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Tech Giants, Once Seen as Saviors, Are Now Viewed as Threats

176 points by elsewhen 9y ago

debatem1 9y ago
From the article: "Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings" Call me when Apple starts exercising prima noctis. I'm pretty sure Google can't wage war, either, and if Oracle could hang you for theft they would've done so by now. So unless I'm missing something maybe we should lay off the hyperbole a bit?
- B0btheBuilder 9y ago
  hyperbole: >>hy·per·bo·le >>hīˈpərbəlē >>noun >>exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally Perhaps you're missing the fact that hyperbole isn't meant to be taken literally?
- vacri 9y ago
  When did prima noctis ever occur? Not "as a right of kings in general" which even the myths don't suggest, but even once, as a specific right of one king?
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The problem isn't that they're ruling the world with iron fists, the problem is that they could if they chose to. The data that each of those large tech companies are able to collect can be used to manipulate populations in ways that have never been seen before. That's not something to treat lightly.
- pokemongoaway 9y ago
  Yes, but they work closely with government - and moreover government intelligence agencies - so government can leverage their help to do these things. There's plenty of evidence this has already happened.
  - dlp211 9y ago
    [Citation Needed]. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      The many missing-presumed-dead canaries? Snowden?
    - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
      Search the internet for the following terms: <your national intelligence service(s)> working with <tech giant>
    - LambdaComplex 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
      - pokemongoaway 9y ago
        See project veritas and wikileaks as well.
    - pokemongoaway 9y ago
      [Explanation needed] that I made an extraordinary claim. It is interesting that people still think it is acceptable to call people crazy for claiming US government agencies are complicit in corruption.
      - wallace_f 9y ago
        I made this same point a while back on HN and the response I received was >people are half a second between 'that's absurd, they're not doing that,' and 'of course it's always been that way.' In 1994, X-Files Season 1 Ep. 17 introduced the Lone Gunmen, a group of conspiracy theorists: >"The characters, who were used to help Mulder appear more credible" If you watch the episode, one of the main 'batshit insane'conspiracy theories they put forward was that the government is recording everyone's phone calls--then Scully rolls her eyes and Mulder appears skeptical. You have to admit, it is kind of crazy... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.B.E._(The_X-Files) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.B.E._(The_X-Files)
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  In all seriousness though, I'm unsure why an Apple or Amazon hasn't raised their own private army by now.
  - lettergram 9y ago
    If they're viewed as threats to soverenty I'm confident the company will disappear
    - squarefoot 9y ago
      It doesn't work like that. First they fund candidates, then...
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Armies are expensive and difficult to maintain, so you need a pressing reason to have one, such as defending or conquering territory. What would Apple or Amazon need an army for? If you want to see how a company can wield the power of a nation-state sans army, see: Exxon.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    They don't need large standing forces ATM because that's handled by nation states who will defend everything within their borders. As for smaller forces, hasn't it been outsourced by now? Can't Apple or Amazon or Google just hire Blackwater, or whatever they call themselves these days?
- apsec112 9y ago
  David Streitfeld writes almost nothing except hit pieces on tech companies, programmers, and so on. He's been doing it for years. I knew this piece was by him before I even clicked the link. Asking Streitfeld to be fair to tech companies is like asking tabloid newspapers to respect celebrities' privacy; it's just not what they're about.
- blowski 9y ago
  If you think of the nation state as a dying entity, being replaced by global corporations, then it can sort of make sense. You could argue that they _are_ engaged in cyberwars. The way they can unilaterally change so much of our lives could also be construed as absolute power. I don’t necessarily agree with the author, as I think he misses out much of the benefit they continue to offer the world. But I think your criticsm is anachronistic - power in the 21st century isn’t measured solely by boots on the ground, or ability to raise taxes.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    As cornet Joyce proved "people with guns" is the defination of power
    - blowski 9y ago
      By that strict definition, there were no powerful people before guns were invented.
  - goatlover 9y ago
    Power is also the legal system, and corporations don't make, pass or interpret law either, even if they have an undue influence on some of those who do. But even with that influence, they're still at the mercy of voters. It's always possible for an unfavorable administration or legislator to get into power, or an unsympathetic judge to rule against them. And Governments have broken up powerful companies before.
    - sacheendra 9y ago
      For the sake of argument, they are at the mercy of voters is only true if voters cannot be influenced by these companies. Today's tech companies can influence voters in subtle ways an run huge PR campaigns to influence voters. In the future, only favourable legislators will come into power and laws, precedent and changing mindset will make it difficult for for a judge to rule against them. The difference between modern tech giants and erstwhile powerful companies like standard oil is that tech giants are much closer to people's daily lives and occupy some much of their time. This way people are attached and strong feelings about Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. that they didn't have towards Standard Oil.
- makomk 9y ago
