Tech News: The Algorithms are Against Us

from different tech sectors locking horns with each other. Recently, a South Korean court passed the buck on a decision about whether or not streaming services like Netflix should pay bandwidth usage fees to Internet service providers. Alright, so he here's the skinny on what's really going down. So on the one side, you've got the I s p s, the Internet service providers, and they're saying that services like you know, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, these streaming services place a

particularly heavy demand on bandwidth. You know that that traffic takes up a lot of bandwidth on the I s P networks, and thus these companies should pay a fee to the I s p s to offset the cost

of providing that bandwidth to them. But Netflix and other streaming services have argued that I s P customers, you know, the people on the actual end, the people who are choosing to go to Netflix or YouTube or whatever, they already pay a subscription fee for their services, and that any I s P that would charge content providers for delivering it and the end user on the other side for ordering it, that amounts to double dipping. That the

company is charging twice for the same service. It's just that they're charging two different entities but for the same thing. And I want to be clear here, both the I s p s and Netflix and other major streaming services, they're all huge companies, right. These entities are really mostly concerned about making money and then keeping as much of that money as they possibly can. So there are no

noble good guys in this story. In other words, now here in the United States, advocates have long protested the idea of an I s P charging content companies for bandwidth usage. They argue that this is unfair and that net neutrality, which among other things, promotes the idea that all content is equal on the Internet, demands that I sp s not prioritize services or levy bandwidth fees like that because it would discourage those companies from offering those services.

In addition, at least here in the US, we also have the issue that I s p s typically are also content providers, and if the I s p s are charging third party companies like Netflix or YouTube or whatever, but they're not having to deal with that themselves. As they go forward and offer services, that creates an unfair advantage,

it becomes anti competitive, it gets really messy. Well, the South Korean court essentially said, y'all made this mess, go figure it out yourselves, and that gives the I s p s and South Korea the ability to negotiate with Netflix and other streaming services to demand these sort of bandwidth fees. That likely means that these companies are going to have to pay some sort of bandwidth fee if they want their traffic carried by the I s p

s and South Korea, which they do. South Korea is a big market, but again, the streaming companies are huge. Some of them are part of the largest media companies in the world. You look at companies like NBC Universal owned by Comcast, like it's huge, and it would shock me if this all just ends with negotiations, and that's that. I'm certain we're going to see more legal challenges follow as big powerful companies throw their weight around in an

effort to eliminate bandwidth fees. Honestly, watching this stuff sort of feels like I'm tuning into Godzilla versus Kong, and in more ways than one, because the end consumer tends to be the biggest victim of these kinds of struggles, because no matter what happens, someone typically is going to raise the cost of their subscription service in order to

cover whatever the additional cost is of providing it. Right, So, if Netflix has to pay a bandwidth fee in order to be carried across South Korean i SP networks, you can bet the Netflix will also increase its subscription fee for South Korean customers because they love to pass the costs on to you. Just kind of how capitalism stuff works. Moving on over at YouTube, there was a recent kerfuffle

regarding a channel ban that raised some eyebrows. The platform placed a quote unquote permanent ban on a channel called right wing watch Now. This channel posts videos that examine and document and critique extremist political conservatives. YouTube claimed that the band was just a mistake. That quote, upon further review, has now been reinstated end quote. But this has prompted some questions from multiple angles. YouTube automates much of its

review process. I mean it has to because there's like five hours of YouTube content uploaded every single minute. There's just no way that human beings could review every single piece of content uploaded to the platform and determine whether

or not it meets the platform's policies. So that means that algorithms are in charge of making the early call as to whether a channel or a specific video is in violation of YouTube's policies, and those policies appear to be the ones regarding the spread of stuff like misinformation and hate speech, though right wing watches purpose is to document these sorts of things, not to generate hate speech or promote hate speech, but rather to say, this is someone who said this thing, and we are making a

document to prove that this is what has happened. So it's more about holding people accountable for their words and actions, it's not about promoting those as being you know, valid points of view. And so it appears that YouTube's algorithms have a hard time distinguishing between channels that violate the platform's rules and channels that just try to hold those other channels accountable. And I think this illustrates how people are really complicated and we just don't have algorithms sophistic

enough to keep up with that. Speaking of algorithms using a sort of brute force approach to human interactions, let's talk about Amazon. According to a report in Bloomberg, the company has been relying on algorithms to determine whether or not flex drivers are worth keeping around, which is kind of a big yikes. Al right. So, in order to meet the demand of its customers, Amazon uses subcontracted drivers

to supplement Amazon's normal delivery channels. So in other words, Amazon has way more stuff to ship out than its normal channels would support, so they end up hiring on additional subcontracted drivers. These drivers can actually sign up to participate in the service, and then they have the ability to set shifts, saying, you know, I can drive on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for example. I can do all that

through interacting with an app. But these drivers are also held accountable by this automated system, and it tracks their performance in various ways, including customer feedback, and apparently a single outlying issue might cause enough of a blip in a person's standing to prompt the algorithm to terminate that person's employment. So let's say you're a driver and you're

doing everything correctly. You know, you're handling the packages with care, you're going places, but you encounter something that prevents you from being able to make a delivery on time. In some instances, it was that, uh, the person that was supposed to receive the package was living in an apartment

complex that was in behind a gate. The gate was locked, and the driver was unable to contact anyone to open the gate so that they could make the delivery, and then they ended up getting a black mark against their own record. The driver did, and despite the efforts of trying to improve their rating by you know, doing their job, they ultimately got fired by computer code. As it were,

an algorithm itself terminated that person's employment. Something outside of a driver's control can lead to enough of an issue to trigger the algorithm, even if that driver did subsequently work hard to improve their rating. And when this happens, drivers really only have two options. They can accept the algorithm's decision. Essentially, they can take their walking papers and that's that, or they can pony up a two hundred dollar fee if they want to try and dispute the termination.

