Facebook like East India Company. Why have the tech giants get too big? [ROZMOWA]

in recent months he has started to get into more and more trouble. It was initiated by the whistleblower Francis Haugen, who took tens of thousands of documents from the company. American editorial offices are analyzing them, but he accuses Facebook of cheating shareholders and because they bring them a profit. about the lack of reaction to the movements that led to the attack on the Capitol.

Jan J. Zygmuntowski, an economist dealing with the digital economy, wrote on Twitter that this case is the beginning of the end of GAFA – that is, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple – as we know it. However, solving problems requires identifying them first.

GAFA have become too big and too important

After allegations of collusion appeared in 2020, Facebook sent out a statement. Zygmuntowski reacted with indignation, because the company did not deny the accusations, on the contrary. Common practice in the industry, she claimed. The expert made it clear. This is undoubtedly an illegal collusion, he said, and that Facebook and Facebook have virtually no chance of being brought to trial.

Every country where the ads were shown was impacted by these actions. So just as well, the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection should open proceedings at this point, to which I strongly encourage President Chróstny

– said Zygmuntowski.

He also admitted that such a response from Facebook is symptomatic of a toxic corporate culture that is also extremely hierarchical. The owners have controlling interests and are therefore always right. Zygmuntowski points out that

According to Zygmuntowski, it is now, when black clouds are gathering over the company. There was a threat of social criticism, so as a distraction, Zuckerberg decided to speed up his movements to completely confuse people.

Zygmuntowski has the impression that the GAFAs have faith that they are able to control us thanks to the monstrous amount of data about us.

This belief is a bit naive. The giants are not able to fully manipulate us and therefore have to lobby and destroy the freedom of speech more all the time.

– notes the expert.

It must be emphasized that Facebook and other online platforms have become a public place. is the best proof of that. Shouldn’t the internet be a safe place like a street or public transport? So that you don’t have to wonder if something bad will happen to us there? Zygmuntowski quoted here the words of John Perry Barlow from

There are literally such phrases that cyberspace is a place that is free from the influence of corporations and states, where everyone realizes themselves, etc. to protect their exclusivity, they must adopt imperialist strategies

– notes Zygmuntowski.

And he cites the analyzes of Rosa Luxemburg or Vladimir Lenin, which showed how the expansion of financial and industrial capital led to colonialism and enslavement. Like GAFA, the East India Company, in the model of colonial capitalism, became so big and managed such a large part of society that it fundamentally changed the lives of all people. And to protect this status, she basically tried to create her own state in India. Facebook does the same with the creation of Mateverse. As the expert points out, GAFA have already taken over such a large part of the public space that they are competing with the state. Instead, they want to solve this problem by gaining sovereignty.

The metaverse seems to resemble the vision in The Matrix, where machines used people to draw energy from them and gave them the illusion of the real world and free choice.

Yes. We just thought robots against humans would do it. And this is not so, the capitalists will do it to free themselves from any social oversight

– Zygmuntowski scores.

Inequalities on the Internet are not going away

(available on HBO GO in Polish) the topic was disinformation. Facebook is actively fighting it by tagging content, but it turns out to be mostly English-speaking. Other languages ​​are still fairly easy to circulate.

This linguistic embarrassment has become more serious in the pandemic era, but it has already been embarrassing before. Here, Zygmuntowski compares the content important to Americans with those that are irrelevant to them. Posts on Middle East extremism were automatically banned due to the importance of the region for Americans. At the same time, although Facebook is based in Poland, it did not respond to the letter from the Panoptykon foundation regarding the Social Initiative of Narcopolitics. He claimed that it was impossible to read a document in Polish – it shows the pathology of the Zygmuntowski system.

The expert adds that. Zygmuntowski says directly that the company lent a hand to the events in which paramilitary groups murdered tens of thousands of people. Facebook may have missed out on pogroms, and it has done nothing.

It is also necessary to return to the case of Donald Trump again. It turned out that despite the publication of content inconsistent with Facebook’s regulations, the Billionaire generated such interest and traffic on the website that it was not worth blocking it. At the same time, even if we recognize that the world is just like that, that they are equal and more equal, it is problematic when private entities decide who is who.

Censorship as a hotbed for early spring changes

Jan Zygmuntowski believes that corporations are not able to control us as much as they think. In his opinion, revival is approaching, hence the words about the end of GAFA. The unification of the right and the left is significant for this direction, because both Republicans and Democrats see a threat in digital giants. Poles also find in it a common enemy who is making a gradual attack on their freedom through excessive censorship.

Everyone feels that something is wrong. I would compare it to a situation where in Soviet times citizens watched TV and had the feeling that they were definitely deceiving us on this TV, but they didn’t quite know what the truth was. We assume the way of seeing that is there, but we have this red lamp – more and more – that something is clearly wrong. As if we were walking through this matrix and seeing that there are errors in the system, that something is skipping, there are glitches. We still believe that the wall is where it is, or we haven’t figured it out yet that we’ll start destroying their machines, leaving Facebook, attacking the company’s employees. It doesn’t escalate to that extent, but everyone has a feeling that something is wrong. Even if at the same time they are radicalized by algorithms

– describes the social situation of Zygmuntowski.

GAFA compares the case of criticism to the GDPR, which changed the social discourse. And this one is, according to the expert, the key one. We have gained the right to the protection of our data – perhaps without tools – and the awareness of the need to protect it has emerged, which is already a permanent element of the public debate. Likewise, the scandals around Facebook and Google can become a trigger and the beginning of a wide discussion on how to reform technologies.

Zygmuntowski adds that no one can destroy social trust and hope that he can protect himself from it, think that it will not ultimately turn against himself. Polarizing actions are also drawing the attention of politicians, who can no longer ignore increasingly extreme and aggressive movements and demonstrations in exchange for enormous tax revenues. The state is losing power and agency, which citizens begin to attribute to extreme groups, for example at the forefront of the anti-vaccine march. Zygmuntowski points out that most of the participants in such demonstrations are probably average people. – They connect facts and become radicalized, because, for example, neo-fascists give them a sense of agency, the expert points out.

Therefore, Zygmuntowski points out that the regulations of digital giants are becoming the main agenda of foreign politicians, both in China, America and Brussels. However, the expert criticizes the actions of the Polish government in this matter.

So what to do with the tech giants? You can read the conversation on this topic on our website next week. You can also listen to our Technoterapia podcast where we discussed this matter.