Tech Giants, Once Seen as Saviors, Are Now Viewed as Threats
SAN FRANCISCO — At the start of this decade, the Arab Spring blossomed with the help of social media. That is the sort of story the tech industry loves to tell about itself: It is bringing freedom, enlightenment and a better future for all mankind. /react-text react-empty: 104
Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, proclaimed that this was exactly why his social network existed. In /react-text react-text: 109 a 2012 manifesto /react-text react-text: 111 for investors, he said Facebook was a tool to create “a more honest and transparent dialogue around government.” The result, he said, would be “better solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time.” /react-text
react-text: 115 Now tech companies are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them. At the top of the list is /react-text react-text: 117 Russian interference in last year’s presidential election /react-text react-text: 119 . Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. The manipulation was so efficient and /react-text react-text: 121 so lacking in transparency /react-text react-text: 123 that the companies themselves barely noticed it was happening. /react-text
react-text: 127 The election is far from the only area of concern. Tech companies have accrued /react-text react-text: 129 a tremendous amount of power and influence /react-text react-text: 131 . Amazon determines how people shop, Google how they acquire knowledge, Facebook how they communicate. All of them are making decisions about who gets a digital megaphone and who should be unplugged from the web.
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