Links between press & GAFAM

Links between press & GAFAM
Topics	Privacy
Start date	Sat 30 November 2019
Contact	renaud@pirateparty.be
Status	In progress

Description

Context :

• GAFAM are an issue
• press/media said they were fighting for democracy against GAFAM during the Copyright Directive debate
• but press/media are not actually fighting against GAFAM, au contraire
• let's do something (article, communiqué, open letter, petition...) to ask press/media to stop collaborating actively with GAFAM
• some things that corroborate that collaboration :
  • cookies, trackers on the press websites are unavoidable (not even respecting GDPR)
  • same for apps
  • media cover is overwhelmingly about GAFAM and often very pro-GAFAM
    • Example : "Google Photos : Comment taguer manuellement des personnes ?"
  • agreements have been signed between Copiepresse (french- & german-speaking belgian press) and Google in 2012
    • "Les parties ont aussi convenu d'utiliser leurs médias respectifs pour promouvoir les services offerts par chacun d’eux."
  • comments under the articles are only open to people using Facebook; some contests too; many invitations to join Facebook (now more Instagram) on RTBF radio
    • July 2019, Le Soir activates a Instagram account
    • September 2019, Le Soir activates a new Whatsapp service
  • articles are almost never about the alternatives (decentralized or free software), and when they talk about it, it can be full of mistakes
    • this article from La Librefor example, a rare mention of Mastodon :
    • "Et… ça va servir à quoi ce nouveau réseau ? C’est toute la question. Sans réel contrôle, il y a le risque de voir ce drôle d’oiseau (c’est une image) servir de déversoir à stupidités (bravo !) ou de mauvaises idées (hum !). Il y a donc là un nouveau Far West numérique où il conviendra d’être prudent et circonspect. A commencer par utiliser des identifiants et mots de passe bien différents de ceux qu’on a l’habitude de créer. Qui sait de quelle manière ils sont sécurisés…"
  • who noticed in the news the information about the Amnesty International report about GAFAM?

In the last months/years, the press overwhelmingly claimed it was fighting for democracy against GAFAM. Let's take them at their word about this, and show them the problem. Either they are unaware of it, blind, or hypocrit. Either case we need to tell them by calling out this collaboration. Who else will?

There are 2 risks :

• as we attack the press, we might be assimilated to a populist party (because attacking the press is a trademark of populism) => we need to document carefully each affirmation
• the press might hate us => it's not our objective, we believe in the press; also, we don't have much to lose anyway, our media cover is almost non-existing...

Timeline/Process

• Start of the project during the Lab of 30/11/2019
• Creation of a wikipage for the project : done 28/03.
• Creation of a Loomio thread to announce the project and have feedback : done 29/03
• Creation of a pad to document these links between press & GAFAM : done 29/03
• Documentation on this pad
• Discussion to decide on next steps : creation of one or several articles, press release, petition, open letter, public gatherings, etc