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Tech Giants, Once Seen as Saviors, Are Now Viewed as Threats

posted by martyb on Saturday October 14 2017, @12:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-money dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

[...] tech companies are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them. At the top of the list is Russian interference in last year's presidential election. Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. The manipulation was so efficient and so lacking in transparency that the companies themselves barely noticed it was happening.

The election is far from the only area of concern. Tech companies have accrued a tremendous amount of power and influence. 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.

Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings, and is sparking a backlash that is still gathering force.

Is it that the tech companies are creating problems for society as a whole, or merely disrupting the status quo for the old Powers-That-Be?

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 14 2017, @04:14PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 14 2017, @04:14PM (#582316) Journal

    Imprecise words muddy the meaning, leading to confusion the miscommunicators use to their advantage. Later, they can say "Amazon shipped a package to Russia" and now suddenly OMG Amazon is part of The Plot!!!

    I don't buy that's even remotely a problem. If you look at some of the linkages people make, it's not even that firm a connection. "Alice knows Bob who shows up once in a picture with Carl. I have decreed Carl is part of the plot, thus Alice is as well."

    Well obviously the billions did not consult me for my opinion before stampeding off to madness, but anyway, I am not an advocate of force so much as enlightened self interest. I would hope that eventually people will realize that communication standards are in their interest, and communication companies are to be shunned like the infection they are.

    What communication standard goes with Facebook or Google? Google's interface is pretty straightforward. You type in word fragments and get search results. All the other search engines do the same thing. That's a standard.