One of the reasons I enjoy writing this newsletter is that it gives me the chance to challenge my preconceived notions when it comes to tech policy. This month’s selection of articles (selected not by me, I should add, but by The Syllabus) is no different.

Take Bill-C18 (please). I have my own views on the Online News Act, and it’s safe to say that political opinion on it is pretty intractable at this point. Meta/Facebook’s decision to ban all news on its networks in response to Bill C-18, the Online News Act, was probably the biggest Canadian tech story of the year. The move is undoubtedly bad news for Canadian Facebook and Instagram users – it’s never good when a company with Meta’s reach decides to turn networks that many Canadians depend on as a news source into a wasteland for trusted news sources.

But what about its effect on news companies? Jean-François Gérard finds some initial good news, at least for Montréal’s La Presse: direct traffic to its site has risen 5%, compensating for the loss of Facebook-driven traffic. That they’ve been working to reduce their dependence on social media for a while may explain their success. But therein lies the tragedy of the Web 2.0 era: social media brought the world together, but their self-interested business models effectively have made it dangerous for others to rely on them.

Or take the burgeoning technological cold war between the United States and China. At this point, most people take it as a given that technology has become contested terrain for the United States-China superpower rivalry. And while it’s easy to think of examples that prove this point, Vili Lehdonvirta, Boxi Wu and Zoe Hawkins argue the global tech space is not all digital imperialism and geostrategy. Sounding very 1990s, they find that the degree to which local cloud infrastructure belongs to US or Chinese companies is explained mainly by commercial interests and third-country strategic choice, not “security cooperation ties.” The 1990s globalization dream may be dead, but their effects continue to linger.

Good research can also reframe an issue you thought you had a good handle on, suggesting new ways to tackle a problem. In the battle between on-demand workers and the algorithms that regulate their workplaces, we usually focus on the algorithms. But Cailean Gallagher, Karen Gregory and Boyan Karabaliev remind us of the importance of workers’ tacit knowledge. They explore “the potential for the pursuit of knowledge about platform-based control to increase some workers’ power to improve their experience of work.” Their proposal, for a “Worker Data Science” – to help develop “a collective view or understanding of [workers’] own devices” and to develop technologies to do this– certainly looks promising.

Or it can highlight a problem you didn’t even know existed. Antulio Rosales, Heather Millar and Andrew Richardson look at the intersection of Canadian energy policy and cryptocurrencies. They detail the fascinating case of how an Atlantic Canada-based bitcoin mining company is attempting to pitch itself as a pathway to economic development and – particularly audacious given that bitcoin mining is notoriously energy-intensive – as a hedge against climate change. Something to keep on your radar, both for those interested in crypto and in attempts to deal with climate change in a country as regulatorily complex as Canada.

One of the greatest barriers to internet and digital reform is the assumption that the internet as we know it today is an unchangeable fact. In a (French-language) video, Lundi Matin presents Lélix Tréguer, who disabuses of this idea, by offing us a counter-history of the internet.  Speaking of overcoming engrained ideas, Jason Jia-Xi Wu argues that we need to do just that when it comes to data and algorithmic regulation, moving from a focus on individual rights and responsibilities toward a collective approach in data rights and ownership. Les Rencontres de l’Esprit Critique, meanwhile, presents a talk on algorithmic literacy.

Sometimes, however, things turn out to be exactly as bleak as you thought they were. On that note, we have a few other videos for you. Sinan Ara discusses his book “The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health – and How We Must Adapt.” Burning Platforms, meanwhile, presents Nicholas Carah and Aimee Brownbill, who discuss online advertising, one of the most ridiculously (and needlessly) complex parts of the commercial internet. And when you’re finished that video, check out Lee McGuigian, Ido Sivan-Sevilla, Patrick Parham and Yan Shvartzhnaider’s article on “privacy-preserving” adtech and be depressed by their conclusion that the solutions proffered by the big ad platforms “not only fail to achieve meaningful privacy but also leverage privacy rhetoric to advance commercial interests.”

In any case, I always feel like I learned something when I go through these curated articles, opeds and videos. I hope you do, as well.

-  Blayne Haggart