Call me when Apple starts exercising prima noctis. I'm pretty sure Google can't wage war, either, and if Oracle could hang you for theft they would've done so by now. So unless I'm missing something maybe we should lay off the hyperbole a bit?
No, but such a service can be just be used to help win wars, blackmail politicians in other countries, spy on foreign businessmen and policy influencers, and those sorts of things...
Besides corporations have a long history of meddling with local politics, hiring thugs to kill people (e.g. strikers or union leaders), even helping install dictatorships.
Of course such things happen in such ways as to provide all ways of "plausible deniability" to company executives. It's not like they'll send a fax asking for such things -- "just deal with it" communicated to some local managers implies more than enough.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr...
I don’t necessarily agree with the author, as I think he misses out much of the benefit they continue to offer the world. But I think your criticsm is anachronistic - power in the 21st century isn’t measured solely by boots on the ground, or ability to raise taxes.
And Governments have broken up powerful companies before.
The difference between modern tech giants and erstwhile powerful companies like standard oil is that tech giants are much closer to people's daily lives and occupy some much of their time. This way people are attached and strong feelings about Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. that they didn't have towards Standard Oil.
But favorable to which corporate interest or outside agency (Russian hackers)?
The corporate interests won't align on every issue or candidate, so they won't be influencing votes all the same. What's good for Google won't always be what's good for Amazon, or the Chinese government.
It's the various competing interests that somewhat cancel out. And it's not like other interests with power and money aren't aware of the reach of tech companies, and won't seek to use that to their advantage. Consider how traditional media has been used.
Or do you think the news organizations and tv/radio stations had all the power before?
Trump being elected wasn't the will of any of the tech giants. It's more of a platform that's used for whatever interest has the means to abuse it, such as pushing fake news.
That's incorrect. Read the history of Standard Oil. They aggressively sought to get into people's daily lives. In fact, they may have been the first massive corporation to ever do so at an all-encompassing national level. They leveraged every bit of their power and wealth to distribute down to the town -> household level, with their fuels and free lanterns to burn their fuels. They waged Edison-style fear PR campaigns at that micro economic level, trying to get into people's homes commercially (correctly noting their product was mostly safer than the older alternatives). Their distribution channels by design reached into the daily lives of nearly every person in America (this is before the automobile had reached such distribution). Their in-your-home position was drastically more important in its day, as a critical basic needs upgrade, than the position Facebook occupies today. I would specifically suggest you research Standard Oil's numerous consumer oriented businesses.
The latter one is about to change, at least for certain non-vital topics. We see privatization in law enforcement for copyright, free speech / personal rights, and so on.
When Facebook marks "fake news" or handles "hate speech", and when Google/Youtube removes "copyrighted material", there is neither the police nor any judge in the loop. Also, there are often false positives such as removing creative commons videos with no clear path to dispute.
There will soon be laws that require companies to interpret the law, which is a very worrying trend.
Let's not forget forced arbitration. Companies that wrong you can now deny you your day in court if they just add a forced arbitration clause into the fine-print. They are removing conflicts from the justice system into a private system where the incentives are much more murky.
And what about countries that don't have 'fair' laws? Tech giants don't have many barriers if they decide to operate overseas.
And don't understate the influence on governments and voters either, just look at the tobacco industry. It is practically forcing itself on children in parts of the world. If that's tobacco, how much easier would it be for facebook to penetrate markets that don't really want them.
Undue "influence" is a gross understatement.
Some people pointed out the more abstract type of influence (this is correct and meaningful); I'll point out the material: the list of, let's say, "indirect ability to make laws" is neverending, and it is directly proportional to a given company size.
Small and random, but significative, sample:
- Mickey mouse laws
- HSBC money laundering
- Massive tax dodging in Europe
<your national intelligence service(s)> working with <tech giant>
It is interesting that people still think it is acceptable to call people crazy for claiming US government agencies are complicit in corruption.
>people are half a second between 'that's absurd, they're not doing that,' and 'of course it's always been that way.'
In 1994, X-Files Season 1 Ep. 17 introduced the Lone Gunmen, a group of conspiracy theorists:
>"The characters, who were used to help Mulder appear more credible"
If you watch the episode, one of the main 'batshit insane'conspiracy theories they put forward was that the government is recording everyone's phone calls--then Scully rolls her eyes and Mulder appears skeptical.
You have to admit, it is kind of crazy...
Wake me up when we go to war for Facebook.
It turns out that no matter how much power you have, there are still some lines that you have a really hard time crossing. Perhaps because it would cause an all out riot.
Similarly, most countries are unable to wage war or hang people for theft because the social willpower just isn't present to allow them to do such things. Why should it be any different for companies.
I think the question should be, what can a companies do that governments are also doing. Then we can look at what governments do that companies cannot do. If the first set is really big and the second set is really small, then maybe it's not really hyperbole, but just a minor exaggeration.
Apple probably has a better geolocalisation of people than any intelligence agency.
Facebook and Twitter are suspected to have delivered the key to the last US presidential elections.
Uber mocks the laws of several of the richest countries in the world.
Softbank is becoming a behemoth that God knows if it will ever stop growing fat of its robots and AI acquisition.
AI research is driven by web companies like Alibaba or Facebook.
They are not kings, they are king makers.
There is no evidence of it ever being practiced.
It is ius primae noctis (still there is no evidence it ever existed) or "right of the first night".
"prima noctis" doesn't make much sense in Latin, it lacks the subject (ius aka right) and prima is not genitive as noctis is. It would make sense in expressions like "hora prima noctis" or "vigilia prima noctis" which translates to first hour (or vigilia, i.e. turn of vigilance, three hours long roughly) of the night and more loosely "just after sunset".
https://pando.com/2014/03/27/how-steve-jobs-forced-google-to...
That's not something to treat lightly.