Good morning!
It's been an incredibly busy news week. Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon faced the historic antitrust hearing we've all been waiting for, ProPublica made police misconduct searchable, Turkish dictator Erdogan declared that social media is 'immoral', and UberEats glitched out and stopped users from tipping drivers...again.
Just in case this isn't dystopian enough for you, Genderify released (and then quickly deleted) an awful app that claimed it could "identify peoples' gender" based on sexist stereotypes, and a bunch of scientists are taking a do-it-yourself COVID-19 vaccine they have created...without testing it.
Meanwhile, we explore the gaps left by the disappearance of popular social media platforms MySpace and Vine: Is there a responsibility for platforms designed to host digital content to ensure its safety and longevity? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Have a great weekend!
It's been a Big Week for Big Tech
It finally happened: Big Tech testified against Congress.
On Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans spent five hours taking it in turns to question the CEOs of the world's biggest tech companies over their market power. Yesterday, it was revealed that they have defied one of the biggest economic downturns in history after reporting a combined $28.6 billion in profits.
Amazon got the heaviest grilling. Bezos was questioned about how Amazon uses competitive data from third-party sellers, following an investigation by The Wall Street Journal that revealed it was used to launch its own private-label products. Amazon's profit has increased by 40% over the past year after a pandemic-induced surge in sales.
Google took criticism after a study by The Markup revealed that 41% of the first page of Google mobile results is taken up by Google products. Google parent company Alphabet was the only company to report a drop in sales, which were down 2% from last year.
Facebook's Zuckerberg was confronted with his own emails, in which he expressed his desire to acquire photo-sharing app, Instagram, over worries that it could “meaningfully hurt us”. Yesterday, Facebook announced that revenues were up by 11% compared to last year.
Apple got off the lightest. Most questions were focused on how Apple handles its App Store. Apple's profit increased by 12% over the past year.
A moment that stood out on Wednesday was when the CEOs were asked whether they believe China steals technology from U.S. firms. Interestingly, their answers differed. While both Cook and Pichai said they haven't experienced it, Zuckerberg replied, that it's "well documented," and Bezos said he'd "heard many reports of that."
Pando's biggest story this week...
What happens when platforms die?
In 2019, the once-great social media giant MySpace announced that due to a server migration and malfunction, they had lost 50 million user-uploaded items, representing 12 years of content uploaded to the platform.
Joan Westenberg explores the 'MySpace culture gap' that has been left after so much of our online history has vanished. She asks: "Is there a responsibility for people who create and curate homes for digital content to ensure their safety and longevity?"
Immigrant wants to ban immigration, dictator decides social media is 'immoral'
Peter Thiel pumps $850,000 into an immigration hawk in Kansas
Peter Thiel is a California venture capitalist. In the 2016 election, he gained a reputation as one of Silicon Valley's most prominent Trump supporters. But earlier this month, Thiel decided to ditch Trump. Now, he's bankrolling Kris Kobach.
If Kobach is elected, it could give Thiel a loyal ally in the Senate because of how powerful he is proving to be in the race. The polls look tight, but political scientist Patrick Miller told Recode that Thiel's money is “absolutely critical to Kobach being a viable candidate.”
Turkish dictator Erdogan deems social media 'immoral'
Turkey has become the most recent country to pass a law to control social media platforms. It will require social media firms with more than a million Turkish users to set up local offices and comply with requests to remove content.
The hashtag #SansurYasasinaDurDe (Say Stop to the Censorship Law) has been trending on Twitter since Tuesday.
Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin denied that the bill would lead to censorship, saying it was intended to establish commercial and legal ties with the social media platforms.
You can now search police misconduct
ProPublica publicizes thousands of police discipline records kept secret for decades
Remember the whole BlueLeaks fiasco last month when transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets (also known as DDoSecrets) leaked thousands of documents from 200 US police departments?
Well, ProPublica has taken it a step further and released a database of complaints about officers with at least one substantiated allegation against them. The database is searchable by officer name or badge number, and contains a total of 12,056 complaints made about 3,996 active officers. The documents reveal that thirty-four officers have had 40 or more allegations against them.
And the winners for the biggest app screw ups this week are...
Uber is "sorry to hear" its app glitch left drivers without tips in a pandemic
Earlier this week, Reddit users began noticing that the 'tipping' option had been removed from users' apps on UberEats. For drivers who rely on Uber as their sole source of income, this is a huge deal.
“It was devastating, and I really mean that. Tips typically make up 60-70% of my income. Sometimes more. Without tips we don’t even make minimum wage. On Monday I did eight deliveries before I realized what was happening. If I had to estimate how much money I lost out on, I’d say minimum $60. For four hours of work, that’s a lot of money for me to miss out on,” one driver told Pando.
It isn't the first time that this has happened. It turns out these glitches are quite regular -- and each time, they are brushed under the rug by Uber with no compensation for drivers.
According to Genderify, Meghan Smith is a woman -- but Dr. Meghan Smith is a man
'Genderify', a service using AI to identify peoples' gender based on their name, email address, or username launched on Product Hunt last week. As if a gender-identification service wasn't bizarre and unnecessary enough in itself, it was also insanely biased.
Typing the name "Megan Smith" into the platform returned: “Male: 39.60%, Female: 60.40%," while "Dr. Megan Smith" returned “Male: 75.90%, Female: 24.10%.”.
The service was heavily criticized on social media. To everyone's relief, it has since been shut down.
This week's...weirdest trend
A group of scientists are making...a DIY COVID-19 vaccine
With no funding from the US government’s COVID-19 vaccine program, no animal data, and no ethics approval, American biologist Peston Estep set up the Rapid Deployment Vaccination Collaborative (RADVAC). Since March, the group has worked to create a DIY vaccine designed to protect against the virus.
Over 20 researchers, including Estep and celebrity geneticist George Church, have volunteered to become lab rats, claiming that it is their only way to become immune to the virus in the foreseeable future. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan has described Radvac as “off-the-charts loony".