DIGITAL LIFE

The invisible hand of big tech

When Scottish economist Adam Smith, known as the father of liberalism, spoke in the 18th century about "the invisible hand of the market," he predicted that by seeking their own benefit, individuals could benefit society as a whole. But Smith also warned that merchants often collude and manipulate the rules to their advantage, and that the state must prevent monopolies and guarantee public goods. Today, it is clear that, if left unchecked, Big Tech and other companies act as Smith feared: they shape laws, co-opt governments, and manipulate public opinion for their own benefit.

In the face of legislative advances, one sector has been prominent in anti-regulation lobbying efforts worldwide: Big Tech, a select group of billion-dollar companies such as Meta (owner of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram), Alphabet (owner of Google), Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple – known as the "Big Five" – and others such as China's ByteDance (owner of TikTok), Argentina's MercadoLibre, and new players in the artificial intelligence race, such as OpenAI.

Together, these tech giants have a greater impact on every aspect of people's lives than many governments. However, unlike governments, whose goal is to serve the public and are accountable to it, Big Tech aims to maximize profits and be accountable to its shareholders.

There is little data on how they influence legislation. Today, Big Tech is the sector that spends the most on lobbying in the European Union, where they are required to declare their investments. In 2024, the sector spent €67 million, a 57% increase since 2020. In the United States—where they are also forced to publicize their lobbying spending—they spent $61 million in the same year, a 13% increase compared to 2023. To gain favor with the Trump administration, companies like Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft each donated $1 million to the inauguration ceremony committee, and their CEOs lined up during the event.

For the first time, a collaborative, cross-border investigation identified nearly 3,000 Big Tech lobbying efforts in parliaments and governments around the world, which can be accessed in this interactive database. We also documented lawsuits and bills involving the rules of the game in the tech industry.

Making Big Tech's "invisible hand" visible is a task that the organizations participating in this project consider urgent. Therefore, they all make a collective disclaimer about funding received from technology companies currently or in the past.

https://apublica.org/especial/a-mao-invisivel-das-big-techs/

mundophone