or wasn't, no one is
asking whether the vague 'regulations' (by the US gov?) will do anything
useful at all.

I suspect not but this all sounds reactionary "something must be done" where
the utility of the something is always downplayed.

~~~
warbird
Agreed, of course. And, thanks for bringing my sidenote back onto topic (:

The subject of the article is not too well-defined, which reflects our
inability to come to terms with the associated Big Issues. So, yeah, it's
difficult for me to imagine forward thinking regulation coming out of the
current conversation--such as it is, in main editorial media and government.

In my personal life, having a productive conversation about the current and
future impacts of data (non)privacy is next to impossible due to the inherent
complexity of integrating the subject with pre-existing ideological
frameworks. I do not think I'm brighter than them, just happen to have a long-
standing interest. Based on observation, politicians seem no better equipped.

------
archie2
Make no mistake, this is just MS calling for regulatory capture so they have
few people to compete with their products. They are in it for their profits,
not the good of mankind.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
Any time I see a statement put out by any of the tech incumbents, I ask
myself, "How does this statement benefit the company?" And usually, there is a
clear path to an answer. It's for profits, it's never for the public good.
These are companies after all. If they're asking to regulated, it means buying
a seat at the table, creating the illusion of regulation, with none of the
downsides imposed by actual regulation.

~~~
archie2
From the 80s until the 90s Microsoft never lobbied the government, and they
dominated. They got hauled in front of congress and were chastised for not
lobbying, then a year later were hit with their infamous antitrust suit. The
government bullied Microsoft into paying them off - just like the damned
Mafia, except it's legal. Now we see Microsoft begging the government to
basically do this AGAIN. It's sick, corrupt and a perversion of capitalism and
democracy.

------
rmrfrmrf
Nothing more than a cynical play by Microsoft to get a seat at the table for
the inevitable avalanche of regulation coming.

~~~
jhanschoo
Tech incumbents have an incentive to argue for regulation since they typically
his small companies harder.

------
Pinckney
It sounds like he wants to require tech companies to ban speech that the US is
constitutionally forbidden from banning itself.

~~~
shams93
Yeah its not really about protecting democracy it always boils down to
protecting monopolies from competition.

~~~
entropea
Money does not care about democracy :)

------
MichaelMoser123
Once upon a time public opinion was manipulated by TV and the big newspapers;
now it is manipulated by new media companies. My stupid question is: where is
the big difference?

~~~
barry-cotter
The people who used to be able to manipulate public opinion are really, really
pissed off that others are doing it and they’re even more pissed off that
manipulating public opinion has become more difficult and people who aren’t
respectable members of the elite are being listened to by the public.

Before the internet Sanders, Trump, AOC, Yang, they would never have gotten
anywhere. The ruling class is pissed off that people aren’t doing what they’re
told and they want to stuff the communications revolution genie back in its
bottle.

~~~
PorterDuff
To tell you the truth, I think that Trump would have done well in any
political era, particularly those where unflagging public speaking was
necessary to get the gig.

Good political instincts, ability to speak extemporaneously (a rare ability in
the modern era). I expect that he could have picked up a House seat fairly
easily on the way to a Presidential campaign as sort of a Williams Jennings
Bryanesque character.

I do agree though that the internet has changed the character of politics
(painfully obvious). Anything that breaks the back of newspapers and
broadcasters as gatekeepers isn't such a bad thing, the trick is to avoid
having youtube/facebook/etc. become activist successors to the NYT and CBS.

------
goofaced
There is actually a pure free market solution to this problem.

Microsoft should sell their stake in Facebook and publicly announce they are
distancing themselves from FB. The dominos will just start falling
automatically, one by one. For _sure_ , it will start some serious soul
searching among the companies whose primary business is data exploitation.

But of course, this will not happen, because Microsoft desperately needs
Facebook to be strong so that its AI team can actually challenge Google's
dominance in AI (Tensorflow).

[https://internetofbusiness.com/microsoft-and-facebook-
team-u...](https://internetofbusiness.com/microsoft-and-facebook-team-up-on-
open-source-ai/)

So we keep hearing these weird platitudes by folks who probably are never
going to be affected in any big way by this so called "cannibalization of the
fabric of this country".

------
aussieguy1234
If they pass a law requiring platforms to be responsible for content their
users post, it'll be easy for big incumbents like Facebook to fall in line.

It will be much harder, however, for new platforms with less resources to
comply. They may have to shut down instead.

