DIGITAL LIFE

Trump's offensives only vulgarize what big tech has been doing forever

It's 2012 and Facebook researchers conduct a psychological manipulation experiment with algorithms and are shocked to realize they forgot that the platform was created to rank students in a misogynistic way. 

It's 2015: Misuse of Data (Precedents): Although the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light in 2018, the basis for the collection and misuse of data began to be discussed, with Facebook removing a personality test app in 2015 after gaining access to user data for academic purposes, but which was passed on without consent.

It's 2016: Facebook admitted that Cambridge Analytica – a political consulting firm that ran Trump's 2016 digital campaign – used an app to collect private information from 87 million users without their knowledge. The company then used this data to send users specially tailored political advertising and create detailed reports to help Trump win the election against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

It's 2017: massacres in Myanmar lead to the flight of hundreds of thousands – Amnesty International points to the role of algorithmic hate promotion. It's 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal reinforces the power of big tech in influencing elections. It's 2021, Google and Amazon employees protest against Project Nimbus, which offers AI and digital infrastructure to Israeli apartheid. It's 2025: the Grok tool exalts Hitler on X, formerly Twitter. This case is reminiscent of Microsoft's famous Tay Bot, which did the same on Twitter in 2016.

In 2019, Cambridge Analytica pleaded guilty to failing to comply with an order from the UK's data protection regulator (ICO), which mandated that it disclose information it held about an American professor, David Carroll. Carroll had requested to know what data the company held about him and how it had obtained it.

It's 2023: Big tech companies also allied with the far right in 2023 to block regulatory initiatives when attempts were made to incorporate the Brazilian penal code into digital platforms. In Congress, conservative lawmakers spread the idea that passages from the Bible would be banned in Brazil through regulation. The document that fabricated this false connection was conceived by a lobbyist for Meta and distributed by a lobbying entity representing Amazon, Meta, Google, Kwai, and TikTok.

It's January 2025: Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Sam Altman (OpenAI), Elon Musk (X), Sundar Pichai (Google), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), and Peter Thiel (Palantir) attend Donald Trump's inauguration, forge new contracts, and abandon superficial commitments – never truly fulfilled – related to sustainability, diversity, and transparency. In Brazil, the Attorney General's Office holds a public hearing in response to the sudden change in the platforms' terms of use. The companies do not send representatives.

June 2025: Brazil launches, with little input from civil society, an updated version of the "Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Plan" which includes several positive mentions of companies like OpenAI and, despite including mentions of "reducing external dependence," the actions and investments are overshadowed by the enormous amount of spending the country has on big tech. In 2024 alone, R$ 10 billion was spent on tools, software, and cloud services that still compromise the data of Brazilians. Shortly before, the Minister of Finance met with representatives from Amazon and Nvidia to present a plan for tax incentives for the construction of data centers in Brazil. Brazilians are still unaware of the plan's conditions.

The vulgarity of Trump's offensives has very evident partners and beneficiaries. In a statement full of misinformation, the White House stated that the motivation for disproportionately taxing Brazil includes the country's alleged actions to "tyrannically and arbitrarily coerce US companies into censoring political speech, deplatforming users, handing over sensitive data, or changing their moderation policies."

Brazil suffers from Stockholm syndrome with Big Tech – the sad psychological phenomenon where victims of kidnapping or abuse develop positive feelings and dependence on their abusers. Evidence of the role of big tech and financial capital eager to use digital technologies and AI to further exploitation seems to be ignored by public policies, while organized civil society lacks space to participate – or at least access to information that should be transparent.

The poor decisions of the Brazilian state regarding big tech do not occur in a vacuum. These companies are far more sophisticated in their political influence than the most aggressive expression of Trumpism suggests. A significant portion of the Brazilian National Congress has been captured by the influence of these corporations, which have privileged access to decision-making spaces and are able to set the legislative agenda in favor of their interests.

The abuse of economic power by groups such as Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft manifests itself not only in the pressure exerted on parliamentarians but also in the influence exerted over other actors in the field of digital technology governance. Big tech's investment in think tanks, research groups at private universities, data privacy conferences, and other spaces for debate on technology creates an environment that promotes ignorance and forgetfulness about the anti-democratic history and present of big tech and what they represent.

In this context, the advancement of social media platform regulation in Brazil, often touted as prior censorship, appears to be influenced by lobbying and pressure from the private sector, revealing how its power infiltrates institutions and erodes the capacity to defend an effective democratic process.

The negative impacts of Trump's offensive on so many different Brazilian sectors and the resulting benefits of public support for the federal government, as well as the weakening of trust in the United States, open a unique window of opportunity. Public officials, civil society, and academic researchers, as well as responsible national businesses, can make better decisions that recognize that the problem goes far beyond Trump – and that we need a technological vision of the future that meaningfully includes digital sovereignty.

https://diplomatique.org.br/