Warren escalates Facebook fight with ad targeting Zuckerberg

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Warren escalates Facebook fight with ad targeting Zuckerberg

2019-10-15 02:57 Last Updated At：03:00

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has escalated her tiff with Facebook by running an ad — on Facebook — taking aim at its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

It's the latest example of growing resentment of Big Tech by Republicans and Democrats alike.

The list of grievances is long: Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are too big and powerful. They're bad for privacy , public discourse, democracy and small business. They're spying on us, contributing to economic inequality and hooking us and our children on addictive, useless services. The companies, of course, object to these characterizations.

Warren, who in March proposed breaking up big tech companies, began running a text ad on Facebook last Thursday to take aim at Zuckerberg.

"Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election," the ad reads. It then goes on to say that while this isn't true, Zuckerberg has "given Donald Trump free rein to lie" on Facebook.

Warren's ad is taking issue with Facebook's policy of not fact-checking politicians' speech or ads, the way it has outside parties fact-check news stories and other posts. Facebook has refused to remove a misleading video ad from President Donald Trump's campaign targeting Democrat Joe Biden.

Political speech and tech companies' role in spreading or stifling it has been an ongoing issue for both sides. Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, urged Twitter to suspend Trump's account for violating the service's rules, while Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is battling what he considers tech companies' bias against conservatives. Hawley has also told Zuckerberg that he should sell off WhatsApp and Instagram.

The companies, in general, are trying to maintain a neutral stance, even if that draws the ire of politicians as divergent as the president and those trying to impeach him. In response to Warren, Facebook tweeted that voters rather than companies ought to be the ones weighing candidates' speech.

Social media services are "caught between a rock and a hard place," said Andrew Guess, a Princeton University political scientist who studies social media and its effects on political opinion.

Blocking or suspending accounts for speech can prompt complaints of political bias or censorship, but a hands-off approach may be viewed as a free pass to politicians like Trump.

"Anything they do is going to attract criticism," Guess said. "That, of course, makes them a target."

Beyond discourse and privacy, antitrust concerns have emerged as a major concern for lawmakers and candidates. This wasn't the case in 2016, when grumbling about the outsized power of tech was largely confined to activists and those on the most liberal end of the spectrum.

Still, while there have been congressional hearings, investigations and fines, including a record $5 billion against Facebook, little has changed for Big Tech.

Democrats and Republicans may agree that Big Tech has problems, but they often differ on what those problems are — and how to fix them.

A Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to pass legislation that seems too anti-business. That includes breaking up tech companies seen as too monopolistic. The same likely goes for any privacy law that restricts companies' ability to target ads to their liking. An ongoing impeachment probe makes any congressional action even less likely.

Still, talking up Big Tech's problems has proven to be popular political rhetoric.

Warren's call to break up tech companies has even garnered support from rivals such as Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who retweeted Warren for what he said was the first time. Cruz said "she's right — Big Tech has way too much power to silence Free Speech."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, another leading Democratic candidate, has also said breaking up Amazon, Google and Apple is "something we should definitely take a look at."

Trump has been uneven in his criticisms. Amazon has been a frequent target, though that is due in part to CEO Jeff Bezos's ownership of The Washington Post. He's met with Zuckerberg privately, but he's also tweeted that "Facebook was always anti-Trump" and accused it of colluding with the news media against him.

Amid all this, at least in public, the companies have mostly kept a low profile. But there are occasional glimpses of behind-the-scenes activity. Leaked audio from an internal Facebook meeting in July captured Zuckerberg acknowledging that if "someone like" Warren is elected, he expects Facebook to fight back — and prevail — against efforts to break it up in court. But he added: "And does that still suck for us? Yeah."

Amazon, by contrast, briefly tried to debate the candidates on Twitter.

In April, after Warren complained that Amazon and other big tech companies have "too much power," the company responded by pointing the finger at its main rival: "Walmart is much larger; Amazon is less than 4% of U.S. retail."

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a TV interview in June that Amazon pays workers "starvation wages," the company tweeted that she "is just wrong."

Expect the political pushback to continue, from both parties, said Joshua Tucker, co-director of New York University's Social Media and Political Participation Lab.

"It's a bipartisan issue," he said. "But the right and the left are criticizing it for different reasons."

Associated Press writers David Klepper in Providence, Rhode Island, and Joseph Pisani in New York contributed to this story.

Venice tests a 5-euro entry fee for day-trippers as the Italian city grapples with overtourism

2024-04-26 00:14 Last Updated At：00:20

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Under the gaze of the world’s media, the fragile lagoon city of Venice launched a pilot program Thursday to charge day-trippers a 5-euro ($5.35) entry fee that authorities hope will discourage visitors from arriving on peak days and make the city more livable for its dwindling residents.

