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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @01:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @01:13AM (#582464)

    Has all that money managed to get them anything remotely approaching an impartial hearing by the MSM?

    Jeeze, man, they won the election. What more can you ask for?

    Oh, maybe a news agency that reports information that isn't repeatedly violated by reality, such as "Hillary a shoe-in" and "Hillary 90%+ to win", muckraking hard against someone the establishment doesn't like and coming up repeatedly empty even after hurling every rumor as an indictment while simultaneously ignoring their pals' "Arkanacide" problem, etc., ad nauseum.

    the last thing either side wants from mass media is an impartial hearing. They would be in jail under such circumstances

    After a flying leap to this new topic, who would be in jail, and for what?

    How does any of that play into the issue of "money doesn't guarantee you access to present your viewpoints in the mainstream media (or equivalent)"?