[P2P-F] pressure from major New America donor Google and its chairman Eric Schmidt ; Fwd: Civicist's First Post: Think Tanks
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Fri Sep 1 07:11:05 CEST 2017
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Civic Hall <info at civichall.org>
Date: Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 8:41 PM
Subject: Civicist's First Post: Think Tanks
To: Michel <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
August 31, 2017
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=a90f4bdf43&e=222dfb6267>
[image: First Post]
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=d85ac307aa&e=222dfb6267>
*Micah L. Sifry*
*Think Tanks*
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*Schmidt Hits the Fan: Ken Vogel*'s story
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=50a5570dbe&e=222dfb6267>
in The New York Times (which broke yesterday but is on today's print front
page) about the New America Foundation's decision to push out scholar *Barry
Lynn* and his Open Markets initiative, allegedly due to pressure from
major New America donor Google and its chairman *Eric Schmidt*, who
chairs the think tank's board, has generated a lot of coverage.
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Here is New America CEO *Anne-Marie Slaughter*'s statement
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=eb590c8622&e=222dfb6267>
on the controversy. She insists that the parting was not due to pressure
from Google, but rather "[Lynn's] repeated refusal to adhere to New
America's standards of openness and institutional collegiality," and that
until recently they were working together to try to reach an amicable
separation.
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In addition, New America has released the full text
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=e2998f2c52&e=222dfb6267>
of three emails from Slaughter to Lynn that were quoted only in part in
Vogel's story. The emails make clear that their relationship was
complicated. They also make clear that Open Markets, which in recent years
has developed a very strong critique of platform monopolies like Google,
had become a troublesome component of New America, and that given New
America's strong relationship with Google sooner or later something was
going to give.
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Keep in mind that the flashpoint for the controversy was a congratulatory
note
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=376dbf6ff0&e=222dfb6267>
that Lynn posted on New America's website this past June, congratulating
European Commission regulators for imposing a $2.7 billion fine on Google.
That's billion.
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*Matt Stoller*, one of the fellows at Lynn's Open Markets program, flatly
states
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=7912b58082&e=222dfb6267>
in the Huffington Post that "Google had our group kicked out of our parent
think tank."
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An unnamed Google spokesperson told
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=77ae18cb86&e=222dfb6267>
*Sam
Biddle and David Dayen* of The Intercept that “Eric [Schmidt] never
threatened to cut off funding to New America and that we had no role in
eliminating the Open Markets Initiative.” The spokesperson added that she
would not deny Schmidt’s “displeasure” with the Open Markets team,
“but displeasure and pressure are two totally different things — he did not
imply pressure on NAF re: Open Markets. To characterize it that way would
be totally inaccurate.”
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In the Atlantic, *Alexis Madrigal* says
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=849f597f74&e=222dfb6267>
Slaughter's statement about Lynn's repeated refusal to adhere to New
America's standards "is how educated people say 'He was an asshole.'" He
also notes, cogently, "The scale of Silicon Valley money and Washington
money are so different that the introduction of the former into the latter
is almost comical. You’ve got companies amassing tens of billions of
dollars in cash with mechanics that are linked to particular regulatory and
tax regimes. And those regimes are held up by people who measure donations
in the tens or hundreds of thousands."
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Writing for the Monkey Cage in the Washington Post, *Henry Farrell* puts
the controversy
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=acead55927&e=222dfb6267>
in the context of "The Ideas Industry
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=7e460c602b&e=222dfb6267>,"
Daniel Drezner's new book, which argues that "the key sources of policy
ideas are increasingly beholden to big funders, who very often have their
own financial interests." Separating the controversy from the particular
individuals involved, he notes, "Participating in the production of ideas
requires resources, which may shape or even compromise the ideas that one
wants to spread. Getting the resources while retaining the necessary
independence to keep the ideas credible is hard." (I'd add—if you do have
to dance with big donors, try to not be overly dependent on any single
giver.)
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As Farrell notes, "A recent paper by *Lina Khan*, who works with Open
Markets, has electrified discussions over U.S. anti-trust policy and
whether it is capable of restraining actors such as online retail giant
Amazon." On Twitter, Khan says
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=d7905427f4&e=222dfb6267>
she is "sad for what New America's decision to expel Open Markets means for
New America [and that] New America's decision is proof of concept of our
work."
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The Khan paper, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=8992967c78&e=222dfb6267>",
is really good, by the way.
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Here is the new Citizens Against Monopoly
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=9d0da58030&e=222dfb6267>
website, the temporary new home of the Open Markets program. Joining Lynn,
Kahn and Stoller is *Zephyr Teachout*. Impressive how quickly they got
that site up. Methinks that far from being suppressed, the crew at Citizens
Against Monopoly has used their fight with New America and Google like a
perfect ju-jitsu artist.
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*Jonathan Taplin*, the author of the book “*Move Fast and Break Things:
How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy*,"
points out
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=ae2ad494bf&e=222dfb6267>
in The New York Times that Congress will soon be taking up privacy
legislation and possible modifications to the "safe harbor" provision of
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, both topics that Google and other
tech platforms have intense interests in.
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*Trump watch*: A new Fox News polls finds
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=6e1bf33425&e=222dfb6267>
that 56% of Americans believe the president is "tearing the country apart."
Just 33% say he is "drawing the country together."
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Back in 1984, President *Ronald Reagan* told
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=2631638219&e=222dfb6267>
Israeli Prime Minister *Yitzhak Shamir *that he had shot footage of Nazi
concentration camps as they were liberated when in fact he spent World War
II working in Culver City making movies for the armed forces and had
processed some footage of camps being liberated. Now President Trump
tweets
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=3fe36394de&e=222dfb6267>
after
visiting Houston that he saw the "horror and devastation" of Hurricane
Harvey first hand (though he never met any actual victims) and his press
secretary explains
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=e875b23d6c&e=222dfb6267>
that this is because he talked to state and local officials who are
handling the disaster.
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*The scariest thing you will read today*: New York Times columnist *Charles
Blow* writes
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=73ef25a0bb&e=222dfb6267>
that Trump is "raising an army."
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Life in Facebookistan: You can't block CEO Mark Zuckerberg from your
timeline, "even if he were harassing you," tweets
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=7b27deba7d&e=222dfb6267>
the EFF's Jillian York. "The gods sit on their pedestals," she adds.
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*This is civic tech: Angela Shah* reports
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=5c6e54f80f&e=222dfb6267>
for Xconomy on how Houston's civic tech organizations and hackers are
banding together, using Slack and building resources to help people find
shelters and supplies.
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Writing for Bloomberg View, data scientist *Cathy O'Neill* updates us
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=ddea057d11&e=222dfb6267>
on efforts by researchers to test algorithms for bias.
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*Attend*: Thursday, September 7, in Washington, we'll be celebrating the
launch of a new book edited by Tiago Peixoto and yours truly, titled "*Civic
Tech in the Global South: Assessing Technology for the Public Good.*"
Published as a partnership between Personal Democracy Media and the World
Bank, the book offers a broad inventory on the state of civic tech outside
the industrialized West, with a focus on case studies in Brazil, Uganda and
Kenya. For more details and to RSVP, click here
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=16b87133ad&e=222dfb6267>
.
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*Apply*: The New Democratic Institute is looking to hire
<http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=c7398ae18f&e=222dfb6267>
a senior partnerships manager, based in Silicon Valley.
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*Your moment of zen*: Sad piano in Houston
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.
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