News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch accused the tech giants of trying to silence conservative voices. (File)
Rupert Murdoch continued his attack on Google and Facebook during News Corp’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, accusing the tech giants of trying to silence conservative voices and calling for “significant reform.” .
Silicon Valley companies are a favorite target of 90-year-old Murdoch, who for years has criticized Google for taking publishers’ articles without compensation and for failing to adequately reward publishers. publishing company.
The public continues to rock, even though News Corp has won concessions from both companies, which earlier this year agreed to pay for publisher content in Australia.
“For years, our company has led the global debate about Big Digital,” says Murdoch. “What we’ve seen over the past few weeks in terms of activities at Facebook and Google certainly underpins the need for substantial reform.”
Murdoch accused Facebook employees of trying to silence conservative voices and noted “a similar type of selectivity” in Google’s search results.
But according to data from Facebook-owned analytics firm CrowdTangle, posts from conservative figures like Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro regularly rank as the most popular on the platform.
Furthermore, the media mogul cites 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 manipulate online auctions where advertisers buy and sell ad space.
“Let’s be very clear about the consequences of manipulating that digital advertising market,” Murdoch said. “Obviously, publishers have suffered materially, but companies have also spent too much on their advertising, and consumers have therefore overpaid for products.”
Representatives for Alphabet Inc’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook could not be immediately reached for comment.
Murdoch’s call for algorithmic transparency is echoing debate in Congress after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations about the social network’s business.
“The idea that is falsely promoted by platforms where algorithms are objective and scientifically based is completely meaningless,” Murdoch asserts.
“Algorithms are subjective, and they can be manipulated by people to kill off competition, to the detriment of others, publishers, and businesses.”
Murdoch also called on former US President Trump, who published an October 27 letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal repeating the false claim that the 2021 presidential election was rigged, to go beyond from the past to serve American conservatives.
“The past is the past and the country is now in a competition to determine the future,” says Murdoch.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
