Speaker: Roger Clarke

Long Title: Consumer-Oriented Social Media – Key Features, What’s Held It Up, How We Get It

Affiliation: Xamax Consultancy

Other Affiliations: Australian National University – Computer Science / UNSW Law

Abstract:
We’ve all long known that that consumer-orientation depends on features of Distributed Architecture, Interoperability and Portability, and suitable Terms of Service and Privacy Policies. It’s also been apparent that, at least during the years of transition, business models are challenging. Innovators need all the usual encouragement at start-up and scale-up levels, but they also need support to achieve the ‘network effect’ breakthrough. The will has been shown, in Australia, the EU and the USA, to impose regulatory measures on technology platforms in relation to content such as child porn, defamation, hate-speech, and false news, and even to apply labour laws. What the consumer-oriented social media innovators need is for the norms of competition and anti-trust laws to be imposed, and requirements enforced in the areas of interoperability and portability.

Biography:
Roger Clarke is a consultant in strategic and policy aspects of disruptive information technologies. He has over 50 years’ experience in the IT industry, as a professional, manager, consultant and researcher. He is a longstanding Fellow of the Australian Computer Society and the international Association for Information Systems. His degrees are from UNSW in Sydney and ANU in Canberra. He has held Visiting Professorships in Wirtschaftsinformatik in Switzerland and in Austria, and in the Engineering Faculty at the University of Hong Kong. He continues as a Visiting Professor in Computer Science at ANU, and in Law at UNSW. He has also spent over 30 years on the Board of the Australian Privacy Foundation.