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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 3:50:16 pm

Algorithmic Alibi

Meta’s handling of child sexual-abuse material has exposed the hollowness of the tech behemoth’s claim to be merely a simple intermediary. A company whose algorithms decide what millions of users see and that builds its advertising business around that distribution can hardly retreat into the role of a passive conduit when some of what it helps circulate is abhorrent. The Indian government’s contention that Meta should instead be regarded as a service provider gives it some rightly deserved...

Algorithmic Alibi

Meta’s handling of child sexual-abuse material has exposed the hollowness of the tech behemoth’s claim to be merely a simple intermediary. A company whose algorithms decide what millions of users see and that builds its advertising business around that distribution can hardly retreat into the role of a passive conduit when some of what it helps circulate is abhorrent. The Indian government’s contention that Meta should instead be regarded as a service provider gives it some rightly deserved raps on the knuckle. Meta has now agreed to report child-safety matters directly to the cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). Until now, such cases were reported to the United States-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The new arrangement raises the obvious question of why a company with Meta’s technological resources required regulatory pressure before establishing a direct reporting mechanism with Indian authorities. Meta’s own business model has demolished its fiction of passivity. Facebook and Instagram do not simply sit there waiting for users to post material. Their algorithms rank, recommend, personalise and amplify that material. They determine what attracts attention and, by extension, what generates engagement and advertising revenue. Meta has invested enormous resources in making those systems increasingly effective. It cannot then plead helplessness when the same machinery distributes material that it would rather not acknowledge. Meta’s systems are notoriously difficult for outsiders to scrutinise, while the company possesses vast amounts of information about how they operate. Governments, researchers and users are therefore often expected to identify problems without possessing anything like Meta’s visibility into its own platforms. The company cannot reasonably demand trust while keeping so much of the machinery that determines online visibility behind corporate walls. That said, the government has acknowledged that the courts must ultimately determine whether the company retains safe-harbour protection. But legal immunity and corporate responsibility are not the same thing. The more sophisticated Meta’s technology becomes, the weaker its excuse for failing to anticipate predictable abuses becomes. A company capable of identifying a user’s interests with astonishing precision should not find child-abuse material an unknowable phenomenon. There is a revealing asymmetry in Meta’s posture. Algorithmic power is a selling point when it increases engagement. It becomes someone else’s problem when that power produces consequences that attract regulatory scrutiny. The company wants credit for knowing what people want, while retaining the legal convenience of claiming that it cannot know what appears before them. This is selective accountability. While the courts will decide the precise limits of safe harbour, Meta should not confuse legal uncertainty with moral ambiguity. A company that designs the machinery, controls its settings and profits from its operation cannot forever wash its hands of what that machinery helps to put in front of the public.

BMC auctioning three land parcels to raise funds, says Aaditya

Correspondent
Oct 18, 2024
2 min read

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Aaditya

Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday alleged Mumbai’s civic body had decided to auction three land parcels to raise funds and make up for the “loot” of the metropolis by the Eknath Shinde government.


The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which is being run by an administrator now, has decided to auction the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Mandi (Market), the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Malabar Hill Receiving Station and the Worli Asphalt Plant, Thackeray pointed out.


“The sale of Mumbai is being done by the Eknath Shinde regime to benefit its favourite builders and contractors,” he alleged.


A criminal investigation will be conducted into the matter after the Maha Vikas Aghadi government comes to power, Thackeray added.


“So on one end, they looted the BMC and Mumbai and gave the money to their favourite contractors. Now, by auctioning these iconic and important land parcels, the BMC will be left without both funds and plots,” the Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and former state minister claimed.


When Shiv Sena started controlling the BMC in 1997, its finances were in deficit but by 2022 his party turned around the fiscal health of the civic body, Thackeray said.


Alleging that the Shinde government wants to drive Kolis and fisherfolk out of Mumbai, he said, “We will oppose this. It has to remain and be made into a fish market, and (should be) in the ownership of the BMC.”


Aaditya puppet for urban naxals: Shelar

Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) Mumbai chief Ashish Shelar has called Uddhav Thackeray’s son and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray as a puppet for urban naxals after former’s comments on the Dharavi Redevelopment project and has also challenged him for a debate.

Ashish Shelar said that the project is a necessity and a priority project, adding that Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Congressleader Varsha Gaikwad are peddling lies.

Aaditya Thackeray seems to have become the spokesperson of urban Naxals. Without studying the subject (Dharavi) in detail, Aaditya Thackeray is speaking like an ignorant. I have seen that these people have been trying to set a narrative regarding Dharavi and the re-development work,” Ashish Shelar said.

He challenged Aaditya Thackeray and Varsha Gaikwad in a debate on the Dharavi Redevelopment Project.

“Uddhav ji and the people of his party – Aaditya Thackeray and Varsha Gaikwad have started this false narrative regarding Dharavi. I openly challenge Aaditya for a debate. I want to ask him that 70 per cent of the homes in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project will go to Marathi people, Muslims and Dalits. It is their rightful home, so why are they putting roadblocks by creating a false narrative?”

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