Now comes the second chapter of this broader industry repositioning. Instead of reckoning with the broader political power of the tech industry, the most outspoken tech critics have traditionally focused on holding the tech industry to account for numerous violations of existing privacy and data protection laws. The institutional imagination of the tech industry simply does not admit other actors who can play a role in shaping the socially beneficial uses of digital infrastructures. Instead of finding that out, policymakers have surrendered this whole process of discovery to the technology industry. Instead of building infrastructures that can facilitate such large-scale experimentation, they are content with the existing infrastructures that are operated (often as billable services) by the tech industry.

Source: The Guardian May 15, 2021 10:00 UTC