  Also, fundamentally the problem people seem to have with tech giants isn't actually the concentration of power, it's that they're not using that power in precisely the way the people who're complaining want. For example, the complaints about "Russian interference" are a demand to exercise that centralised power. As another example, the activists who've been demanding Twitter crack down on doxxing and harassment are currently organising a 24-hour boycott of the site because it didn't let a celebrity post someone's private number and get her followers to harass them, because what they really meant is that the site should ban other people who they detest, that it should use its power to silence their enemies.
- ionised 9y ago
  prima noctis was a myth. There is no evidence of it ever being practiced.
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    >prima noctis was a myth. It is ius primae noctis (still there is no evidence it ever existed) or "right of the first night". "prima noctis" doesn't make much sense in Latin, it lacks the subject (ius aka right) and prima is not genitive as noctis is. It would make sense in expressions like "hora prima noctis" or "vigilia prima noctis" which translates to first hour (or vigilia, i.e. turn of vigilance, three hours long roughly) of the night and more loosely "just after sunset".
- nython 9y ago
  > Call me when Apple starts exercising prima noctis. https://pando.com/2014/03/27/how-steve-jobs-forced-google-to-cancel-its-plan-to-open-a-paris-office/ https://pando.com/2014/03/27/how-steve-jobs-forced-google-to...
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    I'm obviously not a medieval expert but how is that even vaguely related to this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I'm pretty sure Google can't wage war No, but such a service can be just be used to help win wars, blackmail politicians in other countries, spy on foreign businessmen and policy influencers, and those sorts of things... Besides corporations have a long history of meddling with local politics, hiring thugs to kill people (e.g. strikers or union leaders), even helping install dictatorships. Of course such things happen in such ways as to provide all ways of "plausible deniability" to company executives. It's not like they'll send a fax asking for such things -- "just deal with it" communicated to some local managers implies more than enough. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr.colombia https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    Right, the whole purpose of war in the first place is to defeat your enemy's will to fight you. There are a huge number of ways to do this without an army, and Google is in a particularly powerful position to do this.
  - ForRealsies 9y ago
    The division of Soft Power vs. Hard Power is well displayed in Trump's current Cabinet.
- Verdex_3 9y ago
  I appreciate your point, but I thought that I might add that many historians conclude that there is no reasonable evidence that prima noctis has actually occurred. It turns out that no matter how much power you have, there are still some lines that you have a really hard time crossing. Perhaps because it would cause an all out riot. Similarly, most countries are unable to wage war or hang people for theft because the social willpower just isn't present to allow them to do such things. Why should it be any different for companies. I think the question should be, what can a companies do that governments are also doing. Then we can look at what governments do that companies cannot do. If the first set is really big and the second set is really small, then maybe it's not really hyperbole, but just a minor exaggeration.
- Iv 9y ago
  Google has a foreign policy and could easily make hundreds if not thousand of activists killed around the world. It dictates the laws it wants its automated cars to obey. Apple probably has a better geolocalisation of people than any intelligence agency. Facebook and Twitter are suspected to have delivered the key to the last US presidential elections. Uber mocks the laws of several of the richest countries in the world. Softbank is becoming a behemoth that God knows if it will ever stop growing fat of its robots and AI acquisition. AI research is driven by web companies like Alibaba or Facebook. They are not kings, they are king makers.
williamle8300 9y ago
All centralized power structures will transform into threats. The future of information technology will be in decentralization/anonymity... not centralization and always-public models.
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  The future of information technology will be in decentralization/anonymity... That's what they promised us back then: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Now, instead of Usenet we have Reddit, instead of email we have Google and Microsoft, and instead of bookstores we have Amazon. Even Bitcoin is centralized.
  - gtcode 9y ago
    How is BTC centralized? Someone did decent research on this: https://news.21.co/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c28e https://news.21.co/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c28e
    - zdkl 9y ago
      You can get people representing >50% global mining power in the same, small room.
  - nnfy 9y ago
    I think we have witnessed the inevitable dilution of substance that occurs when the middle of the Bell Curve, so to speak, begins to participate in a social phenomenon.
  - awgneo 9y ago
    Who are they? The founding fathers of America promised Democracy, yet look at the corporate oligarchy in which we now live. You have to fight for this decentralized future in every decision you make.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Well, the thing is, centralization is always more efficient than decentralization, so everything humans do tends to centralize unless specific measures are taken. Which "evil centralized power structures" will definitely ensure are not.
vacri 9y ago
> Ross Baird, president of the venture capital firm Village Capital, noted that when ProPublica[click-through link] tried last month to buy targeted ads for “Jew haters” on Facebook, the platform did not question whether this was a bad idea — it asked the buyers how they would like to pay. Clicking through to read that article[1], it's clear that the categories were created by an algorithm rather than a human, and when reported, were removed without fuss. The way the main article phrases it is highly misleading. The click-through article also says that while "Jew Haters" was a group that could be selected, it was too small to buy a targetted Facebook ad for by itself. They added a few more 'jew-hating' categories, and a few 'Hitler' categories, and the target demographic was still too small. So they ended up adding the category for a small extremist political party in Germany. At this point, the target demographic was big enough to allow them to buy a $30 ad. Painting this as "Facebook is facilitating the rise of antisemitism just for a buck" is extraordinarily disingenuous. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertisers-to-reach-jew-haters https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertis...
- nl 9y ago
  the categories were created by an algorithm rather than a human, and when reported, were removed without fuss. I think that's the point: a) Automatic categorization means offensive categories will be created b) It takes a complaint to have them removed. The click-through article also says that while "Jew Haters" was a group that could be selected, it was too small to buy a targetted Facebook ad for by itself. They added a few more 'jew-hating' categories, and a few 'Hitler' categories, and the target demographic was still too small. It is unclear to me why the fact that this particular phrase was too small to buy for means it isn't a problem. The fact is you can target ads based on it, even though currently you also need to buy other groups. Additionally: The Daily Beast, which briefly ran its own ad campaign to test the company’s tools, says Twitter’s platform shows 18.6 million accounts “likely” to engage with the word “Nazi,” while another 14.5 million users might be drawn in by the N-word. For Twitter, the process seems entirely automated and there appear to be no safeguards in place — The Daily Beast tried a number of different hateful words and phrases and none were blacklisted by Twitter’s tools. https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/15/16316352/google-twitter-ad-targeting-anti-semitism-racism-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/15/16316352/google-twitter-a...
sanatgersappa 9y ago
and their use is purely optional.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  Not true at all. Google and Facebook have a profile on you and track you all over the net even if you don't have an account with them.
- pokemongoaway 9y ago
  I don't understand why so many people feel the need to chime into conversations with these types of comments. "There's lots of rapes in these neighborhoods at night" -- well women don't need to be wearing suggestive clothes or walking around without males "There is illegal surveillance" -- well I don't have anything to hide "There are a bunch of companies who are arguably degrading the fabric of society" -- that's not my experience "A problem exists" -- it doesn't apply to every person
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    It's the Just World Fallacy again. People want to believe that if Facebook and Google have done something bad to you, that it must somehow be your fault.
  - nnfy 9y ago
    You really can't compare being spied on while using a private social network to being raped in public.
    - pokemongoaway 9y ago
      Direct comparisons aren't the only reason why words appear next to each other...
  - closeparen 9y ago
    People who organize self-righteous outrage mobs to ban whatever is "degrading the fabric of society" this week have a habit of doing more damage to society than whatever it was you thought you were protecting it from. When self-righteous outrage mobs believe they have moral authority and are drumming up support for authoritarian interventions is when it's most important to challenge them forcefully. Even if an intervention is necessary in the end, it should be the product of a healthy debate and not an outrage mob railroading through its initial whims.
stupidcomments 9y ago
Nope. I hope they don't stomp on the little guys though/ don't get too crazy with tricky TOS and similar haha - your use of this software now allows us to copy your brain and upload / duplicate you to our matrix without further ado (hidden in line 32352 of itunes TOS v 20 ) /s
cirgue 9y ago
Captains of industry become robber barons. The same thing happened with Microsoft, AOL, and Oracle.
- TwoBit 9y ago
  How AOL?
  - adventured 9y ago
    That's a pretty far reach re AOL.... However, AOL went from being a small, scrappy upstart service provider to being the 800 pound gorilla that wielded increasingly significant media power, in just the span of 5-7 years. One moment they were subservient to the classic media powers, smaller than a mid-size magazine publisher. The next, they were lording over the media powers as a larger, potentially more powerful corporation worth $220 billion with tens of millions of subscribers (and it sure looked like they were going to get much larger). In the media world, AOL was just starting to become as feared as Microsoft was broadly when they purchased Time Warner. That completely shook the media landscape. This is mostly forgotten now, because that position lasted for only a few years. AOL at its peak, was starting to near Microsoft's financial position circa 1995-1996 or so. Their stock went from $7 to $175 in two years from 1997 to 1999. Their revenue went from $425 million in 1995, to $4.77 billion four years later ($762m in net income, with $1.1b in cash from operations) - nearly unbelievable growth for anything consumer Internet related at the time. Just as they arrived at burgeoning juggernaut status, it all began to unravel.
    - colejohnson66 9y ago
      Not entirely related, but to comment on how big AOL was: I once heard that AOL sent out so many CDs that more than 90% of all CDs being produced in the world were for AOL
      - creaghpatr 9y ago
        There was a period in the late 90s where every other box of cereal had an AOL CD taped to the box.
rdlecler1 9y ago
You can’t deny that these platforms are in an emergent self-winner-takes-all oligarchy of sorts. Take LinkedIn and Google for instance. LinkedIn allows Google to have full search access to the site and that’s beneficial to both LinkedIn and Google. However, if I want to spider LinkedIn to MVP my way to a new application they’ll lock me out. In effect, Google has monopoly as does LinkedIn, which owns the data. Because LinkedIn is already free and ubiquitous it benefits from network effects that create a strong competitive moat from new threats. Both companies have a kind of without either engaging in explicit anti-trust behavior and they even reinforce one another’s monopoly.
