A Blog by Jonathan Low

 

Jun 5, 2019

How the Coalition To Kill Tech As We Know It Just Might Win

Reversion to the mean: there is such a thing as getting too big. Had they bothered paying attention to the history of trust-busting, tech would have seen this coming.

But then that would have meant acknowledging they are not different and special and just better than anything ever before. JL 

Alexis Madrigal reports in The Atlantic:

At a broad ideological level, the idea of cyberspace, as a transnational, individualistic, unregulated, and free place not located in any governmental domain, (has) collapsed. Second, the mythology of tech as the carrier of progress has imploded, just as it did for the robber barons of the late 19th century. While big tech companies try to establish a new reason for their privileged treatment (hint: screaming “CHINA!”), they are vulnerable to attacks on their business practices.American politicians would not be caught consorting with the technology industry these days. And now that big tech lacks top cover, government agencies are moving in.
In October 2016, then-President Barack Obama hosted a miniature version of the blowout tech conference South by Southwest, which the White House called South by South Lawn. Obama, as The New York Times put it at the time, “brought Silicon Valley to Washington.” He even hinted that if he hadn’t been president, he might have become a venture capitalist. “The conversations I have with Silicon Valley and with venture capital pull together my interests in science and organization in a way I find really satisfying,” he said.
My, how times change! Most American politicians would not be caught consorting so openly with the technology industry these days. And now that big tech lacks top cover, government agencies are moving in. According to new reports, Google and Apple face deeper investigation by the Department of Justice while the FTC takes on Amazon and Facebook.
At a broad ideological level, two things have happened. First, the idea of cyberspace, a transnational, individualistic, largely unregulated, and free place that was not exactly located in any governmental domain, completely collapsed. Second, the mythology of tech as the carrier of progress has imploded, just as it did for the robber barons of the late 19th century to usher in the trustbusting era. While big tech companies try to establish a new reason for their privileged treatment and existence (hint: screaming “CHINA!”), they are vulnerable to attacks on their business practices that suddenly make sense.
But these changes did not occur in the ether among particles of discourse. Over the last three years, an ecosystem of tech opponents has emerged and gained strength. Here’s a catalog of the coalition that has pulled tech from the South Lawn into the trenches.
Angry Conservatives: The biggest change, of course, came with the 2016 campaign and ultimate election of Donald Trump. Though Trump played the social-media game with tremendous success, conservatives criticized the platforms during the campaign and have continued to do so throughout the last two-and-a-half years. Most recently, the president announced that he was collecting reports of social-media grievances. There has been a steady drumbeat over the same timeframe of stories about tech companies’ left-leaning workforces, which conservatives have spun into a fable about how they are being suppressed. The evidence is thin, but it seems plausible to most people, who believe the platforms censor political viewpoints.
Disillusioned Liberal Tech Luminaries: Alongside the conservative outrage machine, the biggest body blows that the tech industry has taken have come from disillusioned liberals who worked for those companies. While their specific critiques vary, most of them feel that the platforms aided and abetted the election of President Trump—that is to say, roughly the opposite of the conservative critique above. Many have come to expand their criticisms to the basic mechanisms of the technology industry, from the former Googler Tristan Harris, who works on “Time Well Spent,” to the Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who has called for the government to break the company up.
Antitrust Theoreticians: The version of antitrust regulations that emerged in the 20th century held that consumer prices had to rise in order for monopolistic conditions to cause harm. That framing protected big tech companies like Google and Facebook, which give away their products to users. How can there be consumer harm if consumers are paying $0.00? But a new wave of antitrust scholars, now centered at the Open Markets Institute, have argued that this view is outdated because free services can still be harmful to societies. They’ve opened the door to new attacks on the market power of big tech, and they’ve already gained adherents.
Democratic Presidential Candidates: Headlined by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democratic presidential contenders have proven ready to tussle with big tech. Drawing on the new antitrust doctrine, Warren has argued for breaking up the big tech firms “to restore the balance of power in our democracy, to promote competition, and to ensure that the next generation of technology innovation is as vibrant as the last.”
Rank-and-File Tech Workers: For years and years, tech companies very rarely leaked. Workers were generally pretty happy, and corporate cultures discouraged talking with outsiders. That’s changed. Now, all kinds of tech workers with different agendas—from James Damore types to anti–sexual harassment campaigners to union organizers—have begun to talk to the press, public or privately. The pressure has led to important internal reforms, but also opened the companies up to new political attacks from a range of directions. All the leaks have eroded the sense of impenetrability that used to surround operations like Google.
Traditional Democratic Corporate Reformers: Reining in corporate power has long been part of most Democratic politicians’ agendas. But now, that zeal is often directed not just at Wall Street or automakers, but also tech companies. From his position as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey has repeatedly battled tech-company executives who have testified before him. He’s a traditional Democratic establishment force, an ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and clearly sees the tech industry as the kind of corporate power that needs to be reined in, starting perhaps with new privacy regulations. “We’ve been talking about it for years, yet nothing has been done to address the problem,” Pallone said at a February hearing. “It’s time that we move past the old model that protects the companies using our data and not the people.”

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