Big Tech’s De-Platforming Binge Highlights The Need For Web 3.0
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Leeor Shimron from Following the U.S. Capitol riot last week, the Big Tech leaders simultaneously de-platformed President Trump. Twitter followed suit by suspending 70,000 accounts associated with the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory group. Parler, the social media platform billing itself as a “free-speech paradise” was the next target as Apple AAPL -1.4% and Google GOOG -0.2% banned the mobile app from their app stores and Amazon Web Services stopped hosting Parler’s website.
Although the effort is arguably justified for several reasons, these actions raise questions about the state of “cancel culture” and the amount of unilateral power these centralized tech companies have accrued. If a sitting U.S. President can be de-platformed, does that mean everyone of us is also at risk of being cut off? Evidenced by Cambridge Analytica and other scandals, Big Tech has been exploited by malicious foreign actors to manipulate its users. Are the interests of Big Tech and its advertising-based business model aligned with those of its users?
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