- owens99 9y ago
  Don't forget LinkedIn is Microsoft. The power is in even fewer hands.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Also, the business plan for many startups is getting acquired by a tech giant. So, best case scenario, certain classes of startups are destined for consolation as well.
    - chrisweekly 9y ago
      “consolation” > consolidation, right?
      - jkestner 9y ago
        As part of consolidation, you lose your ID.
      - humanrebar 9y ago
        Yes. Thanks.
- base 9y ago
  I see exactly the same with Facebook, certain APIs they only provide access to Partners and if you fill all the requirements and try to apply they just reject with a different excuse each time.
rixed 9y ago
I was hesitant to trust a direct competitor of the Tech "giants" about how dangerous they are. But ten minutes ago, the Google app store recommended that I install Firefox Focus that is a direct competitor of Chrome and that, by blocking ads, may hurt Google main source of incomes. Beat that, non-tech giants!
wallace_f 9y ago
>"[...] Russian interference" The amount of cognitive dissonance and double think one must embrace to read, not an op-ed, but news article in the NYT.(1) I don't even support Trump; I oppose him, but I'm not willing to indulge in the groupthink here. Maybe there was interference, probably even, but how can we be sure when the stories we are being fed keep falling apart? Just another in a long string of "just trust us" claims from the Deep State? 1 - https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/yet-another-major-russia-story-falls-apart-is-skepticism-permissible-yet/ https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/yet-another-major-russia...
- ww520 9y ago
  Something about repeating propaganda often enough and it becomes the truth. Sprinkling it often enough in different content and it becomes the narrative.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Yea, I mean we've just been through this with Iraq WMD lies. Now with NSA domestic surveillance. Also now with Syria: first they denied funding terrorists, then they called them moderate rebels, now the truth came out. I would be more trusting if these events didn't exist in the past. It is concerning that skepticism doesn't even seem to be allowed when we have all of these past failings of honesty sitting at our feet.
- fiala__ 9y ago
  Subtle but powerful Russian interference on social networks and media of Western countries is a thing whether we like it or not. I'm skeptical of how much that's true for the US, but in Europe it's ubiquitous and there's a lot of hard evidence for it – I'm talking governments setting up agencies to deal with it, not Alex Jones-style hysteria. some examples of the backlash: https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20496508/tasr-withdraws-from-contract-with-pro-putin-newswire.html https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20496508/tasr-withdraws-from-cont... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/28/czech-republic-to-fight-fake-news-with-specialist-unit https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/28/czech-republic...
amelius 9y ago
Why can't Tech Giants just deliver, you know ... tech? Why do they need their prying eyes on our data? In the old days of the internet, companies provided the hardware, and universities designed the protocols (which were federated), and ran the software.
- delta1 9y ago
  It seems their tech doesn't pay their bills quite as well as advertising?
  - colmvp 9y ago
    It certainly doesn't help when people don't give a shit. Billions use the service that Facebook and Google provide without much of a care about how their data may or may not be used. It's hard for me to blame Google/Facebook when we voluntarily sold our information to them and continue to do.
- noxToken 9y ago
  Because in the 90s, no one knew that all it took was pizza to get people to give up personal data[0]. Hell, a lot of data doesn't even cost them anything. Most people give up their browsing data for free. I guess it helps that the typical user doesn't even know how much info is contained in their browsing habits. [0]: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/08/03/pizza-privacy-stanford-economist-examines-paradox-digital-age/ https://news.stanford.edu/2017/08/03/pizza-privacy-stanford-...
known 9y ago
Pyramid schemes?
Bartweiss 9y ago
The wording of that title is very interesting. It's a perfect example of 'bureaucratic style'[1]. First, the passive voice. This is an article about people looking at tech giants, but the passive voice centralizes the companies. That associates the change with companies, not observers, and also makes the claim seem more objective by downplaying the fact that this is about potentially-inaccurate perceptions. Second, the missing subject. This goes beyond indefinite pronouns to fully absent pronouns; who's doing the seeing and the viewing? Since the best answer is "writers like me at media outlets like this one", it makes sense that it wasn't mentioned. Third, the acausal and discrete setup. Things used to be that way, now they're this way, these are just states of being without a transition or source. Lest someone notice that David Streitfeld has built his career promoting exactly this transition, and is perhaps not simply reporting on a change he observed, the title directs attention away from what shaped perception. And to be fair, it's just a pithy title, and there's a whole article here. (Although many of these approaches continue throughout.) But it's an interesting thing to analyze how the distinction between "people see this" and "this is reality" is blurred so aggressively in so few words. [1] https://longreads.com/2017/04/12/the-elements-of-bureaucratic-style/ https://longreads.com/2017/04/12/the-elements-of-bureaucrati...
- convexfunction 9y ago
  Seriously, this is the first thing I thought when I saw the title. > Yes, tech giants are now widely viewed as threats, lots of attention is invested into having negative valence about technology companies. Why do you think that is, Journalist For The New York Times?
drharby 9y ago
Nytimes sure is posting a lot of literature talking smack about SV

