Yes, I am well aware of what happened on Tuesday, and I will have more to say about it tomorrow. But one of the ways you stick it to authoritarians is joy, and books bring me joy. Living as good a life as possible, letting them see you laugh at them and the idea that they can “own” you is one of the means of resistance.
Should I Read It: Probably
BookShop Link (not a commission link): The Tech Coup
Author’s Website: Cyber Policy Center
The Tech Coup, by Marietje Schaake, is a good overview of one of my hobbyhorses: the consequences of not keeping technology companies under democratic control. Ms. Schaake is a former Member of European Parliament from the Netherlands. From her experience in government, she came to realize that tech companies were much too powerful and needed to be reined in. This book is a good overview of how we got to this place, the damage that said companies do, and what to do about the problem.
The book will not be a revelation to anyone who has followed these issues for any length of time. Tech companies, like any other overly large businesses, have too much power over the public sphere. Not only can they use their money to influence governments, not only are they so large that current fines and penalties are simply the cost of doing business, but their unique insight into online lives gives them additional powers that are democracy threatening. Tech firms that collect or sell data have a wide-ranging set of powers that they can and have used to help governments spy on activists and spread misinformation. Their view into people, their ability to drive engagement to specific topics and with encourage specific emotional cues allow them to drive misinformation and attention in a way that is easily used to undermine democratic institutions. They are, in a very real sense, competitors to democratic governance — digital kleptocracies.
Unfortunately, with Trump’s win, the steps to discipline these companies are going to be much harder. The solutions are relatively simple in concept of difficult in execution: use of anti-trust to break up large companies; personal responsibility for executives when they do something illegal; penalties that materially harm the companies found to have violated the law; regulations on algorithms and their uses; creation of publicly controlled alternatives. None of that is going to happen during the Trump administration, at least in the US. But given that the EU will likely see US tech as dangerous, there is some hope that they will be both more aggressive in their regulations and enforcement and more willing to fund non-US alternatives.
None of the above, neither the concept of tech companies as being uniquely bad for democracy nor the proposed solutions, is new. It is something that has bene discussed by tech and tech-adjacent people for several years. However, the book lays out the problem, its history, and its potential solutions in clear, concise and compelling arguments. It is a nice primer for how to effectively discuss the issues and a decent if abbreviated history of how we got here. If you aren’t steeped in tech discussion (and what a lucky person you are if you are not), then this book is worth reading for the compelling and thorough case it makes against our tech overlords.
