LISBON — The tech world is suffering from an adolescent identity crisis.
As tens of thousands of startup founders, venture capitalists and policymakers gather here in Lisbon for Web Summit, there’s an ongoing disconnect between the world’s digital set and many outside the conference walls. While the attendees view tech almost overwhelmingly as a force for good, the wider public across Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere is increasingly skeptical over the role these online products and services play in their daily lives.
This divide has become more pronounced as companies like Google, Amazon and Apple have grown to be some of the most valuable companies in the world, shredding their past identities as plucky startups fighting legacy corporate interests.
Big Tech’s power in society has undoubtedly grown when almost anything is available through a mere swipe on a smartphone.
And to many in the industry, including the hoodie-wearing startup founders that flocked to Lisbon this week in search of cash and new business, technology remains the solution, not the problem, to everything from climate change to — arguably less important — finding a date.
“Maybe some of the platform businesses underestimate the power that they hold” — Margrethe Vestager
But the digital sector is being forced to recognize (and discuss) its faults. That means taking greater responsibility for the darker sides of technology that are increasingly apparent amid allegations that Russian-backed efforts through social media may have swayed last year’s U.S. presidential election and possibly played a role in a series of nationwide votes across Europe in 2017.
It also involves not overlooking the inequalities that tech can often produce, with a small group of founders and investors becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams while many in society still struggle in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
“I have this worry about our democracy,” Margrethe Vestager, the European competition commissioner and a frequent antitrust scourge for Big Tech, told an audience at Web Summit on Monday evening. “Maybe some of the platform businesses underestimate the power that they hold.”
That’s starting to happen, with some in the tech industry finally coming around to the idea that they must play a wider role in society. “About time,” say critics, after a string of high-profile issues — including the spread of hate speech and extremist content online, Uber’s banning in London and sexual harassment allegations at companies across Silicon Valley — have highlighted the downsides of the digital utopia.
One approach for tech is to open corporate checkbooks, pouring in millions of euros of investment in digital skills, fake news-fighting initiatives and other social programs to address some of the issues that may have been swept under the carpet even a few years ago. That includes an industry-led push to tackle the spread of terrorist propaganda online — an issue that has routinely come up after a spate of attacks across Western cities over the last 18 months.
“There is no magic computer program that will eliminate online terrorist content,” Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, recently told the United Nations. “But we are committed to working with everyone in this room as we continue to ramp up our own efforts to stop terrorists’ abuse of our services.”
These efforts by the tech industry to grow up also have arrived at Web Summit, an event more accustomed to pub crawls and hackathons than debating the complexities of global digital public policy.
Graphics of Facebook pages linked to Russian-backed efforts to sway last year’s U.S. presidential election are displayed during a U.S. Intelligence Committee hearing | Shawn Thew/EPA
Alongside the typical talks aimed at coders and fireside conference chats from Silicon Valley’s chief executives, this year’s event also includes panels on how best to tax the digital economy, as well as how fake news may have been spread through social media. It may not be much. But it’s at least a start for those in the digital economy to realize that not everything that they touch turns to gold.
Still, there’s undoubtedly a standoff brewing between public authorities and the digital great-and-the-good. Already, European officials have taken the lead, fining Apple €13 billion for failing to pay back taxes in Ireland (the company denies wrongdoing) and regulating what can, and cannot, be considered hate speech on Facebook. U.S. lawmakers also are debating new ways to police Big Tech, though analysts expect such initiatives will remain on the backburner amid ongoing political inertia on digital regulation in the U.S. Congress.
Yet for techies, the era of acting first and asking questions later is quickly being replaced by greater scrutiny from policymakers who now have the digital industry in their sights.
“No one likes to work on regulation,” said Will Murphy, chief technology officer at Blackstone, the American investment firm. “Whenever it comes up, we still want to pound our heads against the wall.”
With the technology honeymoon with much of the wider public over, there are likely to be more walls ahead.