ILLUSTRATION:^ EMILIANO^ PONZI029 STARTWe’ve come to loathe the gigantic
companies and wealthy people that build
Big Tech, just as deeply as we love the
products and services that they’ve built.
It’s easy to see why. Over the last
decade, child abusers and terrorists have
exploited social media. We’ve witnessed
the facilitation of fake news, conspiracy
theories and electoral interference.
And don’t forget the widespread intel-
lectual property theft, the undermining
of creative industries, and the effective
creation of data and platform monopolies.
There is a broad public, intellectual
and political consensus that executives
at the tech giants haven’t taken these
problems seriously, or addressed them
effectively. In February 2019, Facebook
was labelled “digital gangsters” by a
British parliamentary committee. Three
months later, US presidential hopeful
Elizabeth Warren erected a billboard – in
the middle of Silicon Valley – promising
she would break up Big Tech. Countless
books are dedicated to unpicking the
damage Big Tech is inflicting on society.Much of this is Big Tech’s fault: for telling the public theirs
was a social mission, not a commercial enterprise. “Don’t be
evil”, said Google. “Bringing the world closer together”, said
Facebook. “Serving the public conversation”, said Twitter.
And our response has been single-minded: to get them to care
more, to do more, to live up to their mottos. We’ve tried to
use morality against them because they claimed to be moral.
It has been ten years of reform through public embar-
rassment, political criticism and public exposé. Media
coverage and political pressure have been the key externalIt’s time we stoppedmoralising about Big Tech,and got on with reformTrying to shame these profit-maximising businesses into action has been
a disaster. Only informed, thoughtful legislation can tame the ‘digital gangsters’Carl Miller is
the author of
The Death
of the Gods:
The New Global
Power Grab09-19-SToped.indd 31 15/07/2019 12:50