Gladstone, Doctorow game out tech reg quagmire

Cory Doctorow
Houari B. via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

On the Media's Brooke Gladstone talked to Cory Doctorow, author, internet activist, etc., on September 1 about, well, everything, and it's a breathtaking hour of must-listen radio.

The conversation wrapped up every issue I care about in technology and society today into a neat and intelligible bundle of the utter mess that it is: intellectual property, antitrust, privacy and data protection, politics and corruption, and the corporatocracy that's incinerating democracy. Doctorow is more optimistic than I that human civilization can yet be saved, so the program is not even a downer in the end.

I feel like I'm someone who knows a fair bit about this stuff, so I was humbled by how much I learned. I want to spill it all here, but I ought not be a spoiler. I'll share just a tidbit.

You know that thing when videos go viral and some average joe or jane inspires another generation of youth to plot a career as a social media sensation?

Yeah, not a thing.  At least not always an organic thing. Companies such as TikTok "twiddle" or "heat up"—terms of art—selected content to make it "viral," even while users think that they collectively are driving virality by demand.

Why? It's a "giant teddy bear" strategy, Doctorow explained. The carney at the fair lets an early player on one of those unwinnable-by-design games "win" the giant teddy bear, knowing that that customer will carry it around all night, inadvertently advertising the game to everyone else. The viral video maker thinks that a million people just loved that nutty dance and doesn't even realize that she or he is a tool, carrying the giant teddy bear around.

How do the companies get away with telling us one thing and doing something else? Because they change the rules whenever they like, Doctorow said. There are no rules about how they can change the rules.

Huzaifa abedeen via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

And don't even get me started on the plethora of legal mechanisms that protect this monstrous Big Tech monopolization. Dare to start asking questions, and you'll find yourself on the business end of demand letters citing the DMCA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and patent and trademark law, just to get the ball rolling.

Yes, I realize that I am writing on a Google platform right now. What's a writer to do? I confess, I made a conscious decision at one point simply to surrender to Google. I have a Nest doorbell, a Pixel phone, and a Google Drive. But, you see, this is what Doctorow is talking about. It's next to impossible to get along in the virtual world today without surrendering.  Try buying diapers from Diapers.com instead of Amazon.

Doctorow is a big fan of Lina Khan and the example she's setting with the Federal Trade Commission's sudden scrutiny of the tech sector. Unfortunately, Doctorow said, it's easier to stop monopoly from happening than to dismantle it after it's taken hold. If you're my age, you'll remember how long AT&T reigned supreme before the feds came a-knockin'. Better late than never. I'll be interested to see if Khan-ology persists, or corporate power in Washington is now too big to break.

The podcast is How Big Tech Went to Sh*t, from WNYC's On the Media (Sept. 1, 2023).