Visitors arriving at Venice's main train station were greeted with large signs listing the 29 dates through July of the plan's test phase that also designated separate entrances for tourists, and residents, students and workers.

“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’’ said Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”

Not all residents, however, are persuaded of the efficacy of the new system in dissuading mass tourism, insisting that only a resurgence in the population will restore balance to a city where narrow alleyways and water buses are often clogged with tourists.

Hundreds of Venetians protested against the program, marching festively though the city's main bus terminal behind banners reading “No to Tickets, Yes to Services and Housing.” Protesters scuffled briefly with police with riot gear who blocked them from entering the city, before changing course and entering over another bridge escorted by plainclothes police officers. The demonstration wrapped up peacefully in a piazza.

Tourists arriving at the main station encountered almost as many journalists as stewards on hand to politely guide anyone unaware of the new requirements through the process of downloading the QR code to pay the fee.

Arianna Cecilia, a tourist from Rome visiting Venice for the first time, said she thought it was “strange” to have to pay to enter a city in her native country, and be funneled through separate entrance ways for tourists. She and her boyfriend were staying in nearby Treviso, and so downloaded the QR code as required. But she was still caught off-guard while soaking in her first view ever of Venice's canals by the sight of the entrance signs and her boyfriend telling her to get out the ticket.

On the other side of the entrance ways, workers in yellow vests carried out random checks at the train station. Transgressors face fines of 50 to 300 euros ($53 to $320), but officials said “common sense” was being applied for the launch.

The requirement applies only for people arriving between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside of those hours, access is free and unchecked.

Venice has long suffered under the pressure of overtourism, and officials hope that the pilot project can help provide more exact figures to better manage the phenomenon.

The city can track the number of hotel visitors, which last year numbered 4.6 million and is down 16% from pre-pandemic highs. But the number of day visitors, which make up the majority of the crowds in Venice, could only be estimated until recently.

A Smart Control Room set up during the pandemic has been tracking arrivals from cellphone data, roughly confirming pre-pandemic estimates of 25 million to 30 million arrivals a year, said Michele Zuin, the city’s top economic official. That includes both day-trippers and overnight guests.

But Zuin said the data is incomplete.

“It’s clear we will get more reliable data from the contribution” being paid by day-trippers, he said.

Venturini said the city is strained when the number of day-trippers reaches 30,000 to 40,000. On peak days, local police set up one-way traffic for pedestrians to keep the crowds moving.

Residents opposing the day-tripper tax insist that the solution to Venice's woes are to boost the resident population and the services they need, limiting short-term rentals to make available more housing and attract families back from the mainland.

Last year, Venice passed a telling milestone when the number of tourist beds exceeded for the first time the number of official residents, which is now below 50,000 in the historic center with its picturesque canals.

“Putting a ticket to enter a city will not decrease not even by one single unit the number of visitors that are coming,’’ said Tommaso Cacciari, an activist who organized a protest Thursday against the measure.

“You pay a ticket to take the metro, to go to a museum, an amusement park. You don’t pay a ticket to enter a city. This is the last symbolic step of a project of an idea of this municipal administration to kick residents out of Venice,” he said.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro declared the launch day, coinciding with an Italian holiday, a success, registering 15,700 paying visitors, 50% more than anticipated.

More than 97,000 others had downloaded a QR code denoting an exemption, including to work in Venice or as a resident of the Veneto region. Hotels in Venice, including in mainland districts like Marghera or Mestre, provided a QR code for visitors to attest to their stay, which includes a hotel tax — accounting for 40,000 of those.

Venturini, the tourist official, said that interest in Venice’s pilot program has been keen from other places suffering from mass tourism, including other Italian art cities, and municipalities abroad such as Barcelona, Spain, and Amsterdam.

But Marina Rodino, who has lived in Venice for 30 years, doesn't see the fee as the cure-all. Neighboring apartments in her residential building near the famed Rialto Bridge once inhabited by families are now short-term apartment rentals.

The corner butcher shop closed. Yet she noted that the new entrance fee requirement will still allow young people to flood the city in the evening for the traditional aperitivo, which can grow rowdy.

She was passing out mock European Union passports for “Venice, Open City,” underlining the irony of the new system, and challenging its legal standing with citations from the Italian Constitution guaranteeing its citizens the right to “move or reside freely in any part of the national territory."

“This is not a natural oasis. This is not a museum. It is not Pompeii. It is a city, where we need to fight so the houses are inhabited by families, and stores reopen. That is what would counter this wild tourism,’’ Rodino said.