This is the Democrats’ plan to limit Section 230 Now It's The Democrats Turn To Destroy The Open Internet: Mark Warner's 230 Reform Bill Is A Dumpster Fire Of Cluelessness - In the last few months of his presidency, Trump - remember that guy? - rallied against the tech companies over Section 230  - Trump believed conservatives were being unfairly targeted on social media, and that’s where his focus was - less moderation  - Democrats have taken a different approach - proposing to change 230 to only protect speech, not actions, information. This means twitter, for example, would still be protected on any speech it hosts, but could be fined for hosting instructions to make a gun, or providing a platform that leads to an insurrection.. - "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Under the SAFE TECH Act, the word "information" would be swapped out for the word "speech," - The SAFE TECH Act was introduced Friday by Sens. Mark Warner, Mazie Hirono and Amy Klobuchar. - The bill has already drawn some criticism for the dismantling of protections of 230 -  - Techdirt complains the bill would make all web hosting unprotected, because “money changing hands” for hosting would strip both parties of 230 protections.  Google retracts its threat to leave after Scott Morrison meeting Google launches News Showcase in Australia - Scott Morrison has given some details of his call with Google CEO, Sundar Pichai.  - The Australian reports that ScoMo was upbeat and positive about the call, saying he made it clear that the media code would be going ahead, and Google will find a way to work within it  - Sundar Pichai hasn’t confirmed this, but he also hasn’t denied it.  - Meanwhile, Google’s News Showcase product launched Friday. Apparently.  - I’ve been trying to see what its like, but it’s not in my google news app, or on the web  - Wait!! I found it - it’s under the old newsstand column… So much for a showcase..  Apple versus Facebook on ad-tracking: Harvard sides with Apple - Harvard Business Review has examined Facebook’s claim that App Privacy in iOS 14 will cost small businesses “up to 60%” of sales because their ads will be less effective  - Havard’s study is long and detailed, so instead I’ve read 9to5 Mac’s crib notes - According to the site, Harvard thinks these “eye-popping” claims are over stated, saying facebook has conflated correlation with causation - and there’s no evidence the anti tracking features will affect sales - They also point out that Facebook’s reported increase in ad spend during the pandemic is also highly inaccurate.  - It’s so unlike facebook to exaggerate data to make them look good..  Australia steps up its bushfire prediction tech  Australia is improving the technology it uses to predict bushfires and will standardise its approach to modelling how bushfires behave across all states and territories.  At the moment states use different approaches to modelling fires, which can be problematic because bushfires don’t respect border closures.  The new Spark Operational bushfire simulation technology has been developed by the CSIRO and the National Council for Fire and Emergency Services. The predictive model will be used to provide an indication of what a bushfire might look like over the next ten hours to help firefighters coordinate their plan of attack.  Phase one of the technology's implementation commenced in January 2021, with further developments ensuring it will become fully operational over the next three years.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.