176 points by elsewhen 9y ago

From the article: "Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings" Call me when Apple starts exercising prima noctis. I'm pretty sure Google can't wage war, either, and if Oracle could hang you for theft they would've done so by now. So unless I'm missing something maybe we should lay off the hyperbole a bit?

B0btheBuilder 9y ago
hyperbole: >>hy·per·bo·le >>hīˈpərbəlē >>noun >>exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally Perhaps you're missing the fact that hyperbole isn't meant to be taken literally?
vacri 9y ago
When did prima noctis ever occur? Not "as a right of kings in general" which even the myths don't suggest, but even once, as a specific right of one king?
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The problem isn't that they're ruling the world with iron fists, the problem is that they could if they chose to. The data that each of those large tech companies are able to collect can be used to manipulate populations in ways that have never been seen before. That's not something to treat lightly.
pokemongoaway 9y ago
Yes, but they work closely with government - and moreover government intelligence agencies - so government can leverage their help to do these things. There's plenty of evidence this has already happened.
- dlp211 9y ago
  [Citation Needed]. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    The many missing-presumed-dead canaries? Snowden?
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    Search the internet for the following terms: <your national intelligence service(s)> working with <tech giant>
  - LambdaComplex 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
    - pokemongoaway 9y ago
      See project veritas and wikileaks as well.
  - pokemongoaway 9y ago
    [Explanation needed] that I made an extraordinary claim. It is interesting that people still think it is acceptable to call people crazy for claiming US government agencies are complicit in corruption.
    - wallace_f 9y ago
      I made this same point a while back on HN and the response I received was >people are half a second between 'that's absurd, they're not doing that,' and 'of course it's always been that way.' In 1994, X-Files Season 1 Ep. 17 introduced the Lone Gunmen, a group of conspiracy theorists: >"The characters, who were used to help Mulder appear more credible" If you watch the episode, one of the main 'batshit insane'conspiracy theories they put forward was that the government is recording everyone's phone calls--then Scully rolls her eyes and Mulder appears skeptical. You have to admit, it is kind of crazy... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.B.E._(The_X-Files) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.B.E._(The_X-Files)
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
In all seriousness though, I'm unsure why an Apple or Amazon hasn't raised their own private army by now.
- lettergram 9y ago
  If they're viewed as threats to soverenty I'm confident the company will disappear
  - squarefoot 9y ago
    It doesn't work like that. First they fund candidates, then...
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Armies are expensive and difficult to maintain, so you need a pressing reason to have one, such as defending or conquering territory. What would Apple or Amazon need an army for? If you want to see how a company can wield the power of a nation-state sans army, see: Exxon.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  They don't need large standing forces ATM because that's handled by nation states who will defend everything within their borders. As for smaller forces, hasn't it been outsourced by now? Can't Apple or Amazon or Google just hire Blackwater, or whatever they call themselves these days?
apsec112 9y ago
David Streitfeld writes almost nothing except hit pieces on tech companies, programmers, and so on. He's been doing it for years. I knew this piece was by him before I even clicked the link. Asking Streitfeld to be fair to tech companies is like asking tabloid newspapers to respect celebrities' privacy; it's just not what they're about.
blowski 9y ago
If you think of the nation state as a dying entity, being replaced by global corporations, then it can sort of make sense. You could argue that they _are_ engaged in cyberwars. The way they can unilaterally change so much of our lives could also be construed as absolute power. I don’t necessarily agree with the author, as I think he misses out much of the benefit they continue to offer the world. But I think your criticsm is anachronistic - power in the 21st century isn’t measured solely by boots on the ground, or ability to raise taxes.
- walshemj 9y ago
  As cornet Joyce proved "people with guns" is the defination of power
  - blowski 9y ago
    By that strict definition, there were no powerful people before guns were invented.
- goatlover 9y ago
  Power is also the legal system, and corporations don't make, pass or interpret law either, even if they have an undue influence on some of those who do. But even with that influence, they're still at the mercy of voters. It's always possible for an unfavorable administration or legislator to get into power, or an unsympathetic judge to rule against them. And Governments have broken up powerful companies before.
  - sacheendra 9y ago
    For the sake of argument, they are at the mercy of voters is only true if voters cannot be influenced by these companies. Today's tech companies can influence voters in subtle ways an run huge PR campaigns to influence voters. In the future, only favourable legislators will come into power and laws, precedent and changing mindset will make it difficult for for a judge to rule against them. The difference between modern tech giants and erstwhile powerful companies like standard oil is that tech giants are much closer to people's daily lives and occupy some much of their time. This way people are attached and strong feelings about Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. that they didn't have towards Standard Oil.
makomk 9y ago
Also, fundamentally the problem people seem to have with tech giants isn't actually the concentration of power, it's that they're not using that power in precisely the way the people who're complaining want. For example, the complaints about "Russian interference" are a demand to exercise that centralised power. As another example, the activists who've been demanding Twitter crack down on doxxing and harassment are currently organising a 24-hour boycott of the site because it didn't let a celebrity post someone's private number and get her followers to harass them, because what they really meant is that the site should ban other people who they detest, that it should use its power to silence their enemies.
ionised 9y ago
prima noctis was a myth. There is no evidence of it ever being practiced.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >prima noctis was a myth. It is ius primae noctis (still there is no evidence it ever existed) or "right of the first night". "prima noctis" doesn't make much sense in Latin, it lacks the subject (ius aka right) and prima is not genitive as noctis is. It would make sense in expressions like "hora prima noctis" or "vigilia prima noctis" which translates to first hour (or vigilia, i.e. turn of vigilance, three hours long roughly) of the night and more loosely "just after sunset".
nython 9y ago
> Call me when Apple starts exercising prima noctis. https://pando.com/2014/03/27/how-steve-jobs-forced-google-to-cancel-its-plan-to-open-a-paris-office/ https://pando.com/2014/03/27/how-steve-jobs-forced-google-to...
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  I'm obviously not a medieval expert but how is that even vaguely related to this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur
coldtea 9y ago
>I'm pretty sure Google can't wage war No, but such a service can be just be used to help win wars, blackmail politicians in other countries, spy on foreign businessmen and policy influencers, and those sorts of things... Besides corporations have a long history of meddling with local politics, hiring thugs to kill people (e.g. strikers or union leaders), even helping install dictatorships. Of course such things happen in such ways as to provide all ways of "plausible deniability" to company executives. It's not like they'll send a fax asking for such things -- "just deal with it" communicated to some local managers implies more than enough. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr.colombia https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
- fapjacks 9y ago
  Right, the whole purpose of war in the first place is to defeat your enemy's will to fight you. There are a huge number of ways to do this without an army, and Google is in a particularly powerful position to do this.
- ForRealsies 9y ago
  The division of Soft Power vs. Hard Power is well displayed in Trump's current Cabinet.
Verdex_3 9y ago
I appreciate your point, but I thought that I might add that many historians conclude that there is no reasonable evidence that prima noctis has actually occurred. It turns out that no matter how much power you have, there are still some lines that you have a really hard time crossing. Perhaps because it would cause an all out riot. Similarly, most countries are unable to wage war or hang people for theft because the social willpower just isn't present to allow them to do such things. Why should it be any different for companies. I think the question should be, what can a companies do that governments are also doing. Then we can look at what governments do that companies cannot do. If the first set is really big and the second set is really small, then maybe it's not really hyperbole, but just a minor exaggeration.
Iv 9y ago
Google has a foreign policy and could easily make hundreds if not thousand of activists killed around the world. It dictates the laws it wants its automated cars to obey. Apple probably has a better geolocalisation of people than any intelligence agency. Facebook and Twitter are suspected to have delivered the key to the last US presidential elections. Uber mocks the laws of several of the richest countries in the world. Softbank is becoming a behemoth that God knows if it will ever stop growing fat of its robots and AI acquisition. AI research is driven by web companies like Alibaba or Facebook. They are not kings, they are king makers.

