How Big Tech is Able to Skirt Around Regulation

Internet companies like Google and Facebook have been pushing back on regulations since the beginning of the dot-com boom.  The main arguments they give are that they are protecting data as well as anyone can and bureaucracy will only make it worse, but this wasn't the original reason.  As Floridi said, each revolution has happened with minimal oversight.  These created huge changes in our social structures and physical environments and the information revolution is doing the same thing.



Originally, internet companies were able to convince regulators that they wouldn't be economically viable without a certain amount of slack that no other industry is allowed.  Now that multiple of the largest companies in the world are internet based, and they control vast amounts of personal data, most would agree that their business plan has been validated.  Google now makes over $9 billion each quarter in profit even after investment in new technologies.

They promised to regulate themselves and the government let them, maybe because they couldn't 

foresee any negative effects this would have considering the internet was still commonly considered

to be a fad in the 90's.  

Large internet companies are also able to misdirect authorities through ignorance.  A company like Facebook is able to mislead people by saying that they do not sell data which is entirely true as far as we know.  The problem with this statement is that Facebook does use that data in order to sell highly targeted ads to people based on very particular data points Facebook has saved about someone.  So although the data isn't sold, it is saved and used to sell a product to advertisers.  Just like the other revolutions, this one is happening without the government understanding how it works and how much this is affecting our lives.

This data is gathered and compiled with the use of AI that the general public doesn't understand.  Even the engineers creating the algorithms don't fully understand them.  One example is Sundar Pichai the CEO of Alphabet and Google, he believes that AI needs to be regulated.  When talking about regulation to protect people and continue innovation he says "Regulation and self-regulation, via a code of ethics and an ethics board, might not be enough to do that."  We also know that Google launched its own independent ethics board in 2019, but shut it down less than two weeks later following controversy about who had been appointed to it.

So we really need to ask ourselves, who can we have represent us that fundamentally understands technology and can help guide us through this new revolution?  Maybe it's a president, maybe it's a board of tech leaders, the only thing we seem to know is that we need something to change.