The Golden Rule of Big Tech’s Social Responsibility

Have you ever played a game of Monopoly and realized you started abusing your power halfway through the game? It might have seemed innocent at first, but that’s what power will do to you — before you know it, you’re corrupted. Despite potentially losing an invite to the next game night, though, it’s not really a big deal. 

Tech giants like Alphabet Inc., Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon are playing a much bigger game, and their decisions — and their power — have real consequences. Whether you notice it or not, these consequences affect you. The internet and the devices we use to connect to it are an indispensable part of how we work, talk to each other, shop, gather information, and entertain ourselves.

It’s obvious society has benefited from big tech companies, but they don’t exist for anyone’s benefit: their goal is to make money. A growing list of big tech companies now hold higher market caps and have more influence than entire countries. What helped them achieve this? The answer is scary: they have constant access to our private lives.

Do companies use their immense power for good, or responsibly? Let’s look at how tech giants play their high-stakes game, and how social responsibility has become a corporate issue.

Blurring the Lines Between Virtual and Reality: Short-Sightedness Causes Harm

It’s easy to think of what happens online as separate from our real lives because it exists in a space we can’t physically exist in. However, their impact is immense: our online experiences influence the way we think, speak, and even behave. Logically, whoever owns these spaces and devices has immense control over what information we have access to, and by extent, how we think and what we do.

Sometimes the consequences are unintended. Companies like Meta and TikTok didn’t invent their content algorithms intending to bombard people with negative news, influence people’s political views, or create unrealistic standards. Yet that’s exactly what happened — doom scrolling is now a national pastime, the political divide keeps getting wider, and social media is worsening mental health problems.

It isn’t always accidental, though. Companies have been found intentionally using their power to sway political and economic structures in their favor. Some also force out competition and stifle innovations that threaten their status quo. 

Then there’s the big tech elephant in the room (although, really, it’s more like a vulture spying over your shoulder): big tech profits off people’s personal lives by selling the vast amounts of data it collects or using that data to predict and influence a wide range of behaviors. All this happens in the name of chasing short-term profits.

It’s no secret. We’re all too aware of the vulture in the room with us, but somehow privacy has been sold as priceless to the rich and worthless to the people whose lives are collected for profit. Things are changing, though. Digital privacy has become a hot topic worldwide in the last couple of years, and clearly, governments are taking notice.

Following the Breadcrumbs: A Trail of Lawsuits

If you look up any big tech company, chances are good you’ll find at least one regulatory probe or lawsuit aimed at its practices. In recent years, countries and bodies like the US, the UK, and the EU seem to have ramped up their efforts to investigate how big tech companies conduct business — especially in terms of how these decisions affect society. Look at some of the more high-profile cases from 2023 alone:

• Judges closed an FTC suit against Meta in April 2023 that, among other things, tried to revert its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC accused Meta of conducting “anti-competitive practices, like buying up or cutting off rivals that threatened its monopoly, for years.” The judges ruled it was too late to revert these decisions.
• The FTC and 17 state attorneys general launched a lawsuit against Amazon in September 2023, accusing it of predatory marketplace practices. According to the case, Amazon uses “a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies” to block competition, inflate prices, prevent sellers from lowering prices, and degrade quality for shoppers.
• A class action lawsuit filed in the UK in September 2023, claims Google manipulated its dominant position in search engine results, costing consumers and contributing to the cost of living crisis. According to the suit, the company has used various practices to stifle competition allowing it to charge advertisers more. Advertisers then passed these costs on to consumers. 
• Despite winning its legal battle against Epic Games earlier in 2023, the App Store is under fire again. In September, payment card issuers filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple for “coercing” people into using the Apple Pay mobile wallet over alternatives. The plaintiffs claim this has harmed consumers by stifling innovation, increasing prices, and “minimizing the incentive to make Apple Pay safer and easier to use.”

Multiple similar lawsuits are still ongoing today, against these and other big tech companies. While not all of them make it to trial or lead to a favorable ruling for the accusers, these lawsuits still touch on something important. They highlight how the decisions made by these companies can affect you and me — the average person who relies on this technology every day.

Big Tech Companies Are Constantly Changing Society

In 2020, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Apple appeared before Congress after a year-long investigation by lawmakers which concluded they had “wielded their power in destructive, harmful ways in order to expand.” While the main focus of that hearing was whether existing antitrust laws are sufficiently keeping big tech companies in check, committee members also questioned how the companies managed speech and expression on their platforms.

Interestingly, tech companies often say that big tech is unfairly targeted and constantly scrutinized by politicians. Regardless of the political intent behind those lawmakers’ questions, it’s almost definitely right that they’re asking them. Big tech companies have direct control over how we gain information, learn new ideas, and share our thoughts. Shouldn’t something with that much power be under constant scrutiny?

It’s true that sometimes the anger these companies face is misplaced. No entity can account for every unintended problem it causes, and many politicians point fingers out of self-interest. None of this changes the fact that tech giants have now become more influential than whole countries. They hold decision-making powers that can affect the global market and social stability. Thanks to corporate lobbying, big tech companies can even use their deep pockets to change laws and determine government priorities. 

“The problem we face today is that innovation is happening so fast and reshaping entire industries overnight that the negative externalities can be like flash floods,” says Adam Kleinberg, CEO of advertising agency Traction.

