Joys and fears of Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and not only in the days of Biden. Aresu speaks
Conversation of Michele Arnese, director of Start, with the analyst Alessandro Aresu, scientific advisor of Limes, to deepen the latest moves of Big Tech in the US and how the Biden administration will move
Aresu, I have a doubt: Twitter and especially Facebook have now banned Trump because they want to ingratiate themselves with the new democratic administration and avoid antitrust stews that can dismember their giants. Likely doubt?
Correct doubt, but only regarding Facebook. Recall that they are very different companies. Facebook is a digital giant, Twitter is not. There is a huge difference. For Twitter, the Trump phenomenon was also a significant portion of the turnover, for Facebook we are not exaggerating. On Twitter there is nothing to dismember, while on Facebook in the US there are specific measures underway by the federal government and almost all states.
And Facebook makes the slide on WhatsApp. What happens in the Zuckerberg group?
Yes, certain missteps carry weight because of the ongoing proceedings and because reputation is a key factor for those companies. There was also the impact of Elon Musk's tweet on Signal, very funny because he accidentally spiked the prices of a company of the same name. In summary, Facebook is willing to take steps that can affect the existential aspects of the company. And therefore to balance the relationship between freedom of expression, responsibility and the invitation to subversion that Trump has done in a different way.
What will Biden's moves also be on Apple, Microsoft and Amazon? What real differences will there be with the Trump administration? And at the end of the Trump management, have the US hi-tech giants been more facilitated or thwarted?
Trump was of little relevance from this point of view. Not in the money that all the hustle and bustle around him made the platforms do. But in the fundamental trends, that is the abc of the geopolitics of technology. And that is: a) pervasive digitization of our society; b) conflict between the US and China; c) political and social conflict around digital.
And what will Biden do?
The Biden administration will not be able to symbolize a different era of digital, like that of Obama, something like “long live Silicon Valley, that's cool”. Apart from the fact that Biden likes trains and car factories, he is a lord of that world, certainly not of apps and company, that's not really the case. And the veterans the new administration is full of know it.
Therefore?
The question is the holding of the middle class? It is certainly not a topic that platforms can preside over, they deal with the class of great social winners and the technological frontier. They cannot solve, or even face, the problems of America's interiority: if you lose your manufacturing, you can't replace it with an Amazon fulfillment center or with many Microsoft data centers. So even the head of technology at Microsoft, Kevin Scott, wonders how to hold together artificial intelligence, industrial design, manufacturing capacity, employment. But there are painful truths about the life of the superpower.
Which?
Apple can't go back to the US en masse – its ingenious supply chain, built by Tim Cook, isn't like that, it can just adapt a little. This will continue to create a desert, a deep divide, where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will say that there are " starvation wages ". This theme of interiority, of interior America, will continue to generate enormous discontent. The one who understood this is Elon Musk: this also elevates him above many of the other "digital oligarchs". Then there is the issue of the US / China conflict, which will also remain in areas in which we have seen it less so far.
As?
In this decade I am sure that China will climb the level of information warfare operations against the US: it has all the resources to do so and it is a weak point of US society, to make it more polarized and chaotic, to decrease scientific capacity- technology of Washington. If I were engaged in a space race and I was Xi Jinping, one of my goals would be to have parades of people who say "let's stop spending money on space" or "we didn't go to the moon anyway, we'll never go there, it's all fake. ". It is an issue that will require great attention from the US apparatuses, whose cultural and operational knowledge of China has been lacking for some time.
But what is Facebook's mission? Connecting people, doing business, or helping to serve America's interests against Chinese apps?
We have looked at some digital giants wrong because they grew up in an age of naively received propaganda. Now there is no longer this naivety, so the narrative evolves, in the sense of "Americanization". Even though these companies have always been American, and in the deepest interests of the United States, the limit of how far they can go remains. Proof of this is the failure and net downsizing of the Libra project: wasn't it supposed to be the digital currency that supplants the dollar? It couldn't be, it's not like America gives up the dollar because Zuckerberg makes more money, there must be mutual benefit. For all this, to understand and manage technology, both an awareness of market issues and a geopolitical and national security awareness are needed.
On Limes you wrote : "American companies that can build parallel political systems, and political personnel, through money: the platforms will be able to hire hundreds of Nick Clegg, if necessary". What does it mean?
Exactly this. Companies with the turnover and liquidity of large platforms have no problem in legitimately hiring the best lawyers (like everyone else) and the best personalities with political experience. Just as revolving doors have characterized the financial world, with Robert Rubin and company, they will increasingly characterize the digital world. This concerns visible politics and the deep state: on the one hand Nick Clegg going to work for Facebook, on the other hand the "race for generals" on the boards, like General Keith Alexander at Amazon.
Germany and France, through Angela Merkel and the Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, have expressed concern for those who must guarantee and apply freedom of expression on social networks. But what weapons do they really have at their disposal? In other words: can the EU really play a role in this dispute?
The problem of the European states is industrial. As I also wrote in my book “The powers of political capitalism. United States and China ”, it is a fact that from 2008 onwards, while the two powers were experiencing a game of digital and industrial acceleration, the Europeans instead got lost in jokes and did not have an ambition up to par. Regardless of how we think about the EU, the euro and company, that's the way it is. Some more or less, of course: Thierry Breton with Atos has created a not irrelevant actor on the industrial level, while we Italians if we think about where we are on telecommunications compared to the era of Marisa Bellisario and the "Grande Telecom", we can only feel ashamed . However, industrial delays are important. I am ashamed and wish we were somewhere else. In any case, since Breton has been at the Commission, we have in a key role, with total French legitimacy, one of the people in Europe who really understand these things, who puts his head in it. We also have regulatory instruments at national and European level with the Digital Services Act, even if the leap will only take place if you show that you can compete on the industrial and technological frontiers. The negotiating power of the Europeans remains in the relationship with the US, especially on standards from an anti-Chinese perspective. This aspect will certainly get the attention of the Biden administration.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/gioie-e-timori-di-facebook-apple-microsoft-amazon-e-non-solo-ai-tempi-di-biden-parla-aresu/ on Sun, 17 Jan 2021 16:54:48 +0000.