williamle8300 9y ago

All centralized power structures will transform into threats. The future of information technology will be in decentralization/anonymity... not centralization and always-public models.

HarryHirsch 9y ago
The future of information technology will be in decentralization/anonymity... That's what they promised us back then: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Now, instead of Usenet we have Reddit, instead of email we have Google and Microsoft, and instead of bookstores we have Amazon. Even Bitcoin is centralized.
- gtcode 9y ago
  How is BTC centralized? Someone did decent research on this: https://news.21.co/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c28e https://news.21.co/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c28e
  - zdkl 9y ago
    You can get people representing >50% global mining power in the same, small room.
- nnfy 9y ago
  I think we have witnessed the inevitable dilution of substance that occurs when the middle of the Bell Curve, so to speak, begins to participate in a social phenomenon.
- awgneo 9y ago
  Who are they? The founding fathers of America promised Democracy, yet look at the corporate oligarchy in which we now live. You have to fight for this decentralized future in every decision you make.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Well, the thing is, centralization is always more efficient than decentralization, so everything humans do tends to centralize unless specific measures are taken. Which "evil centralized power structures" will definitely ensure are not.

vacri 9y ago

> Ross Baird, president of the venture capital firm Village Capital, noted that when ProPublica[click-through link] tried last month to buy targeted ads for “Jew haters” on Facebook, the platform did not question whether this was a bad idea — it asked the buyers how they would like to pay. Clicking through to read that article[1], it's clear that the categories were created by an algorithm rather than a human, and when reported, were removed without fuss. The way the main article phrases it is highly misleading. The click-through article also says that while "Jew Haters" was a group that could be selected, it was too small to buy a targetted Facebook ad for by itself. They added a few more 'jew-hating' categories, and a few 'Hitler' categories, and the target demographic was still too small. So they ended up adding the category for a small extremist political party in Germany. At this point, the target demographic was big enough to allow them to buy a $30 ad. Painting this as "Facebook is facilitating the rise of antisemitism just for a buck" is extraordinarily disingenuous. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertisers-to-reach-jew-haters https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertis...

