Conservatives Validate Our Prediction about a Big Tech Backlash, According to the New York Times

We know, a lot of our blog articles this year have been touting that our predictions have come true. While we are planning a number of articles that go beyond acknowledging our predictions have been validated, we do think it provides context when we see how the trends actually hit.

At the end of 2017, we said: 

There will be a debate about whether or not and how to regulate Facebook, Google and Twitter. The concern is about the power of their algorithms to determine what we see, especially regarding political ads and the veracity of the news delivered to each of us. The three major platforms have not disclosed specifics but have committed to working to increase transparency and prevent completely false and irresponsible content from being perceived as real news. The underlying questions are: "Has big tech gotten too powerful?" and "Can the major players truly clamp down on the false narratives spread on their platform?" and "How can Congress find a way to regulate them to prevent it from happening in the future?" Expect Congress to continue to hold hearings on the subject – just don’t expect any agreement on the answers before 2018’s midterm elections. (Net neutrality, another issue that also involves big tech, will be an additional source of debate and contention.)

We've already seen a lot of media coverage and Congressional hearings about the unchecked power of algorithms, and the havoc they can wreak. (I feel like I'm writing about a supervillain in a Marvel movie.)

We've seen a big tech backlash from the usual sources but now we're seeing it from otherwise free-market conservatives. Check out this New York Times article: "New Foils for the Right: Google and Facebook" (print headline: "Conservatives Find New Foil in Culture Wars: Silicon Valley" -- still not sure why The Times and other outlets don't let you search using the print headline but that's a topic for another blog post).

The article uses a soon-to-released documentary, "The Creepy Line" that looks at possible censorship of right-wing views as part of the ongoing culture wars.

Right now, with the left saying Google, Facebook and Twitter aren't doing to enough to prevent cyberbullying and misinformation and now the right saying those big tech companies are being too aggressive in sidelining views from the right -- big tech is between a rock and a hard place. 

It's hard to fend off attacks from both sides. Do too much, and one side complains. Back off a bit, and the other side now complains.

From our perspective, the real problem is there's never going to be a solution that fully satisfies critics on both sides. It will be a challenge for big tech to head things off with internal tweaks to their algorithms if only because the outside world (us) won't really see the impact of those tweaks. And Congress has shown itself unable to figure out a solution it can impose.

So.

We expect this to be a big issue that doesn't really go away. It certainly won't go away during the build-up to the 2018 midterm elections. And it won't go away Nov. 7, 2018, the day after the midterm elections when cable reporters start talking about the 2020 elections.