~~~
blackflame7000
Yea but that would kill Facebook by a 1000 lashes overtime.

~~~
colejohnson66
So killing any startup’s chance of hosting user created content is ok as long
as it kills Facebook?

~~~
blackflame7000
You are most certainly putting words in my mouth. The words on the internet
should be protected under the 1st amendment no matter how disgusting and no
one should have to shoulder that burden except the members of society
themselves in how they go about their conduct. In my opinion, it is not
people's responsibility to be unoffensive, but rather it is our own
responsibility to not let offensive thoughts permeate our being.

~~~
colejohnson66
My apologies. I went back and reread your comment and I clearly misread it

------
fron
Says the president of the largest spyware ("telemetry") distributor in the
world

~~~
Hoasi
"Please regulate the competition!"

~~~
mc32
True, but that’s because given their revenue model, this would impact them
less than the corps which have embedded their tentacles deep into personal
data of their users. Adtech is, by now, addicted to people freely giving up
thief data and rights to their data.

Never the less, whatever happens when the elephants wrangle, it’s good for end
users.

------
tempsolution
Big tech is a threat to democracy? What a backwards, self-serving hunk of
junk. Big tech might be the only way to sustain democracy. Technology gives
governments the power to instill a lasting total dictatorship, something
completely unprecedented in the history of mankind. Of course they are afraid
that big tech takes away from their pie by becoming too powerful and
preventing them from setting us up for an eternal dictatorship.

Wake up people. China is the canary in the coal mine. If big tech doesn't step
up and provide some sort of a shadow government, pressuring our real
government, we are actually really screwed. Going forward, the government
NEEDs to be undermined by the private sector, this is the only way to provide
a power balance.

~~~
ausbah
Corporations aren't accountable to everyday people, democratic governments
are. Both big tech and big government should be kept in check, but governments
accountable to their populace I think are the only realistic way to keep
technology companies in chexk.

------
alexis_fr
What I’m worried about is, Europe doesn’t even have this debate. It’s all
currently in the hands of where those technologies were invented, America. It
leaves you, US people, to arbitrate between freedom of speech and hate
censorship, monopolies and fair competition. Whereever we go in terms of
defining democracy and what it means at the time of technology, we’re
dependent on you. Europe certainly, probably Asia too.

Example of the current status of France: \- We don’t have protected freedom of
speech, there are penalties for insults, defamation and hate speech (against
the protected groups only) (statistics about ethnicities are forbidden, which
means no statistics about crime and ethnicity) (applied only for influential
people, it seems), people have an expectation of what is said has been
verified so they are not used to checking the info so they are... gullible
(sorry, no better word). So I would say there is no tradition of free speech
here, with the usual required education that goes with it (about the fact that
people can freely tell lies).

\- The new law is about to enter in action: Platforms must remove « hate
speech » content, and keep it (I don’t know how much time) so the police can
build a case if they want to attack.

Recently, stories about the books published by our minister of equality using
a false name (books about advice for sexual life) have been removed, using the
« hate speech » procedures. So pretty much everything is hate speech. We have
no protection for political dissidence here. Everyone’s a progressive,
everything else is « hate speech » and problems grow because they are not
addressed.

------
_bxg1
I don't disagree, but this is an easy thing to say when you're a competitor of
companies that would be hit much harder by that regulation.

------
brandonmenc
> For one, he argues, it's time to reform the U.S. law that says Internet
> platforms are not liable for just about any of the content running through
> their pipes — hate speech, death threats and ads for counterfeit goods or
> illegal guns.

Only if it comes with full regulation of said platforms as publishers, which
they would then be - and imo already are today.

Enough with this having it both ways.