nl 9y ago
the categories were created by an algorithm rather than a human, and when reported, were removed without fuss. I think that's the point: a) Automatic categorization means offensive categories will be created b) It takes a complaint to have them removed. The click-through article also says that while "Jew Haters" was a group that could be selected, it was too small to buy a targetted Facebook ad for by itself. They added a few more 'jew-hating' categories, and a few 'Hitler' categories, and the target demographic was still too small. It is unclear to me why the fact that this particular phrase was too small to buy for means it isn't a problem. The fact is you can target ads based on it, even though currently you also need to buy other groups. Additionally: The Daily Beast, which briefly ran its own ad campaign to test the company’s tools, says Twitter’s platform shows 18.6 million accounts “likely” to engage with the word “Nazi,” while another 14.5 million users might be drawn in by the N-word. For Twitter, the process seems entirely automated and there appear to be no safeguards in place — The Daily Beast tried a number of different hateful words and phrases and none were blacklisted by Twitter’s tools. https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/15/16316352/google-twitter-ad-targeting-anti-semitism-racism-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/15/16316352/google-twitter-a...

sanatgersappa 9y ago

and their use is purely optional.

Analemma_ 9y ago
Not true at all. Google and Facebook have a profile on you and track you all over the net even if you don't have an account with them.
pokemongoaway 9y ago
I don't understand why so many people feel the need to chime into conversations with these types of comments. "There's lots of rapes in these neighborhoods at night" -- well women don't need to be wearing suggestive clothes or walking around without males "There is illegal surveillance" -- well I don't have anything to hide "There are a bunch of companies who are arguably degrading the fabric of society" -- that's not my experience "A problem exists" -- it doesn't apply to every person
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  It's the Just World Fallacy again. People want to believe that if Facebook and Google have done something bad to you, that it must somehow be your fault.
- nnfy 9y ago
  You really can't compare being spied on while using a private social network to being raped in public.
  - pokemongoaway 9y ago
    Direct comparisons aren't the only reason why words appear next to each other...
- closeparen 9y ago
  People who organize self-righteous outrage mobs to ban whatever is "degrading the fabric of society" this week have a habit of doing more damage to society than whatever it was you thought you were protecting it from. When self-righteous outrage mobs believe they have moral authority and are drumming up support for authoritarian interventions is when it's most important to challenge them forcefully. Even if an intervention is necessary in the end, it should be the product of a healthy debate and not an outrage mob railroading through its initial whims.

stupidcomments 9y ago

Nope. I hope they don't stomp on the little guys though/ don't get too crazy with tricky TOS and similar haha - your use of this software now allows us to copy your brain and upload / duplicate you to our matrix without further ado (hidden in line 32352 of itunes TOS v 20 ) /s

cirgue 9y ago

Captains of industry become robber barons. The same thing happened with Microsoft, AOL, and Oracle.

TwoBit 9y ago
How AOL?
- adventured 9y ago
  That's a pretty far reach re AOL.... However, AOL went from being a small, scrappy upstart service provider to being the 800 pound gorilla that wielded increasingly significant media power, in just the span of 5-7 years. One moment they were subservient to the classic media powers, smaller than a mid-size magazine publisher. The next, they were lording over the media powers as a larger, potentially more powerful corporation worth $220 billion with tens of millions of subscribers (and it sure looked like they were going to get much larger). In the media world, AOL was just starting to become as feared as Microsoft was broadly when they purchased Time Warner. That completely shook the media landscape. This is mostly forgotten now, because that position lasted for only a few years. AOL at its peak, was starting to near Microsoft's financial position circa 1995-1996 or so. Their stock went from $7 to $175 in two years from 1997 to 1999. Their revenue went from $425 million in 1995, to $4.77 billion four years later ($762m in net income, with $1.1b in cash from operations) - nearly unbelievable growth for anything consumer Internet related at the time. Just as they arrived at burgeoning juggernaut status, it all began to unravel.
  - colejohnson66 9y ago
    Not entirely related, but to comment on how big AOL was: I once heard that AOL sent out so many CDs that more than 90% of all CDs being produced in the world were for AOL
    - creaghpatr 9y ago
      There was a period in the late 90s where every other box of cereal had an AOL CD taped to the box.

rdlecler1 9y ago

You can’t deny that these platforms are in an emergent self-winner-takes-all oligarchy of sorts. Take LinkedIn and Google for instance. LinkedIn allows Google to have full search access to the site and that’s beneficial to both LinkedIn and Google. However, if I want to spider LinkedIn to MVP my way to a new application they’ll lock me out. In effect, Google has monopoly as does LinkedIn, which owns the data. Because LinkedIn is already free and ubiquitous it benefits from network effects that create a strong competitive moat from new threats. Both companies have a kind of without either engaging in explicit anti-trust behavior and they even reinforce one another’s monopoly.

