Amnesty International latest to slam surveillance giants Facebook and Google as incompatible with human rights

Human rights charity Amnesty International is the latest to call for reform of surveillance capitalism blasting the business models of surveillance giants Facebook and Google in a new report which warns the pairs market dominating platforms are enabling human rights harm at a population scale.

espite the real value of the services they provide, Google and Facebooks platforms come at a systemic cost, Amnesty warns.

Firstly, an assault on the right to privacy on an unprecedented scale, and then a series of knock-on effects that pose a serious risk to a range of other rights, from freedom of expression and opinion, to freedom of thought and the right to non-discrimination.

This core power asymmetry is maintained and topped off by self-serving policy positions which at best fiddle around the edges of an inherently anti-humanitarian system. While platforms have become practiced in dark arts PR offering, at best, a pantomime ear to the latest data-enabled outrage thats making headlines, without ever actually changing the underlying system.

But while the arguments against digital surveillance are now very familiar whats still sorely lacking is an effective regulatory response to force reform of what is at base a moral failure and one thats been allowed to scale so big its attacking the democratic underpinnings of Western society.

Google and Facebook have established policies and processes to address their impacts on privacy and freedom of expression but evidently, given that their surveillance-based business model undermines the very essence of the right to privacy and poses a serious risk to a range of other rights, the companies are not taking a holistic approach, nor are they questioning whether their current business models themselves can be compliant with their responsibility to respect human rights, Amnesty writes.

The abuse of privacy that is core to Facebook and Googles surveillance-based business model is starkly demonstrated by the companies long history of privacy scandals. Despite the companies assurances over their commitment to privacy, it is difficult not to see these numerous privacy infringements as part of the normal functioning of their business, rather than aberrations.

Amnesty concludes that it is now evident that the era of self-regulation in the tech sector is coming to an end saying further state-based regulation will be necessary.

Original article
Author: Natasha Lomas

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Natasha Lomas has recently written 10 articles on similar topics including :
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  2. "A German court thats considering Facebooks appeal against a pioneering pro-privacy order by the countrys competition authority to stop combining user data without consent has said it will refer questions to Europes top court". (March 24, 2021)
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  5. "Facebooks lead data supervisor in the European Union has opened an investigation into whether the tech giant violated data protection rules vis-a-vis the leak of data reported earlier this month". (April 14, 2021)
  6. "The Bundeskartellamt, Germanys very active competition authority, isnt letting the grass grow under new powers it gained this year to tackle Big Tech: The Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has just announced a third proceeding against Google". (June 4, 2021)
  7. "Some more internal emails Facebook really doesnt want you to see: Turns out in 2017 COO Sheryl Sandberg had already known for years there were problems with a free ad planning tool the company offers to marketeers to display estimates of how many people campaigns running on its platform may ". (February 18, 2021)
  8. "The UKs competition regulator will make a decision on whether or not Facebooks purchase of Giphy has a realistic prospect of substantially lessening competition by March 25, it said today, as it continues to scrutinize the acquisition". (January 28, 2021)
  9. "Europe has greenlit Googles $2.1BN acquisition of fitness wearable maker Fitbit, applying a number of conditions intended to shrink competition concerns over letting it gobble a major cache of health and wellness data following months of regulatory scrutiny of the deal". (December 17, 2020)
  10. "Human rights NGO, Amnesty International, has written to the EUs competition regulator calling for Googles acquisition of wearable maker Fitbit to be blocked unless meaningful safeguards can be baked in". (November 27, 2020)
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