Big Tech's double trouble: political heat from Trump and the left may signal reckoning ahead
Trump’s timing of attacks on Google, Facebook and Twitter could not have been better, as the three come under scrutiny in hearings
Trump and Russia may have dominated the political discourse all summer, but last week the attention turned again to America’s internet technology giants. They had enjoyed a few months out of the spotlight following grueling congressional hearings in Washington late last year, after evidence emerged of Russia’s use of social media fake accounts to try to influence voters in the 2016 US presidential election.
But that respite ended last week after a tweet from Donald Trump that electrified the news agenda from Silicon Valley to the capital when, seemingly out of the blue – he posted a bizarre tweet. “Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD,” he tweeted. Trump went on to allege that Google was censoring right-wing voices and privileging voices from the left.
The next day Trump doubled down, this time citing Twitter, Google and Facebook as being “unfair” to Republicans. “I think that Google and Facebook and Twitter … treat conservatives and Republicans very unfairly. I think it’s a very serious problem because they’re really trying to silence a very large part of this country, and those people don’t want to be silenced.
“It’s not right. It’s not fair. It may not be legal, but we’ll see. We just want fairness.”
And Trump’s timing could not have been better. Next week, senior figures from those three companies come under scrutiny during a new set of high-profile hearings in Washington.
Suddenly, the political heat was back on Big Tech and this time, they’re experiencing double-trouble.
Up until now most criticism of the tech giants has come from the left, aggrieved at the ease with which Russians appeared to influence the election via bots and fake accounts spreading divisive propaganda. Additionally they have been accused of toxifying public debate, exploiting people’s data and building monopolies that are distorting the US economy.
But now the tech giants face a whole new political threat. And this time there is a growing volume of voices on the right from senior Republicans who are incensed about perceived bias against conservatives.
A reckoning may be coming and the companies lining up to defend themselves this week in Washington seem to be braced for some type of regulation. And, whilst Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has declared himself open to regulation, there’s some talk of the need to go further – to break up the companies using antitrust laws.
More here:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/02/big-techs-double-trouble-bipartisan-criticism-may-signal-a-reckoning-ahead