Tech

Once Were Titans: Tech Giants Now Least Trustworthy Sector on Earth

  • Reading time: 2 min
Meta 2020 elections made tech giants least trustworthy sector.

Disseminating misleading information has gone wild and has adversely affected the lives of a billion or more human beings.

Meta changed a policy that allows advertisers on Facebook and Instagram to claim that the 2020 election was manipulated. That change is centered around what is called “free-speech considerations”. A special thank you for Meta 2020 elections!

Google proclaimed in June that the misrepresentation that happened in the past elections doesn’t harm YouTube’s misinformation policy. As well as X, formerly known as Twitter, hindered the ‘to report’ misinformation option altogether on the platform.

Now, the big tech giants are being examined due to their misleading role in spreading misinformation.

The critics are discussing that the platforms, in this case Google, X, and Meta aren’t doing the necessary to legitimately ban the spread of false information. That’s affecting societies negatively with the suffering from serious and perilous consequences. Imagine having a false alarm about an earthquake that is going to hit the ground under you. So, take a look on how tech giants have been supporting misinformation for profits:

  • In 2019: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has found that Meta was gathering information from the users without their consent. Then used these data to target ads. $5 billion was fined to Meta by the FTC.
  • In 2020: The European Union found that Google misused its position and took advantage of the power it has in the search market to trouble its competitors. Under the accusation of violating antitrust laws, Google was fined $5 billion by the EU.  
  • In 2021: Twitter failed in disclosing material information to its investors, thus got fined $125 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The above tech companies should stand accused as well for broadcasting deception to impact democracy.  

Unfortunately…

The future of democracy depends on it.

Google, X, and Meta are held accountable for undermining democracy!

A lot must be done to combat the spread of misinformation and to protect the reliability of the democratic process.

The following are examples of tech companies creating lies about democracy:

  • Google has been misleading with false information about health and climate change. Those are the targeted topics since the search engine results of their website are specifically about this kind of information.
  • Meta (formerly Facebook) has been accused of publishing ads that have false information about the 2020 elections. The interesting part is that that are just claims, no supported details about it.  

What should be spotted are the solutions, or what we can call ‘addressing tools’ to fight all what was addressed before. AI can be used to detect false or misleading information. Second, the number of posting content from chatbots must be limited. Third, there can be a partnership between the giant techs and fact-checking organizations to verify the ‘true’ information before publishing or spreading them. Unless it’s intentional. That’s another ‘story’ to be narrated, nevertheless.

Nothing complicated, nothing that is hard to accomplish or execute.

So get on with it or accept the fate you deserve.

Inside Telecom provides you with an extensive list of content covering all aspects of the tech industry. Keep an eye on our Tech sections to stay informed and up-to-date with our daily articles.

Tags: