A Net Neutrality TAX?
Happy New Year!
Craig
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/12/31/facebook-google-could-face-new-tax-in-britain-for-failing-to-tackle-extremism.html
Facebook, Google could face new tax in Britain for failing to tackle extremism
Christopher Carbone17 hours ago
Ex-executive says it's bad for society.
Tech giants like Google and Facebook, already under fire for not doing enough
to combat extremism and fake news, could face new taxes in the United Kingdom
if a government official has his way.
Britain may impose new taxes on tech companies unless they do more to fight
online extremism by removing material that radicalizes people or helps them to
prepare attacks, Conservative Party security minister Ben Wallace said.
Wallace claimed tech firms were happy to sell people’s data but not to give it
to the government, which is spending vast sums on de-radicalization programs,
surveillance and other counter-terrorism measures.
“If they continue to be less than cooperative, we should look at things like
tax as a way of incentivizing them or compensating for their inaction,”
Wallace told the Sunday Times newspaper in an interview.
The newspaper reported that any demand would take the form of a windfall tax
similar to one imposed on privatized utilities in 1997.
Wallace accused the tech giants of putting private profit before public safety.
“We should stop pretending that because they sit on beanbags in T-shirts they
are not ruthless profiteers,” he said. “They will ruthlessly sell our details
to loans and soft-porn companies but not give it to our democratically elected
government.”
Facebook policy director Simon Milner rejected the criticisms in a statement to
Reuters.
“Mr. Wallace is wrong to say that we put profit before safety, especially in
the fight against terrorism,” he said in an emailed statement. “We’ve invested
millions of pounds in people and technology to identify and remove terrorist
content.”
YouTube, which is owned by Google, said it was doing more every day to tackle
violent extremism.
“Over the course of 2017 we have made significant progress through investing in
machine learning technology, recruiting more reviewers, building partnerships
with experts and collaboration with other companies,” a YouTube spokeswoman
said.
Britain suffered a series of attacks by Islamic extremists this year that
killed a total of 36 people, not including the attackers. Two involved vehicles
ramming people on bridges in London, followed by attackers stabbing people. The
deadliest, a bombing at a concert in Manchester, killed 22 people and injured
119 others.
“We are more vulnerable than at any point in the last 100 years,” said Wallace,
citing extremist material on social media and encrypted messaging services.
“Because content is not being taken down as quickly as they could do, we’re
having to de-radicalize people who have been radicalized. That’s costing
millions," Wallace said. "They can’t get away with that and we should look at
all the options, including tax.”
However, Facebook said it removed 83 percent of uploaded copies of terrorist
content within one hour of its being found.
Facebook, which is being scrutinized by regulators in Germany and France for
how it handles privacy and monetizes users' data, has said it would double the
number of people working in its safety and security teams to 20,000 by the end
of 2018.
Christopher Carbone is a reporter for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter
@christocarbone.
