Rupert Murdoch renewed his attacks on Google and Facebook during News Corp’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, accusing the tech giant of silencing conservative voices and calling for “significant reform.”
Silicon Valley companies are the preferred target for 90-year-old Murdoch, who has for years criticized Google for taking the publisher’s news articles without compensation and Facebook for failing to adequately reward publishers. The public outcry continued despite concessions from both companies to News Corp, which earlier this year agreed to pay for the publisher’s content in Australia.
Murdoch said, “For many years our company has been leading the global debate about Big Digital. What we have seen over the past few weeks about practices at Facebook and Google certainly reinforces the need for significant reform. does.”
Murdoch accused Facebook employees of trying to silence conservative voices, and noted “a similar pattern of selectivity” in Google’s search results. But posts from conservative celebrities like Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro regularly rankle, according to data from Facebook-owned analytics firm CrowdTangle. One of the most popular on the platform.
In addition, the media mogul cited a lawsuit filed last year by 10 state attorneys general accusing Google of monopolizing the digital advertising market and allegedly working with Facebook to manipulate online auctions. Where advertisers buy and sell ad space.
“We need to be very clear about the consequences of that digital advertising market manipulation,” Murdoch said. “Obviously, publishers have suffered materially, but companies have also been charged more for their advertising, and consumers have paid much more for the products.”
Representatives for Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment.
Murdoch called for algorithmic transparency – echoing debate in Congress in the wake of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations about the social network’s business practices.
Murdoch stressed, “The idea that the algorithm is objective in any way is falsely promoted by the platform and that the whole scientific is utter nonsense.” “Algorithms are subjective and can be used by people to kill competition, harming other people, publishers and businesses.”
Murdoch also met with former US President Trump, who published an October 27 letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal, reiterating the false claim that the 2021 presidential election was rigged, in the service of American conservatives in the past. to proceed from.
“The past is the past and the nation is now competing to define the future,” Murdoch said.
Disclaimer: This post has been self-published from the agency feed without modification and has not been reviewed by an editor
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