That level of power should be held accountable.

Can Tech Giants Be Held in Check?

You know that old saying about an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object? So far, big tech companies have managed to simply push through any form of resistance in their paths. What’s it going to take to stop that monolithic force?

You could argue that capitalism has a system of checks and balances built into it. Things will sort themselves out as competitors work to keep each other in check. It’s a nice thought. Except, remember that game of Monopoly your friends are still angry about? Because it should have clued you in: there isn’t space for anyone else when you own the whole street. Tech giants have become so big that new competitors just don’t have the funds or resources to stop their astronomical growth anymore.

How do you oppose an entity that is part of how society functions, knows everything about you, and can manipulate the world around you in ways you can’t even see? Our only option is to focus on responsibility — and not just big tech’s responsibility, but every person’s responsibility too.

The Long Arm of the Law May Have Reached Its Limit

Many big tech companies are currently facing flash floods of their own in the form of lawsuits. Yet lawsuits clearly haven’t been all that effective in reining in bad decision-making on the part of big tech companies to date. They pay a few million dollars in fines and go on to make billions more that same year. Even when competitors like Epic Games and others try to take them on, the legal system lets them down.

So if punishment isn’t as effective as we’d hoped, we’re left with no option but to keep playing the game. This isn’t board game night, though. We can change the rules. 

As an example, research shows that companies with effective Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs are more profitable than those without them. This led companies to switch tactics and started changing their policies and getting involved in charity. To date, though, companies have treated CSR as more of a vanity marketing tactic than anything else. Most do just enough to make themselves look good without worrying about whether they actually create a positive impact on society. 

If companies are getting by pretending to be responsible, it’s because no one is actually holding them accountable.

Netizen: Your Social Responsibility Counts Too

Corporations aren’t people and don’t have a conscience, but they’re kept alive by people like you and me. It’s up to corporate leaders to be mindful and make decisions that both benefit a company and minimize its negative consequences to society. Unfortunately, companies tend to ignore this responsibility until it affects their bottom line.

“Ignorance is bliss until it’s not. Technology companies that do not assess the impact of their work are prioritizing shareholders and stakeholders over consequences,” says Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter Group. 

When leaders don’t make mindful decisions, the responsibility to apply these consequences falls on us. As a citizen of society, you have fundamental rights. These rights are hard-won and they come with responsibilities too — because what you do affects the world around you. The internet may be virtual, but it’s still us, at its core. We’ve become a society of netizens, and if we want our rights to apply to

the virtual realm, then our responsibilities should naturally follow. 

So what is your responsibility here? It’s to change the way you think about your privacy. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s easy to understand but tough to follow through. If we can reclaim our privacy, which we give to tech companies by using their products and services without a thought, we reclaim some of our power. It’s going to take work and maybe even a little inconvenience — but nothing worth having has ever been easy to get.

The Golden Rule: He Who Holds the Gold Makes the Rules

You’ve probably seen the phrase “data is the new currency” at least once by now, and moved on without giving it a second thought. We’re all guilty of it, because “data” seems far removed from reality, even though you’re constantly surrounded by tech. The change starts with you accepting your data is valuable. You have to accept that if you want big tech corporations to stop gaining (and abusing) power, you need to start protecting your privacy.

Following through is hard because what these companies provide is convenient, and better options are either less user-friendly or don’t exist yet. Don’t let that be an excuse to give up before you even start, though. Striving for perfect ethical consumption doesn’t work because it’s not real. We just have to use the information available to us and make the best decisions we can at that time.

If you take some time to look, you’ll find plenty of resources and options available to you. You can:

• Educate yourself about how companies collect and use your information. PIA has plenty of privacy-focused content on our blog, but use other sources too. Non-profit organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) may be a good place to start. 
• Switch to gadgets and services that value privacy. You have options when it comes to anonymous browsers, private messaging apps, and tools that improve your privacy like script and tracker blockers, VPNs, and even anonymous payment methods.
• If you can, stop using products and services from companies that aren’t transparent about their practices or that have been charged with abusing their power. If you can’t find a better competitor, reconsider whether you really need it. 
• If you can’t stop using a product or service, try to limit how much data you share with it. Change the privacy settings it makes available (if any), but also change the way you use it. As an example, if you’re not using your phone then put it in another room. You’ll still be able to hear when you get a text, but Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant won’t constantly be listening to you.
• Change your online habits. This may be the hardest one by far but it can also have the most impact. We tend to share a lot of details about ourselves with the internet without thinking about it. We overshare on social media, give away our personal details in online competitions, and sign in using other accounts because it takes a few seconds less than using an email address.

Unless you decide to leave society altogether, you’re stuck seeing this game through. So maybe it’s time to start making some strategic choices. If you don’t like what a big tech company is doing, then change the rules, try new players — and most importantly, stop displaying your hand of cards for everyone to see. Stop giving your precious data away in exchange for convenience or free services that end up costing you things you didn’t want to pay in the end.

We strongly recommend using a VPN to help avoid some of the data tracking discussed here. When choosing a VPN to protect your online privacy, it’s just as important to trust that the VPN won’t collect your data. PIA is the only court-proven and independently verified No Logs VPN. We use open-source software that anyone can verify, have RAM-only servers, and accept anonymous payments.

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