But the idea that Facebook’s technology base is so complex that it can’t be audited, and that its business model is evolving so fast that it can’t be slowed down, is finally overtaken by the undeniable dangers. A series of disastrous results, from political manipulation of free elections to violence against minorities to harm to young people and even misinformation about public health, prolonging and exacerbating the pandemic, destroyed the pleasant notion that the company’s products produce a purely positive effect on society.
In the case of the US car industry, the need not only for regulation but also for a law enforcement agency to ensure compliance was also not immediately apparent. The need and wisdom of proactive regulation of this infrastructure technology, instead of relying on the fabrication that consumer choice is the main mechanism for avoiding harm, was recognized only after decades of damage and years of signaling and investigative journalism.
Like the ubiquitous internet platforms, Detroit from the mid-20th century produced something that most Americans felt they could not live with, and quickly became addicted. As suburban sprawl encompassed urban areas, racist resource allocation exacerbated urban centers and encouraged white flight. As a result, having one or more cars is becoming a growing necessity for more and more Americans. The resources of the state and the federal government have gone to create more and wider roads to ensure that car traffic grows uncontrollably, even – or especially – at the expense of those who cannot afford cars or whose it is forbidden to export from the neighborhoods, which are cut in half and destroyed by experimental attempts of domains to buy more land for highways in and out of cities.
At the time, the Big Three also seemed unstoppable, searching the American landscape with powerful business and government interests, while illegally negotiating with each other and against the public interest and public safety, for ever-increasing profits.
When the bomb was found in the 1965 bestseller of lawyer and activist Ralph Nader. Insecure at any speed began to explode in U.S. public discourse, car drivers lined up in front of Congress. They told the American public and those who represented them that they were doing everything possible to make cars safer and less polluting, and that there was little they could do to immediately repair the damage caused by their product. Managers downplay the scale of the public safety crisis and often claim that they are unaware of the extent to which their products are harmful to consumers. Their answers were, of course, largely charades, aimed at saving profits and preventing regulation for as long as possible. The then president of Ford, Arjay Miller, told in vivid detail how his Lincoln Continental was safe enough to save his life when he was involved in a highway accident – the doors were not jammed, the gas tank did not explode and Miller escaped unharmed. . He promised to ensure that Ford would do everything possible in the coming years to further improve safety.
But years later, Ford instead curtailed safety by producing cars like the Ford Pinto, which removed key safety features to get to market quickly and keep production costs at bay to maximize profits. In 1977, the scandalous “note” of Ford Pinto, which was discovered by Mother Jones investigative reporters analyze in detail the company’s horrific costs for past and future incidents. According to the note, the horrific deaths and burns all over the body suffered by Pinto residents in rear-end collisions represent an acceptable loss, as once the cases or other agreements are paid, they would amount to less than the cost of repairing Pinto. design to prevent explosion of the gas tank. The cost to fix the design was $ 11 per car. Following pressure from society and the government, it was eventually implemented through a withdrawal requested by the recently established National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Today, a similar scenario is unfolding in the realm of the Big Tech term, which has become a shorthand for ad-driven platforms and Internet-based arbitrage companies that reduce the cost of goods and services by putting pressure on both workers and consumers. Signaling devices from many companies, most of them women and many of them colored women, joined the role Nader played in the 1960s – from Ifeoma Ozoma, which opposed Pinterest and later worked for creation of legislation to ban the abusive practice of non-disclosure agreements for whistleblowers in California, and Timnit Gebru, who warned the world of Google’s lack of commitment to the ethics of artificial intelligence in practice, to Sophie Zhang and now Francis Haugen. In any case, companies are similarly trying to silence, fire or discredit these workers, while maintaining their harshest treatment of black women.
The need to change power structures in this sector is crucial not only for society but also for democracy: As Haugen’s testimony from last week showed, Facebook has distributed its huge profits not to fix certain problems, but to avoid being perceived as causing these problems. And just like Arjay Miller, Mark Zuckerberg has said everything necessary to delay and divert regulation.