------
remir
Perhaps not really relevant to the discussion, but what is the role of
Microsoft's president within the company?

~~~
paggle
Runs the commercial side of the company (sales/marketing/operations). No
direct control over product development.

------
surjrjfovjr
Would I be wrong to translate as follows?

>Today, the tech giants — whose tools have been used to interfere in fair and
free elections — are posing a much bigger threat to the political stability of
many countries, including the U.S.

"Democracy does not work because people are easily manipulated by propaganda,
so we need enlightened overlords to create better propaganda that will
manipulate people to support my interests... uh, I mean, to support what's
good for them."

>Smith has proposals that are not popular in Silicon Valley. For one, he
argues, it's time to reform the U.S. law that says Internet platforms are not
liable for just about any of the content running through their pipes — hate
speech, death threats and ads for counterfeit goods or illegal guns.

"I love censorship. Let's have more of it!"

------
telltruth
For those you don’t know: Brad Smith was the chief legal officer who got
Microsoft out of Antitrust with a slap on the hand. For this marvelous
achievement, he has since been given promotions all the way to the position of
the President.

------
paggle
I see a lot of criticism that this is self-serving by Microsoft, that they’re
advocating for regulation that will hurt their competitors like Google and
Amazon much harder than themselves.

I say... *that’s great.” Privacy advocates can get one of the world’s most
powerful companies as an ally, just by a common self interest. I don’t mind
that this is self serving from Microsoft, I hope they are successful. Other
allies could be the media companies hurt by Facebook, advertisers bidding up
each other on Google, etc. there should be a selfish coalition of privacy
defenders just to protect their own businesses.

------
austincheney
The problem isn’t a lack of regulation. Increased regulation could be a
partial solution.

The problem is a weak economic model. In the online economy software
(products) have little or no value. The value is placed almost entirely upon
media and data transactions. Those two are symbiotic but they are neither the
same nor codependent. This economic model is what needs to be fixed.

Entrepreneurs out there if you want to do good for the world, make absurd
money, and be disruptive then that economic model is what you should disrupt.
Go, disrupt the shit out of it.

------
mnm1
Hard to take something like this seriously coming from Microsoft's president.
Either he wants regulation to keep competition out or to hinder competitors or
he'd regulate Microsoft himself if he really believed in regulation. He
doesn't. This is just a ploy. Should these companies be regulated? Of course.
But let's not believe they want it for the good of everyone else. They have
selfish interests only. Period. Believing this drivel is foolish.

------
aj7
Warning. Regulation almost always favors incumbents.

~~~
Barrin92
This argument is always repeated within the first ten minutes of these
discussions, but I don't really understand why anyone assumes that competition
is somehow the panacea to every problem on the planet.

I don't want ten unregulated facebooks who all leak my data, I want one
facebook that plays by reasonable rules. The dynamics of social networks which
don't deliver value if they're fragmented has made the competition focus
obsolete. When Zuckerberg makes this point he is obviously speaking in his
self-interest but he is absolutely right and the dominance of his platform
proves it.

The world isn't better off if half of the information is on bing and half of
the information is on google, the world is better off if those large companies
which do deliver benefits to end consumers by virtue of their centralisation
are bound by law to implement reasonable standards.

~~~
pytester
This oversimplified "regulation is bad" idea is pushed by a lot of think tanks
(e.g. CATO, americans for prosperity, freedomworks, heritage foundation) set
up by the Koch brothers. They have close links with the media, which is why
these weirdly specific views get parroted a lot.

If you've ever read a story about the evils of hairdresser licensing (for
instance), it's from them. They have been on a crusade against regulation
since a lot of their fights with the environmental protection agency.

~~~
rayiner
You make it seem like some weird fringe view funded by a handful of people. To
the contrary, it’s been the dominant mode of public policy since the 1980s
across the whole western world. Reagan, Clinton, Thatcher, Howard, Harper,
etc. Even Trudeau and Macron, who are ostensibly left-leaning, are doubling
down on privatization and deregulation:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-
north/2016/nov/...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-
north/2016/nov/22/justin-trudeaus-giant-corporate-giveaway;)
[https://fee.org/articles/emmanuel-macron-is-surprisingly-
pro...](https://fee.org/articles/emmanuel-macron-is-surprisingly-pro-market-
for-a-socialist-sometimes/)

The top 10 countries in the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation economic freedom
index doesn’t even include the US:
[https://www.heritage.org/index](https://www.heritage.org/index). (It does
however include the entire rest of the Anglosphere.)

~~~
entropea
>who are ostensibly left-leaning

They absolutely are not. They're capitalists, neoliberals, in all senses.
There are no left wing economic policies being created anywhere in the western
world right now.

