'Big Tech' Needs Stay Out Of Politics

By Ellis Asher,

(Image Edited, Image by Unsplash)

I'd like you to set your mind back to 2018, politically speaking, not that significant a year. Technology dominated the headlines in a post-referendum world as the Cambridge Analytica Scandal broke to the public. This would be another straw added to the camel’s back; but not the final one, not yet at least. Faith in technology corporations has long since been shaky to say the least with sites like Facebook having laughable privacy measures.

The problem is that Facebook’s privacy settings are actually pretty good in theory, with most information being easily hidden at the user’s whim. The problem is people. So, what does all this have to do with politics?

Well, Big Tech (The mainstream and dominant technology companies) are / is facing fierce political pressure as of late, with sites like Twitter and Facebook being held as responsible for their impacts on 4 the world of politics by courts and governments globally; in my opinion, it’s about time.

In 2016 the Brexit referendum was called by prime minister David Cameron, a decision which we still feel the effects of today. At the same time Former President Donald Trump had just beaten Former first lady Hillary Clinton in a close election for US presidency. However, 2 years later a scandal leaked that users of Facebook had their information “harvested" by a company called Cambridge Analytica. After extensive investigations, several nations’ top justice departments concluded that there was a potential link between the two campaigns and the firm.

Not satisfied with the allegations of corrupting several of the world’s most important elections, albeit this time through improper data security, Big tech has spent the past 4 years engaging in explicit interference in the world of politics in ways which are both morally wrong but also possibly illegal.

De-platforming is a term used in reference to the notion that social media companies act as platforms, a public area in which to freely express yourself, as is the definition. However, several companies have explicitly acted against this, with sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google and even Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, acting with political motivation. They operate in order to de-platform individuals based on political beliefs, assert their own and outright waver the definitions provided to them by the governments that they abide by which would make what they are doing illegal.

Put simply, my contention is that the companies like Twitter aren’t actually platforms but publishers as they have censored, hidden and shadow banned the content that they politically disagree with. A platform is a digital space, an area for discussion, where-as a publisher is a provider of filtered content. The best analogy I am aware of is the analogy of the newspaper and the telephone. Whereas newspapers (publishers) contain content that is regulated, filtered and sorted to fit their standards, phone companies (platforms) broadcast whatever is asked to each other without discrimination on any grounds. This also makes publishers like newspapers responsible for the content the produce.

So, big deal? If Twitter is a publisher nothing changes, and nobody cares right? Well, simply put, Twitter won’t survive as a publisher without serious and radical change. Sites that deal with millions of people per day will inevitably not be able to scan, assess and evaluate every piece of content. As such if Twitter were to become a publisher, which would make it actually responsible for its content, then the company would likely be sued, and the CEOs arrested in under a minute.

So, Twitter needs its status as a platform for the legal immunity but has also been shown to have meddled in politics, take the Trump Twitter account for instance. After removing several tweets, flagging others with information prompts underneath used to display political content more in line with their thinking and then, finally, a blanket ban; you would think that the political bias of the company would be obvious. Its actions being evident, you think it would receive at minimum a warning from the 5 authorities. However, it still goes unchallenged by major governments, that was until recently as the Australian government has received support from both major political parties to introduce a new digital news code that would regulate Google as a publisher of news; forcing it to be held to the same standards of the law and other companies that distribute news.

Other nations are also taking action; Nigeria banned Facebook before it’s last election so it couldn’t interfere. Since this incident, Mark Zuckerberg started seemingly planning to de-escalate the amount of political content on his site.

With the countless examples of censorship, blatant flaunting of the rules / an abuse of power; big tech has proven it is not to be trusted. It has proven it has malicious intent in meddling in elections, politics and global affairs for its own political gain and has managed to avoid all the consequences of doing so. It is paramount to our own civil liberties, our rights, freedoms and our sovereignty that we act now in swiftly removing them of their illegitimate power and protecting against the same thing happening in the future.

Whilst this much is made clear given the evidence the likely more important question still looms...

How?

Well, as long as the political interference continues to be partisan, both sides will not unite together against it. However, what the recent situation with the stockbrokers Robinhood Inc. has showed us is that politicians are willing to put aside their party labels if their opinions aren’t then going to be viewed in a political manner (just like the best pizza toppings; chicken, pineapple, and sweetcorn is the right answer by the way) some opinions don’t have to be partisan.

So, united stances can be taken, we have clearly demonstrated this is an issue, on a large scale, needing bi-partisan support. The best current strategy would be to propose an investigation into these large corporations; to find the evidence of if they act as publishers or platforms, which I believe would find that they are publishers, the corporations will then be treated as such and will likely receive sanctions until they either change into platforms or if another form of agreement is made.

Whatever the stance is, it can’t come soon enough. Fresh off the heels of another US election we have just 4 short years to sort this issue out before they strike again.

Good luck.