The technology industry is under broad political attack
I apologize for posting a December downer, but this needs to be said.
The technology industry is under attack:
- From politicians and political pundits …
- … especially from “populists” and/or the political right …
- … in the United States and other countries.
These attacks:
- Are in some cases specific to internet companies such as Google and Facebook.
- In some cases threaten the tech industry more broadly.
- Are in some cases part of general attacks on the educated/ professional/“globalist”/”coastal” “elites”.
You’ve surely noticed some of these attacks. But you may not have noticed just how many different attacks and criticisms there are, on multiple levels.
1. Concerns about jobs, disruption, gentrification and so on are a Really Big Deal, causing large swaths of the population to regard technology as bad for their pocketbooks. In particular:
- There’s tremendous concern about job loss to automation and/or globalization. Technology helps cause the first and enable the second.
- Generally, when an industry destroys jobs, one hopes that it will create new ones to take their place. But while US technology companies have created many jobs, a lot of those are overseas.
- Flaps about overseas finances, taxes, and so on aren’t helping. Apple, for example, has major issues in Europe and the US alike.
- Working-class jobs that tech companies do create are often attacked for their pay and conditions, e.g. for Amazon warehouse workers or Uber drivers.
- Even when the technology industry unquestionably creates good, domestic jobs, the industry may be attacked for them. Consider for example the concerns about cost of living/gentrification in Northern California.
- “Sharing economy” companies such as Uber and Airbnb and others are involved in local political fights all around the world, as they undercut traditional service providers.
People who believe that technologists harm them are a major political force.
2. The technology industry is under considerable legislative, regulatory, and judicial pressure. For starters:
- Tech companies are attacked for doing too little to aid law enforcement and government surveillance.
- Tech companies are attacked for doing too much to aid law enforcement and government surveillance.
- Tech companies are attacked for doing too little censorship.
- Tech companies are attacked for doing too much censorship.
- Privacy regulations are ever-changing.
Complicating things further, these challenges take different forms in different countries around the world.
Also:
- China pressures foreign vendors to transfer technology into China.
- Recent network neutrality developments in the US favor older telecom providers, at the expense of newer internet companies.
- Anti-immigrant policies in the US threaten tech vendors.
I could keep going much longer than that. Government relations are a major, major issue for tech.
3. It is traditional to claim that advances in communication/media technologies will wreck society.
- Television was going to make us mass-conformist couch potatoes.
- Video games were going to make us violent couch potatoes.
This era brings similar concerns.
- Social media makes us couch potatoes sitting in niche-conformist echo chambers.
- Modern media over-stimulate us and wreck our attention spans.
I.e., the apocalypse is imminent, and tech is what will bring it on.
The most compelling version of that argument I’ve seen is Jean Twenge’s claims that there’s a teen mental health crisis perfectly matched in time to the rise of the smartphone. And to make any such claim seem particularly damning, please recall: Social media and gaming companies are clearly trying to foster a form of addiction in — well, in their users.
Current concern may ebb just like previous generations’ did. But for now, they’re yet another aspect of a threat-filled environment.
4. What worries me most is this: The United States and other countries face relentless attacks on education, educators, science, scientists, and rationality itself. And there are no obvious limits to how bad these can get. China’s Cultural Revolution and the Cambodian genocide happened during my lifetime. Stalin and Hitler ruled during my parents’. All four took particular aim at people like us.
Bottom line: EVERYBODY in the technology industry should be or quickly become politically aware. We have an awful lot of politics to deal with.
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Calling Uber or Airbnb a “sharing economy” company is simply wrong.
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