the power they have is power we give. we can take that power back
Note: I wrote this way back on 30 January 2025 with the title 'government and the "digital oligarchy"' and posted it on the old blog. Reposting it here with a little light editing because, as old as the article referenced may be, the issues haven't changed and the point I was trying to make still stands.
This article appeared on Radio New Zealand way back on 29 January 2025. Mostly ok, but there’s a small bit that bugged me, specifically this:
“But the digital age has fundamentally changed national sovereignty – the right of individual countries to decide the rules within their own borders.
Big tech companies are gradually taking on functions traditionally reserved for government institutions. For example, these companies have begun to function as the arbiters of speech, controlling the visibility of certain ideas and comments.”
Well, not really.
For starters, nobody asks you which country you’d like to be born into, what citizenship entitlements you might like, or whether you accept the terms of the social contract. If you don’t like the terms of service of the country you currently live in, your ability to move to a different country is constrained by economic, legal, and geopolitical factors – can you afford to move? are you allowed to leave your current country? will the country you wish to move to grant you a visa, or are you otherwise entitled to live there? and so on…
If you don’t like Facebook, don’t join it. If you’re already on Facebook and don’t like what is happening there, leave. Over the last few years there have been successive waves of people abandoning Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Many of them have gone to other corporate social networks, such as Bluesky, while others have opted for decentralised, community-led networks such as the Fediverse (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Peertube, etc). There has also been the odd phenomenon of “Tik Tok refugees” showing up on Rednote…
The power of the digital oligarchs is power that we give them by opting in to their services. We can withdraw that power easily. Social media, whether corporate or community-led, does not set limits on free speech; we opt in to their limits when we use their services. We can just as easily opt out of their limits and find a service that better suits our values.
Government has even more power to influence the digital oligarchs than individuals. The New Zealand government does not owe the digital oligarchs anything. The New Zealand government has chosen to submit to the will of the digital oligarchs by using their products and services. The New Zealand government has the power to opt out and use other products or services. New Zealand has enough nerds and geeks that the government could hire people to build its own IT services.
I do see the logic of governments, businesses, schools, and community groups using, for example, Facebook – so many people are on Facebook that it is (or at least has been) a somewhat useful tool to communicate with the wider community. But they can also build their own websites (as many do), or even their own Mastodon instances. And old fashioned methods of communication such as newsletters, newspapers, and posters haven’t just magically disappeared.
In reality, of course, moving government, or a government department, or even a small community group, off big corporate IT would take time, patience, and an awful lot of communication with the community. But it can be done. The point is that the power the digital oligarchs have is power that we voluntarily give them. We can just as easily take that power back.
Once more for those in the back:
The power the digital oligarchs have is power that we voluntarily give them. We can just as easily take that power back.