Facebook’s data drama is being watched intently by China as it focuses on AI
London/Singapore — The scandal over the alleged abuse of Facebook’s user data is unfolding a long way from China, and yet privacy regulators in Beijing have been watching intently. Their interest shows how all three big players in the technology world — the Americans, Chinese and Europeans — are feeling their way to balance the demands of consumers for privacy and of governments for security. However, they’re also competing to shape the rules of the game for internet companies and, for the US and China, in particular, to maximise access to data for a bigger goal: to dominate artificial intelligence (AI), the next frontier in machine learning. "All these governments and companies are in the middle of trying to figure out what data governance should look like," said Samm Sacks, senior fellow in the technology programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank. "And this is happening in a global context that will have implications for trade and for...
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