Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft don’t just sell products anymore – they are and continue to shape speech, work, markets, and now AI itself. A recent Globe and Mail piece have pointed out that we are long overdue to treat Big Tech less like untouchable innovators and more like critical infrastructure that needs oversight
This was something which was already on my mind for a few weeks coz as AI accelerates, this gap becomes dangerous… decisions about data, algorithms, and access are being made by a handful of firms with global impact and minimal oversight.
regulation doesn’t have to kill innovation, but please, pretending these platforms are “just companies” feels increasingly unrealistic
what do we think – should we govern tech before the next crisis, not after (coz we've seen too many movies to know its bound to happen)?
It’s Time to Treat Big Tech Like Public Infrastructure – Not Untouchable Titans (with sources & future implications)
byu/ChefRich962 inFuturology
2 Comments
Public infrastructure is usually publicly funded, directed by government agencies, and is mature technologies that have little room to grow. Tech fits none of those criteria. It absolutely can be a sabotage move where large companies become ossified by regulations and smaller companies fill the gaps they can’t.
There are too many people who want to see them fail to produce neutral regulations. Too many people have interests that would want to see them slow down or fail completely.
Using existing mechanisms, the legislature would have to act on provision 230 of the CDA, and make the rules more specific for whether a site is acting in the role of a platform or a publisher, and thus subject to the regulations of either. The court punted on the issue back in 2023, so it remains in limbo, a state of affairs favored by industry lobbyists.