The Myth of Tech Exceptionalism

Image: Artby Outsidein for Noēma Magazine. Article by Yaël Eisenstat and Nils Gilman. Noema Magazine – February 10, 2022.

How tech uses the promise of endless innovation to ward off regulating even its present-day harms.

With the onslaught of press coverage and congressional hearings about Big Tech’s role in society in recent years, we have heard variations of an all-too common defense from tech leaders: “We do more good than harm.” On its face, this is both an unsubstantiated and unquantifiable assertion, based on the self-described tech industry’s views of what is good for the rest of us, both today and in the future they are building. More importantly, it is an irrelevant argument intended to subvert a fundamental purpose of democratic governance: protecting the public from predatory or harmful actors and business practices. […]

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