What is the role for out of power Democrats on Big Tech?

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, appears to have forged a deal with some of the country’s most renowned tech billionaires.

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are some of the tech tycoons who attended&nbsp, his inauguration. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, recently praised him in a recent post following a proposed $500 billion investment in artificial intelligence technology.

The lavish praise may seem to indicate a shift in the allegiance of tech leaders, who have historically been seen as more in favor of Democrats than Republicans. Democrats under former president Joe Biden may have adopted antitrust laws that targeted large tech companies and have generally become more critical of billionaires as a result of this change.

These tech giants now appear to be eager to support a Republican leader who will lower their taxes, oppose unionization initiatives, grant them government contracts, and allow their businesses to grow as large as they want.

Zephyr Teachout, a lawyer, author and associate professor of law at Fordham University, says Big Tech leaders were not aligned with the Democrats, though, and that has become even more clear than it was recently.

“Tech leaders were never with Democrats. They have always been aligned with power”, says Teachout. “In the Obama era, Google wrapped its arms and tentacles around and into the Obama administration, and for a combination of cultural reasons and reflected glow, there was a sense that Big Tech were, for Democrats, ‘ our people'”.

According to The Intercept, Google was a very important partner in the White House under President Barack Obama. It reached the point where leaders from Google were offering the administration “expertise, services, advice, and personnel for vital government projects”.

Business leaders have been known to sway from the left to the right, according to Nathan Schneider, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He claims that a large portion of why tech executives are backing Trump also lies in labor relations.

“Many companies had labor uprisings in their ranks after the last Trump election, where elite engineers and other employees organized to oppose major business lines like those for China and military contracts,” Schneider said.

These leaders were deeply affected by that, and they have made it clear they do not want to see it again. Many other tech CEOs were given permission to purge their trust and safety teams as a result of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Trump’s embrace is an additional step in the right direction, he continued.

Many tech companies saw employee organizing to form unions and becoming more critical of their actions, such as signing contracts with the US military, during the Biden era. Musk has faced resistance from his company’s employees, who have long been prominent union opponents.

Embracing Trump may seem politically appropriate at the moment, but it might not be wise in the long run. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he will fire back former partners who once favored him when they violate his dislikes or are no longer useful. Tech CEOs who are currently experiencing love might not be able to do so soon.

“The history we have seen from the first term is that, even if he’s your friend right now, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be your friend in a year”, says Mark Lemley, a law professor at Stanford University. “Even if there’s an ideological alignment, and even if they think their companies will benefit from them sucking up to Trump, that’s going to happen right up until it doesn’t. He doesn’t have any loyalty to them”.

Trump was known for firing people who were once close to him during his first term, from Steve Bannon, the president’s chief strategist in the first few months of his first term, to Anthony Scarmucci, his top communications official, also in the first term. After all, “You’re fired” was his catchphrase as a reality TV show host.

Role for Democrats

Democrats will have to make a decision regarding their strategy for Big Tech now that the sands have changed. Will they continue to fight against billionaires and antitrust laws? Or will they limit those efforts to appease the billionaires?

Democrats should fight the rapacious middlemen who steal wages, exploit customers, and sabotage the chances for small businesses to prosper, according to Teachout. They should be part of the people: workers, small business owners, local communities, whether in cities or small towns. “Democrats should be the party of small D democracy, and that’s incompatible with gargantuan octopuses of power”.

Essentially, Teachout says Democrats should not pull back on their efforts to reform Big Tech and tax billionaires, and they should continue to fight for working-class people. She says Democrats need to lay out a clear agenda for breaking up Big Tech and recognise the threat that Big Tech poses to “innovation, equality, and democracy”.

They need a fundamentally different approach, I believe. Instead of focusing on boosting the power of billionaire CEOs, policy should concentrate on fostering power from the bottom up, empowering communities to solve their own issues, according to Schneider.

That means urging tech companies to protect user privacy and interoperability. That means public investment in open-source software]including for AI] that communities can run and control”, Teachout said.

Social media platforms like Bluesky were designed to be transparent and safeguard users’ rights, which have gained popularity among left-leaning internet users who prefer to avoid platforms like Musk’s X. This might give an idea of the direction leftists will adopt in terms of technology.

While Republicans control the House and the Senate, according to Lemley, Democrats are unlikely to be able to accomplish much in the next two years. However, they can speak out about tech-related issues and win the support of the public. He claimed that the majority of the electorate is already prepared to support the message being sent.

According to Lemley, “I think the public’s perception of Big Tech has risen significantly.” According to a poll conducted on January 24 by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, people don’t support billionaires participating in government policy.

Although it is still unclear whether this breakup between Democrats and Big Tech will be permanent, it is clear that some Democrats were prepared to do so because the algorithms used to spread disinformation on social media platforms have undoubtedly impacted their messaging and electoral chances.

Source: Aljazeera