Workers inside Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and others are starting to express that they believe that tech giants wield too much cultural and economic power.
Amid increased scrutiny of the technology industry from consumers and various governments, Protocol
carried out a survey of about 1,504 tech company employees. The outlet asked a variety of questions, from issues with China or whether Big Tech should be broken up.
When asked whether Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet have too much power, 77% of respondents answered yes and only 8% disagreed. Protocol asked the same question about the industry as a whole, and found similar results with 78% agreeing or strongly agreeing.
In a related line of questioning, about 40% of respondents said that technology does more harm than good. Just over 40% also said they believed that Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple should be broken up.
A majority of those surveyed also said they want Section 230 reform, though the answers weren't so black and white. Only 62% of respondents said they knew what Section 230, but three quarters of those people said the law should be reformed.
However, most believe that the core principles of Section 230 protections should remain the same, with 65% agreeing with the statement that "tech companies should not be held liable for the content on their sites and products." A whopping 82% of respondents also realize that Section 230 could have an impact on "more than just big tech companies."
On China, 56% of the tech employees say that U.S. restrictions on Chinese technology firms have gone too far. 60% of those respondents also added that U.S. companies should work more closely with China-based counterparts.
However, 46% said that they agreed with the statement that Huawei should be banned from the U.S., and 58% said that a cold war with China would "cripple U.S. tech companies."
A majority of respondents also want regulation for artificial intelligence, with 73% agreeing that it's time for the government to step in. On a separate note, 44% of those surveyed said that Big Tech should stop working with law enforcement entities. A smaller portion, 34%, disagreed with that answer.
Protocol's survey asked questions of 1,504 employees across the U.S. The publication notes that those staffers ranged from "C-suite level executives to associates." Nearly 40% are from large technology companies with more than 1,000 employees and annual revenues eclipsing $500 million.
10 Comments
Whiners can't have their cake and eat it too.
Big tech does wield enormous power to shape and influence culture, politics, and society. That power is amplified when they act in a coordinated fashion as we have witnessed. And yet many encourage them to wield even more power with content moderation, something which all of them originally said they did not want.
Truly, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Are employees of "big tech" suddenly gaining a conscience?
Unfortunately unless management feels the same way as their employees, or consumers stop doing business with them, "too much power" ( a very nebulous term, by the way) won't get fixed. That's unfortunately because people like free or cheap stuff. Until we all as a society realize what the real cost of how these services are being delivered by these companies is and decide that it's not what we want, companies like those aforementioned will continue to thrive.
Maybe if "government" had not allowed some of these big tech mergers to occur, they wouldn't have to go back and fix the problems they've caused. I think it's way overdue for the GDPR like legislation here in the USA (and take it a step further in that all sharing of PII must be opt out by default).
Hmmm.. "which of these 'Big Tech' companies is not like the others" = Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon.
And in breaking news it is revealed 80% of workers believe their company has too much power no matter what industry they are in.