Few weeks back, WhatsApp called out users to either accept their new policy or get bumped off. A while ago, the sitting US President was de-platformed from Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Around the same time, Amazon servers took off websites that they felt violated their policies. Google and Apple took the Parler app off their platform.
Big tech companies are monopolies, or rather megapolies (if one can coin that word to include size). Governments and users consent to and tolerate mega techs to get away with privacy and security issues. Politicians benefit from these platforms, shareholders make money from them and users fall for free services.
In the case of POTUS, the de-platforming is not an issue but permanent de-platforming is. No right to appeal is an issue. The lack of identity of these companies is a problem. (Google calls itself a marketing company, like the Big Four firms call themselves audit firms as and when it suits them!) Hiding identity and masquerading makes it all the more difficult to put a finger on wrongdoing.
Big tech today has the power to decide who has the right to assemble digitally and who has the right to speak digitally and what they can say. But when tech companies act together – either explicitly or sequentially and ‘embolden each other’ – it seems more like a cartel. Imagine if all these companies had converted free services into paid, people would have been up in arms, but not so when it concerns our civil liberties. What happened in the last few months is a kind of signalling.
More important was the subject matter – free speech and its control. We are made to believe that these are private companies. Well, if you get bumped out of one service provider, you can go elsewhere. But can free speech be privatised in a global townhall? Big tech normally talks big about freedom of speech and the like. In practice it’s not so! Add to it the leftist bias amongst those who farm the content, as already admitted by a tech honcho. This bias makes platforms more spacious for only one type of ideology. Effectively, if a cartel takes a coordinated decision, it is like a government decision and you just can’t contest it.
Free markets and capitalism have a wild and wicked side on which monopolies thrive. And the winner takes all. Can private companies disconnect your phone? Can they censor your speech? There is a difference between being a platform / medium and having editorial rights. I remember one government handle blocked me for voicing my opposing views and concerns. But do I have effective free speech rights on private platforms against a government handle? No!
Today, there is little one can do to protect these issues from monopolistic practices and especially from a free speech protection perspective. Even America doesn’t have much in its legal framework.
Big tech has taken over much of the competition. There are very few options to choose from. Should some of these services be treated as essential services and be paid for? Should there be an unbiased redressal mechanism? Do we need laws to deal with a specific situation like India just announced last week?
Tech corporations want people to live by rules and standards or community guidelines. But whose standard should be ‘the standard’? We don’t know! However, we do know that an individual and his civil liberties alone can be the centre point. An Individual is and should remain the sovereign. The time has come for an Online Bill of Rights so that no one can decide for us. What we have now is a situation where so many aspects of our lives are taken over by tech oligarchies without any rights!
