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Canada to Big Tech: Pay for News you Use! Pros and Cons of Bill C-18, the Online News Act of June 2023
Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez succeeded in passing bill C-18, aka the Online News Act this June 2023. In retaliation, Meta and Google both adopted mob-like tactics, announcing they’ll remove Canadian news links to protest the passing of the bill. In my view, while the intention to support Canadian news is essential and long overdue, Bill C-18 still makes Canadian publishers dependent on Big Tech. A public fund would free them from their chokehold.
CO2 Impact of a Paper document vs an Online Document
Today, many employees wonder: what is the most climate-friendly option between printing out a paper document or accessing and sharing it online ?
We are often encouraged to replace paper with a digital format, in the name of environmental protection. However, digital media does not necessarily have a lower environmental impact than paper, despite the Tech industry’s excellent lobbying: it all depends on our use of these documents and how they were produced.
Complaints and Opposition to ChatGPT
Here’s an initial list of complaints, lawsuits and civil or government opposition to ChatGPT, or ” ChatTNT “, as I prefer to call it, for its destructive capabilities- alongside its useful ones, as always.
They’re in Europe, Australia, Canada and the US.
The Dangers of the ChatGPT LLM for News
I asked ChatGPT,the AI Language Model ( “LLM”) about the dangers it represented for news in March 2023, after this nuclear weapon was released without notice or protection by OpenAI at the end of 2022.
So, here are some personal conclusions in response to ChatGPT’s ever cautious and hopeful answers.
Has Zoom improved its Privacy Practices since 2020?
After becoming an overnight success during the pandemic, Zoom received criticism for its privacy practices. We as an organization concerned with privacy even tried every possible way to avoid using it, as described here, in 2021. It seems Zoom reacted and improved its privacy practices however. That’s good news because it does have many useful features other tools don’t.
Epic Games Fortnite Fine: It settles with FTC for Deceptive Design and Privacy Violations Towards Children
Epic Games will pay $275 million for “violating children’s privacy law”, in addition to another payment of $245 million in refunds for “tricking users into making unwanted charges” within Fortnite‘s in-game store.
Consumers who believe they were unfairly charged for in-game purchases can go to a website set up by the FTC to request refunds. It is likely to take several months or longer to process those claims, the FTC said.
FTX Debacle: Teachers, Beware of Tech Hype (again)
After it was found, in November 2022, that the bankrupt crypto currency exchange FTX had no financial reporting whatsoever, despite having big name investors like Black Rock, Sequoia, the ontario Teachers Pension Fund and SoftBank, its safe to assume another round of Tech hype has come and gone – since the 2000 era boom and bust. But teachers, while they’re not traded (yet?), I wonder how much of students’ futures is lost when they spend hours on YouTube on the school-supplied Chromebook or iPad and what’s the cost to them and us all as a society ?
Main Authors
Caroline Isautier
From digital marketing to digital citizenship
Kate Tillezcek
Canada Research Chair on Youth
Hessie Jones
Venture Partner, Matr Ventures, privacy and marketing expert