IT Essentials: Concessions, capitalism and decentralisation
Big Tech is finding that modern regulators have teeth
It's been an upsetting week for Meta. It turns out that some governments won't simply roll over when New Blue demands something, but will actually...force compliance? Wait, is this right?
The Canadian government moved this week to force Meta to pay publishers for the news content it shows on Facebook and Instagram. Rather than agreeing or trying to find a compromise, Meta opted to block all news content in the country - a move that public broadcaster CBC rightly called out as an abuse of market power.
It's worth noting that, when Australia instituted a similar law in 2021, both Google and Meta complained but eventually capitulated. We expect the Canadian deal to go the same way.
The next upset came from Europe, which has become the vanguard in the pushback against Big Tech's dominance, with laws like the GDPR, Data Act, Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act. This week, Meta agreed to regulators' demands that it allow people to easily opt out of targeted ads, rather than the lengthy and complex process that exists now.
Microsoft, too, came under fire for - unusually - acceding to demands. Critics argued that its minor concessions on licensing restrictions didn't go far enough, and in fact prove that the company can lift restrictions any time and at whatever speed it chooses.
And that's the crux of the matter. Tech platforms like Google search, Facebook and the Apple ecosystem have centralised power into the hands of the few, and the owners largely have free rein to do as they please. For years they have skirted criticism with minor tweaks to their operations, but the power still rests with them.
At last, the world is beginning to regulate that power, recognising that digital gatekeepers can shift public opinion with only a few minor changes to their algorithms.
Even free markets have begun to take notice. The state of California is threatening to follow the same route as Australia and Canada, though Meta - based in California - has repeated its same threats of blocking news access in the state. A larger threat would be to relocate, but it hasn't come to that - yet.
Centralised power is a hallmark of the Web 2.0 era. But this week Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK and a keynote speaker at the upcoming IT Leaders Summit, shared her vision for the future of tech: a future defined by open software and shared knowledge.
Join us for the IT Leaders Summit in October to hear more from Amanda about the industry move to, as she puts it, "a different form of capitalism."