So yeah, these Flex drivers have to pay two hundred bucks to have a termination reviewed, and that does not guarantee that the decision will get overturned. Amazon claims that the complaints about this system represent a very small percentage of drivers and that it's not representative of how most Flex drivers interact with the system. But yeah, seems kind

of suss in my opinion. Last week, Canada's government proposed a law that would make online hate speech a crime that could be punished with fines of up to twenty thousand dollars Canadian, which is, you know, a bit more than sixteen thousand dollars in America, and that's for the first offense. For a second offense, that find goes up to fifty thousand dollars Canadian or around forty tho US.

The law would also extend safe harbor protections to platforms. So, in other words, let's say I were to post a video containing hate speech directed at some group on YouTube. I never would do this, but for a hypothetical situation. Let's say that I did, I would be the one held accountable. I could face punishment. However, YouTube would not

be on trial. In the United States. This is similar to our Section to thirty law, which says platforms cannot be held legally responsible for the content posted by their users. The Canadian government has said that this law is not going to target just any one who has something negative

to say, but rather genuine expressions of hate speech. So generally speaking, speech meant to intimidate, discriminate, and otherwise harm some group of people, or, as the proposal states, speech quote motivated by bias, prejudice, or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, color, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or

any other similar factor end quote. The government pointed out that victims of such speech quote lose their freedom to participate in civil society online end quote. Now, the timing of the proposal has been seen to be a bit odd in the sense that in Canada, the House of Commons, a major part of the Canadian government, has adjourned for

the summer. The government says that the bill is going to be reintroduced later this fall, though that's probably only going to happened if the Liberal Party remains in power in Canada. Some conservatives have said that this timing is a bit suspect, and that perhaps the Liberals never really intended to pursue it as an actual law, but rather introduced it mainly for the purposes of scoring political points

ahead of an election. Uh. Some of those conservatives have also argued that the proposals are a threat to the freedom of speech, though it seems pretty clear to me that the Liberals who proposed this legislation already considered that and said hate speech itself is a threat to freedom of speech because it intimidates the targets of that hate speech, and it prevents those targets from expressing themselves. So it is in itself a threat to the freedom of speech.

And as I said earlier, people are complicated. Hey do you remember the Solar winds hack. That's the one that affected thousands of computers and stole data from some pretty darn big companies. Well, the hacker group behind it, known as Nobilium, has attacked Microsoft again. This time, the hackers targeted a computer that belonged to a Microsoft customer, service agent. The hackers got hold of sensitive data relating to Microsoft

customers and then launched targeted attacks against those customers. Now, apparently the hackers were able to access information through the second half of May. According to Microsoft, and included in the hacked information, we're building contact info for customers as well as which products and services those customers were paying for,

which is pretty useful information. If you wanted to create a targeted attack on those customers, you could create a really convincing phishing attack because you could be specific about which products the customers were using, so you could say, like, you know, we have an update to your Microsoft server software and have an attachment that contains malware on it. Microsoft have to send out emails to customers urging them to be cautious with any incoming communications that are purporting

to be from Microsoft. It's always good to double check that any email message you get is legit. Looking at the return email address is a good way to start. It's not the only thing you should do, but it's a good start. You should also just not click on links, or open attachments or anything like that from an email that doesn't appear to be legit. The company says that so far it has no evidence that any customers have actually been compromised through a follow up attack. We will

hope that that continues. And from Microsoft, let's head over to Apple, a company that has had a few issues with information leaks getting out into the public before the company was able to wow an audience with a one More Thing reveal. So Apple's reputation for innovation includes how the company unveils new products, but that can all be

ruined with a leak to the public. And so now, according to front page Tech, Apple is requiring some employees who belong to certain product teams to where body cameras similar to, or perhaps even identical to those worn by law enforcement. Apple has been cracking down on known sources of leaks, as well as driving home the idea that Apple employees are not to share information with people known to have published Apple leaks. The body camera thing seems

more than a bit extreme to me. It sounds incredibly invasive, and uh, I guess I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed. And that's the news for Tuesday, June one. I will be back tomorrow with some more acronyms and initialisms. Should be closing that out, I hope with one last episode and more news later this week, and then who knows what I'll talk about. Well, maybe you know. If you have a suggestion for a topic I should cover on

a future tech Stuff, let me know on Twitter. The handle for the show is stuff h s W. Some of you have been reaching out. It's been great. Keep up the good work because that's really helpful for me. And I'll talk to you again really soon. Y Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.