owens99 9y ago
Don't forget LinkedIn is Microsoft. The power is in even fewer hands.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Also, the business plan for many startups is getting acquired by a tech giant. So, best case scenario, certain classes of startups are destined for consolation as well.
  - chrisweekly 9y ago
    “consolation” > consolidation, right?
    - jkestner 9y ago
      As part of consolidation, you lose your ID.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      Yes. Thanks.
base 9y ago
I see exactly the same with Facebook, certain APIs they only provide access to Partners and if you fill all the requirements and try to apply they just reject with a different excuse each time.

rixed 9y ago

I was hesitant to trust a direct competitor of the Tech "giants" about how dangerous they are. But ten minutes ago, the Google app store recommended that I install Firefox Focus that is a direct competitor of Chrome and that, by blocking ads, may hurt Google main source of incomes. Beat that, non-tech giants!

wallace_f 9y ago

>"[...] Russian interference" The amount of cognitive dissonance and double think one must embrace to read, not an op-ed, but news article in the NYT.(1) I don't even support Trump; I oppose him, but I'm not willing to indulge in the groupthink here. Maybe there was interference, probably even, but how can we be sure when the stories we are being fed keep falling apart? Just another in a long string of "just trust us" claims from the Deep State? 1 - https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/yet-another-major-russia-story-falls-apart-is-skepticism-permissible-yet/ https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/yet-another-major-russia...

ww520 9y ago
Something about repeating propaganda often enough and it becomes the truth. Sprinkling it often enough in different content and it becomes the narrative.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Yea, I mean we've just been through this with Iraq WMD lies. Now with NSA domestic surveillance. Also now with Syria: first they denied funding terrorists, then they called them moderate rebels, now the truth came out. I would be more trusting if these events didn't exist in the past. It is concerning that skepticism doesn't even seem to be allowed when we have all of these past failings of honesty sitting at our feet.
fiala__ 9y ago
Subtle but powerful Russian interference on social networks and media of Western countries is a thing whether we like it or not. I'm skeptical of how much that's true for the US, but in Europe it's ubiquitous and there's a lot of hard evidence for it – I'm talking governments setting up agencies to deal with it, not Alex Jones-style hysteria. some examples of the backlash: https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20496508/tasr-withdraws-from-contract-with-pro-putin-newswire.html https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20496508/tasr-withdraws-from-cont... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/28/czech-republic-to-fight-fake-news-with-specialist-unit https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/28/czech-republic...

amelius 9y ago

Why can't Tech Giants just deliver, you know ... tech? Why do they need their prying eyes on our data? In the old days of the internet, companies provided the hardware, and universities designed the protocols (which were federated), and ran the software.

delta1 9y ago
It seems their tech doesn't pay their bills quite as well as advertising?
- colmvp 9y ago
  It certainly doesn't help when people don't give a shit. Billions use the service that Facebook and Google provide without much of a care about how their data may or may not be used. It's hard for me to blame Google/Facebook when we voluntarily sold our information to them and continue to do.
noxToken 9y ago
Because in the 90s, no one knew that all it took was pizza to get people to give up personal data[0]. Hell, a lot of data doesn't even cost them anything. Most people give up their browsing data for free. I guess it helps that the typical user doesn't even know how much info is contained in their browsing habits. [0]: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/08/03/pizza-privacy-stanford-economist-examines-paradox-digital-age/ https://news.stanford.edu/2017/08/03/pizza-privacy-stanford-...

known 9y ago

Pyramid schemes?

Bartweiss 9y ago

The wording of that title is very interesting. It's a perfect example of 'bureaucratic style'[1]. First, the passive voice. This is an article about people looking at tech giants, but the passive voice centralizes the companies. That associates the change with companies, not observers, and also makes the claim seem more objective by downplaying the fact that this is about potentially-inaccurate perceptions. Second, the missing subject. This goes beyond indefinite pronouns to fully absent pronouns; who's doing the seeing and the viewing? Since the best answer is "writers like me at media outlets like this one", it makes sense that it wasn't mentioned. Third, the acausal and discrete setup. Things used to be that way, now they're this way, these are just states of being without a transition or source. Lest someone notice that David Streitfeld has built his career promoting exactly this transition, and is perhaps not simply reporting on a change he observed, the title directs attention away from what shaped perception. And to be fair, it's just a pithy title, and there's a whole article here. (Although many of these approaches continue throughout.) But it's an interesting thing to analyze how the distinction between "people see this" and "this is reality" is blurred so aggressively in so few words. [1] https://longreads.com/2017/04/12/the-elements-of-bureaucratic-style/ https://longreads.com/2017/04/12/the-elements-of-bureaucrati...

convexfunction 9y ago
Seriously, this is the first thing I thought when I saw the title. > Yes, tech giants are now widely viewed as threats, lots of attention is invested into having negative valence about technology companies. Why do you think that is, Journalist For The New York Times?

drharby 9y ago

Nytimes sure is posting a lot of literature talking smack about SV