The problem with our dependence on Big Tech goes well beyond the issue of what software or platform we should be using. Over the last twenty years, capitalism has transformed itself through Internet technologies, giving it a new medium to re-enforce the values of individualism and competition over collaboration and community. Capitalist developed technologies have strengthened a consumerist, disposable culture at odds with any vision of sustainability.
At the same time, these technologies have become entrenched in our daily lives. They shape our actions, our emotions and contribute to a narrative of how the world works.
And finally, modern technology is central to every major political issue we face. Without directly confronting the capitalist technology narrative, we have little chance of making an impact on any of the issues central to building a just and sustainable world.
The following text is loosely based on Cutting the Cord: Addressing the movement's dependence on Big Tech by growing our autonomous technology ecosystem.
Climate change
Two technologies in particular have centered technology in the climate crisis: Crypto currencies and Artificial Intelligence. Both have demanding computer operations requiring significantly more electricity than the already power hungry needs of typical Internet services. Both Crypto currency and AI have, at different points in their histories, surpassed the total electricity uses of entire countries.
The need for more power hungry data centers prompted Microsoft to re-open the Three Mile Island nuclear power facility while other corporate efforts to open new data centers have spawned community protests and campaigns.
These datacenters are often built in impoverished zones and presented, much like mineral and fossil fuel extraction projects, as local economies saviors and “job creators”. Campaigns like Tu nube seca mi río (Your cloud dries up my river) document and denounce these lies in Spain and around the world.
While technology is critical to building renewable energy systems, as long as capitalism is driving technology development, we are likely to continue building new technologies with power needs that outstrip those of the previous generation.
Policing, immigration and militarization
Police, immigration agencies and the military are increasingly reliant on surveillance technology.
Despite Google's early pledge to "not be evil," they have built a technology empire specifically designed to track users and profile people for the purposes of advertising, dovetailing with government surveillance systems. Nearly every other Big Tech technology on which we depend is fundamentally designed to monetize our interactions for this purpose. Every time we tag a photo of another user in a post or invite another user to share our document, we contribute either directly to a social network database that is tracking us or we are helping to build the technology that can be contracted out to local police departments or the US Department of Home- land Security.
Mijente's 2018 report of Amazon's contracts with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are just the beginning. Every major technology provider has signed dozens of contracts with local police and the US government.
These contracts extend well beyond US borders. In addition to every Big Tech company having contracts with the US military, they also have contracts with the militaries of other countries; most notably Israel. Project Nimbus, a joint Amazon/Google contract with Israel's government that includes military components, is one example. Workers from both corporations have organized the No Tech For Apartheid campaign against being made to work on such projects.
Media and democracy
It is unclear whether any government has successfully altered an election by manipulating social media sites, however the threat is credible. Additionally, any confusion over why Elon Musk purchased Twitter is now clear: social media platforms have become the new media monopolies.
As the Internet went from an independent media utopia to another centralized media monopoly, the one Internet medium that has managed to survive as a method for reaching a mass audience is email. However, while email can function in a distributed manner, 2/3 of all email accounts are controlled by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo (based on internal logging numbers from May First).
Moving our mailboxes to autonomous providers is a crucial step towards preserving one of the oldest and most reliable ways of reaching large numbers of people.