NISO Discourse Discussion for this sessionhttps://discourse.niso.org/t/keynote-the-day-of-the-comet-what-trustbusting-means-for-digital-manipulation/71Big Tech likes to boast about how good it is at manipulating us and oh,
they are! But the cover manipulation - the psychological tricks they
sell to advertisers and politicians - are thinly supported by the
evidence and rely on self-serving, internal research that is largely
indistinguishable from marketing puffery. On the other hand, there are
plenty of ways that Big Tech provably alters our behavior: Facebook
locks all your friends in its walled garden so you need a Facebook
account to talk to your friends. Apple locks apps in its walled garden
so you can't access apps that Apple doesn't like. Google pays billions
to make it the default search on every platform, so any time you ask a
question, they're the ones giving you an answer.
All of this manipulation doesn't require psychological or technological
tricks - all it needs is monopoly, and for the first time in 40 years,
lawmakers are getting serious about fighting monopolies.
Using anti-monopoly laws to break Big Tech's power may sound like a win:
but if it turns out that Big Tech's claims to psychological manipulation
mastery are true, then won't breaking Big Tech up just create dozens of
little, reckless firms that have access to these devastating
psychological weapons?
In other words: if Big Tech is a comet headed at our planet threatening
all life, then won't breaking it up turn it into a devastating meteor
shower that we can't hope to survive?
