The ugly face of big tech imperialism

Elon Musk has gotten into a bitter fight with the President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his wife, and has called a judge of the Brazilian Supreme Court an “evil dictator” after ‘X’ was banned because it refused to follow the orders of the court. The latest turn came just over the weekend as world leaders prepared to meet in Rio de Janeiro for the 2024 summit of the G-20.

At a G-20 event last weekend, the wife of President Lula Da Silva spoke of the need to regulate social media platforms to control disinformation. She later swore at Musk, saying: "I'm not afraid of you, **** you, Elon Musk." The owner of ‘X’ was quick to respond: “They are going to lose the next election,” he wrote, in an apparent reference to President Lula da Silva and his Workers Party. In this, Musk and ‘X’ found themselves in support of the far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro who lost the 2022 polls and ran a campaign of election denialism, mimicking Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the US polls four years ago.

The direct and open fight that stands in support of a far-right politician and is ranged against the left-of-centre government in a foreign land which is also one of the largest markets for ‘X’ makes this a case that merits close attention in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is attending the G-20 summit and will probably get a good and close-up view of what modern-day big tech imperialism looks like. If the East India Company used complex mechanisms and took 100 years to seize control and loot a subcontinent, the tech imperialists of today have the power to replay that story with nothing more than code, clicks, and clips that can divide people, break institutions and incite violence. Brazil is a classic case of this imperialism at work, that much worse with Elon Musk as a tech czar sitting in the lap of Donald Trump, flush from victory in the US elections, reckless as ever and now in charge of the mighty industrial-military complex at work in the US.

A good part of the drama in Brazil played out even before the US elections with an unprecedented refusal by ‘X’ and Musk to obey the orders of Brazilian Supreme Court to block accounts accused of spreading disinformation. Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Brazilian Supreme Court had ordered that ‘X’ would be pulled down if the platform did not appoint a legal representative of the company in Brazil, block accounts involved in disinformation and settle any outstanding daily fines within 24 hours. ‘X’ and Musk did not heed the orders, opting for a head-on confrontation with the justice system and was banned but later relented. The company complied and paid up fines of more than five million USD.

The events should alert India to the power and reach of big tech that can play out in ways that end up challenging sovereign nations and work as instruments of a digital colonialism that will be increasingly difficult to fight. Capturing minds, spreading narratives and feeding insecurity as tech companies have been accused of doing in many instances makes for a swifter, quieter and fuller capture than any other instrument of colonial control.

Musk is loud, in-your-face and bitter but this only serves to tear the mask that hides the ugly reality of companies that have been called out for all manner of violations. Algos that feed greed, fear and falsehood, put to use by groups with power to increase reach and spread fake news is the reality behind the claim that technology enables citizens to exercise free speech. It certainly does the latter but in doing so also pulls in the former, in the end taking away more than it can give.

In general, transparency is not the norm in the world of technology companies. Consider the ride hailing app Uber, which captured the market with luring offers and later came to be known for its exploitative policies. Just earlier this month, cabbies in Hyderabad boycotted the app, citing lack of transparency. Riders have complained of unfair “surge” prices. Most Uber rides in any Indian city charge higher than the regular taxi service.

Effective Nov.15, ‘X’ announced that all content on its platform could be used to train its AI models. In the past, AI models of ‘X’ have been accused of spreading fake news. Most other big tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, have faced increased scrutiny on how their AI models present solutions to unsuspecting users.  Amazon has come under scrutiny for its monopolistic behaviour. Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon and owns the Washington Post newspaper, asked the paper not to endorse any candidate in the US polls this time, triggering protests and cancellations of subscriptions from more than 250,000 readers. Amazon, which not only leads in e-commence but is a force to reckon with its AWS offerings, has been accused of killing local competition in India and elsewhere, and exploiting workers.

While the Indian government has discussed the influence of big tech in the past, the political side of the establishment has also used big tech to play its own side in ways that are not clean or transparent. That makes the issue more complicated than it is. For example, allegations that Pegasus software was used to target select Indian politicians and journalists brought to fore the ease with which surveillance is possible in today’s tech-enabled systems. But its deeper lesson is that those doing the surveillance, and probably paying for these systems, are themselves being watched, seen and heard by the very systems they might have used against fellow citizens.

What does that mean for Indian policy on big tech? How can democracy be guarded and strengthened in an age when creating a riot is as easy as sending out a tweet or silencing a voice is as easy as blocking an account? We’ll need more transparency within the nation if we are to ask for more from those outside the system.

(The writer is a journalist and faculty member at SPJIMR. Views are personal) (Through The Billion Press)