If you are one of the very few people who follow the politics of tech, and especially big tech firms, religiously, you must have seen seemingly strange things happen over the last five years or so. From the commitments to two D’s (democracy and diversity) in 2020 to supporting the exact opposite of that today, they have gone a long way to come right back. But to understand why this is happening (and why this is happening now), one needs to first understand the intellectual roots of these firms.
Historians of modern technology in the US often try to tell it through the lens of intent and ideals (flip through the latest Walter Isaacson biography). Some of the biggest tech companies started with intentions that were greater than their stock prices (Google’s “don’t be evil”, for example). Even today, the biggest tech projects in our lives vehemently seek to go beyond profits and politics (think OpenAI). Almost all of these idealistic visions either propose to reform how states work or even attempt to go beyond the concept of state.
Almost all grand technology projects start from the premise of “techno-optimism”, the belief that technology is the primary driver of human progress (especially in the material sense) and is the solution to some of the biggest problems we are facing today. This belief has also gone mainstream beyond technologists as well (remembering Hillary Clinton’s Learn to Code). After a point, this belief starts intersecting with what other people are doing as well (especially, but not limited to, states).
There are many examples where this belief is manifested well. The earliest and the most famous would be when platforms like Facebook and YouTube served as a catalyst to the Arab Spring, where authoritarians like Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi were toppled through popular uprisings. Beyond politics, initiatives like then-Facebook’s Free Basics and Google’s Project Loon sought to bring the internet and its benefits to the world’s poorest (though not without ulterior motives).
Almost all of these had either increased user numbers or had the potential to do so (Facebook’s usage numbers went off the roof during the Arab Spring, more internet users means more Facebook and Google users). But, sometimes it looks like they go beyond their profit motive as well, famously when Facebook and Google exited the Chinese market when they were threatened with censorship, or when they left Russia en masse after the invasion of Ukraine.
However, when one goes beyond their PR campaigns and bulletin pages, these beliefs don’t appear that consistent. Complying with censorship has not been a thorny issue when it comes to other authoritarian regimes (think Saudi Arabia, Turkey and increasingly, India). Nowadays, the default position is that it’s better to operate within authoritarian regimes and change things within the system than avoiding them outright (see: Musk on Twitter operating in Turkey).
But this belief strongly rests on the assumption that these firms have power to change things independently of the state. While this may have been true earlier, it is increasingly not true today, especially as states begin to better understand tech products and how to use (and misuse) these products to their own ends.
States (especially the more authoritarian ones) are getting better at three things. Firstly, they are able to use these platforms to push their narratives both at home and abroad. Secondly, they are able to control these platforms, its composition and its users (see: India’s data guidelines for companies and the US vs TikTok affair) and thirdly, if nothing else works, they can just promote homegrown (often copycat) alternatives (see: China’s walled internet and Russia’s efforts to recreate the former).
This means that the leverage that big tech firms can have over their operating freedom and the policy process through their platforms is declining, and is increasingly prone to external interference. On the other hand, playing along with the state brings in its share of benefits: less interference from the state, opportunity to keep earning money and valuable user data and largely keep on going on business as usual.
But this comes at considerable cost, which is losing almost all the leverage they have on politics and the policy process outside of the money they donate. More importantly, they have to be in the good books of the powerful to make sure they are able to keep operating as usual. This new dynamic has changed how these platforms have been operating over the past few years.
After the incidents of 2020 and the US Presidential elections and its ugly aftermath- these firms were not hesitant in deplatforming key figures who were held responsible for what happened. Similarly, when the war in Ukraine broke out in 2022, they promptly pulled out of Russia and took measures to restrict the Russian influence in their platforms. All this while, they remained the biggest donors of the ruling party of the US.
But, now the political climate has shifted to the right and so have the opinions of these firms. Trump was loudly reinstated to Twitter by Elon Musk (and quietly back to Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram). From proudly proclaiming that they will not support election insurrectionists, big tech executives are now all in praise of Trump’s bravery because they presumably see the writing on the wall, and they have nothing to do but to provide the papers.
This means that the very foundational ideal of these platforms: the idea of a free town hall for the world that operates independently of political power (and often against power) is irrevocably lost. Even the softer, diluted version, where profits take a prominent place is now being subordinated to and subservient to the forces of authoritarianism. Instead of becoming the solution, they are now becoming more a part of the problem.
Edited by Eva Maria Johnson
Design by Alphin Tom
Article 19 