Our World in 2018

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
The logo of Google at the eigth annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
PA-EFE/JAGADEESH NV
The Self-Regulation
Mistake
By David Ibsen
In 2018 the public and policymakers
will have to reckon with the evergrowing
power of the tech industry.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company,
is now valued at $730 billion (€605
billion), a little under the GDP of the
Netherlands. Facebook is valued at
$500 billion (€415 billion), and 66
percent of its two billion users rely
on the social media platform as their
daily news source. The power of these
companies and their potential for
misuse was on full display in 2017.
Incitement of terrorism and violence
by terrorists and racists, nefarious
manipulations of voters and the
democratic process, and the scourge
of fake news are just a few of the
problematic issues that have come to
be associated with these platforms.
So what should be done in 2018 to
protect the public from this rampant
misuse?
Not much according to the tech
industry. In fact tech companies have
been pushing for a paradigm of “selfregulation”
wherein policymakers
GF
and Twitter to address their manifold
problems independently and free
from the oversight and interference
of regulators. Such an arrangement is
Google,
Facebook, and
other tech firms
are for-profit
corporations first
and foremost.
And like every
other business,
they are driven
by market share
and profits.
86 2018 | OUR WORLD