~~~
tptacek
They would have to be, because they favor deregulation. You can't define your
way out of an argument. If "everyone in the western world" operates this way,
you're making his point for him.

------
rayiner
What is the economic rationale for regulating “big tech?” What market failure
would be addressed by such regulations?

------
enra
Convenient thing to say when your company has already gone through antitrust
where as your competing tech companies have not.

------
jkp56
Brad Smith clearly wants to corner software engineers and leave them no
choice, but to unionize. I understand that this is not Brad's idea and he just
delivered the message from the MS board meeting.

However the big tech does need regulation and this regulation is called GDPR.
We need laws that make it a criminal offense to use user data without an
explicit written consent in a standard form set by law per each use of this
data.

------
elevenbits
> that governments need to put some "guardrails" around engineers and the tech
> titans they serve

No. We don't need "guardrails" at all. We have an existing legal system that
works quite well to discourage companies from profiting from ventures we don't
like: we simply make those ventures illegal. Companies have been able to make
a profitable business out of harvesting personal data, abusing consent, etc.,
_because these things aren 't illegal_. GDPR et al is the start of laws in
this area, but a financial penalty is simply a business cost. If I can make
$500B with a 25% chance of a $5B fine, the rational action is of course to
proceed.

If there was a law about certain types of consent being legally required for
certain types of data, THEN an engineer, manager, or exec can decide to either
a) report the violation to authorities or b) become complicit themselves. When
breaking these laws comes with real penalties (jail time, not fines), then the
business can choose between a) do something illegal and government puts
everyone in jail and takes all assets or b) don't do something illegal, which
is exactly what we want.

Bottom line: No special regulation is required here. Simply make a law
extending the personal data productions afforded by existing regulations and
let the system do its job.

------
bureaucrat
Regulate yourselves, FFS. I don’t want my paid operating system to send my
private information constantly to your company.

~~~
aaronchall
Quit using software you can't control.

\---

> And what? Use ‘Linux desktop’? No thank you.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. My wife uses it. I've used it for the past decade.
XFCE is fully featured, smooth, and very light-weight. Others have been great
too. Want software? Just install it with the package manager. Games? I used to
run them in a windows VM when I really wanted to.

~~~
wslh
That is naive. Organizations and people depend on specific software and there
is not replacement for any kind of app that is spying on you.

~~~
aaronchall
I've been doing it progressively over the past 10 years. I don't carry a smart
phone (I'm looking at Linux ones now though). My wife and I use Linux on our
laptops. I'm learning more every year about how to control it.

It's not naive, it's just difficult. But it's worth doing.

\----

What worth do I get? I get expertise. I get knowledge. I'm a programmer. I
don't have a OS sending my information to Microsoft. I don't have to worry
nearly as much about malicious software. I don't have to run an Antivirus (AV)
and AV scans constantly to feel confident in my computer's security. I get
access to powerful open-source software. I get to keep learning about even
more powerful software - repeatable environments and builds, that give me even
more confidence in my ability to create value for myself and others. I get a
lot of value for it.

~~~
bureaucrat
And what ‘worth’, may I ask, did you get?

------
sorin-panca
In the wake of left wing alternative media gaining momentum, and left wing
representatives and candidates enjoying huge public support, Microsoft now
wants regulation on platforms.

------
mikojan
Expropriate Microsoft.

~~~
Aloha
Why?

------
hos234
Zuckerberg & Co are going to play the 'we will loose to China card'. Which is
going to slow down any kind of regulations...

What's weird is, why there is no great rumbling against China's big tech
within China. By now Chinese big tech should have wrecked the same unintended
consequences and damage as American big tech. Whats going on there?

I am guessing once things blow up there then we see global consensus on
regulating Big Tech.

~~~
Jabbles
China isn't a democracy?

------
hd4
Why can't big tech self-regulate? Why must it always be a solution that
depends on big government instead? Why should anyone trust the government
given the last few thousand years of history?

~~~
Ididntdothis
Why do we need big government to prevent us from stealing or killing each
other? Maybe the whole society should self regulate?

~~~
chroma
This is a straw man. A government can try to stop theft and violent crime
without building regulatory moats around incumbent companies.

Though in many places governments aren't great at preventing theft and
violence. That's why even in developed countries, many companies hire private
security, citizens learn self-defense, and some people carry pepper spray,
knives, or even firearms.

