About duty and responsibility
Last week, Apple and Facebook, once again, starred controversial events that, theoretically, they should be entitled to do. Facebook shut down a project to allow researchers to study political ads. At the same time, Apple decided to scan users’ content to find pedophiliac content coming from a database provided by an NGO. If a company operating within the law is damaging society, the law probably needs to be fixed. But how deep into the hole should society allow the state to go? And how can you differ duty from responsibility?
There is a myriad of potentially endless discussions to start around both moves. Facebook alleging that the data scraping made by the researchers was “collecting data via scraping is an industry-wide problem that jeopardises people’s privacy” is such a lame excuse that you keep thinking about how the PR of the company allowed it to become public. It’s more or less like the coal industry to protest against climate change caused by fossil fuels. Apple justification, although fair, is contradictory, after so many stances defending user privacy in moves that created a lot of attrition. Both of them did what companies are born to do: protect their profits somehow. This is not criticism or praise. It’s just a fact.
The moves themselves are not the issue here, but a glimpse of how society’s interests are jeopardised when they depend on self-regulation from companies with very different goals. Technology companies and probably every other single company (especially listed ones) care about the money they will pay to their shareholders. The law is made seeking an equilibrium between public pressure and lobby interests. Still, while citizens do not have regular meetings with the lawmakers they elected, lobbyists always have time in the schedule of politicians that will need to pay the expenses of their subsequent campaigns. The unbalance vector in favour of the greater good must be sought elsewhere.
Facebook did not have any obligation to help researchers to study political ads on their platform. The chance of the researchers to have conclusions that would boost the company’s income is zero. No laws are saying the company should do that. Shareholders do not feel better as human beings with the project. Facebook made the move out of their availability and stopped when they thought it was fair. Maybe a PR move following the Capitol incident on January 6th, maybe not. The fact is that the righteousness display against the move is not wrong, but useless. There is no law for that. So, how can society keep companies that have so much leverage to go with zero accountability?
The answer is that society cannot depend on anyone else to solve its problems. Fixing the law is the obvious move, but the process is painstakingly slow, absolutely unbalanced, and depend on politicians (which, depending on which country you are, is like depending on the wolves to take care of the chickens). The burden of self-regulation cannot be on the company. Corporations should have responsibility for their deeds, but building a better society is not their duty. That’s why the social safeguards must come from somewhere else.
First, regulation needs to be state-endorsed but cannot wait for slow bureaucracies to fight raging fires. Hybrid structures formed by watchdogs, NGOs, and civil society representatives, can remain accountable and be effective regulators if given enough power. Companies cannot be given the choice of complying with the law or pay a fine. Sanctions need to be draconian enough for shareholders to have sleepless nights regarding the risk of an eventual punishment. Fines should cripple offenders, not giving them a choice to choose or not abiding by the law.
Second, companies cannot have the size and clout some of them have today. Advertising today is closer to a monopoly than to the free market. Almost three of each four dollars in advertising go to a few more than a couple of businesses. No market is free if one player can buy all the others out of the game.
Third, accessory industries need to be created around digital monopolies to atomise power clusters formed by the lack of competition. This can be done by forcing the tech companies to share assets they have with competitors. Today, few companies hold such Orwellian amounts of data and have so much cash stored that competition is impossible — and if a miracle happens, the incumbent acquires the challenger.
Fourth, privacy needs to be enforced up to a level that it becomes an industry in itself. Users — or better, citizens — today are not aware of their exposure. There is no reason for privacy to be a business threat. It is only because the rationale behind the attention economy — selling users like cattle — is wrong.
We need to understand Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, and the other tech titans that are not so used to headlines as profit-seeking entities. They are not charities and have no obligation to curb their interests. Regulation must be external pressure (in the end, this would benefit the companies too, once they are free of the burden of righteousness).
