Tech types think Big Tech is too powerful ....and wants to work more closely with China

[4urEyezOnly]

A news source you may have noticed I’ve picked up lately is Protocol, who gives some pretty good coverage of the tech space with a focus on what’s going on in China. Recently they undertook a survey with 1,578 members of the US tech community. Among the results was a surprising consensus among this group that “Big Tech” is both too powerful and causes more harm than good.

More than 40% feel that Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple should be broken up.

Another item is co-operation with Law Enforcement, where 44% of the respondents felt that Big Tech should not cooperate with Law Enforcement Agencies.

That said, over half the respondents want better relations with China and that if a Cold War with China were to erupt (I think we’re a little past that, tbh), it would “cripple U.S Tech Companies.”

The issue as I see it is where in the US, Big Tech is emerging as another check against state power, à la Network State vs Nation State that we talk about in the AxisOfEasy salons so often, in China's Big Tech is the State, or at least just an appendage of it.

I think if Big Tech here thinks they can bring China around to a more classically liberal economy through osmosis, remember that's what the Western diplomats thought would happen since their admittance to the WTO, and that isn’t exactly how things have played out.

Instead, as per James Green’s lengthy account of US-China relation to liberalism:

"China is now presenting itself as an alternative model to liberal democracy in the areas of economic management, political governance, media manipulation, and technology control. “ <https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/defense-of-diplomacy-china>

Let's face it for what it is: Big Tech wants to work with China because a) China throws a lot of money around and is one of the forces (along with Saudi Arabia) buoying up unicorn valuations in Silicon Valley and b) they’re salivating over the prospect of gaining access to the Chinese market and are willing (despite their performative woke-isms at home) to turn a blind eye to the systemic human rights abuses there.

<https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/protocol-china/tech-workers-on-china>