Europe and the United Kingdom have been coming hard at the tech industry lately: tough privacy laws, fines for anti-competitive behavior, new types of copyright laws, and earlier this week, something called a “digital services” tax from the United Kingdom. Starting in 2020, the U.K. will take 2 percent of online revenue from tech companies, specifically Facebook, Amazon and Google, that make over $600 million a year. The rest of Europe is planning a similar tax, and the idea has even spread to South Korea, India, Mexico, Chile and other countries. Let’s dig into this digital tax idea in Quality Assurance, the Friday segment where we take a deeper look at a big tech story. Molly Wood talks with Mark Scott, chief technology correspondent at Politico. (11/02/18)

In San Francisco next week, voters will decide whether the city’s largest companies, most of them tech, should pay a tax that will raise money to help homeless families. Other cities have tried similar efforts. Voters in Seattle recently overturned a tax on large employers that would have funded affordable housing efforts, and the city’s biggest tech employer, Amazon, strongly objected. But in San Francisco, the city’s biggest tech employer is for the measure. Marc Benioff is the co-CEO of Salesforce, and yes, the guy who just bought Time Magazine. He’s stumping for the ballot measure, called Proposition C. (11/01/18)

Earlier this week, Google announced $25 million in grants for organizations working on “artificial intelligence for social good.” The included things like wildlife conservation, stopping sex trafficking and eliminating biases in algorithms that perpetuate racism and gender discrimination. It’s an admission that algorithms and AI are not neutral, and more care must be taken with their design. Molly Wood talks with Jamie Susskind, author of the new book “Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech.” He argues that we can design algorithms that reflect our highest ideals. (10/31/18)

Earlier this week, Google announced $25 million in grants for organizations working on “artificial intelligence for social good.” The included things like wildlife conservation, stopping sex trafficking and eliminating biases in algorithms that perpetuate racism and gender discrimination. It’s an admission that algorithms and AI are not neutral, and more care must be taken with their design. Molly Wood talks with Jamie Susskind, author of the new book “Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech.” He argues that we can design algorithms that reflect our highest ideals. (10/31/18)

Yesterday on the show, we talked with the fact-checkers trying to clean up Facebook. Today we’re looking at how misinformation on Facebook affects democracy here in America and the social fabric of many other countries, from India to the Philippines to Myanmar. That’s the topic of a two-part Frontline documentary called “The Facebook Dilemma,” airing this week on PBS stations and online. It explores Facebook’s growth and how it has responded to warnings that it can be used for propaganda, violence and to prop up authoritarian regimes. Molly Wood talks with James Jacoby, a producer of the documentary. (10/30/18)