How the Crisis Could Embolden Big Tech
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2020
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, the world’s largest tech companies posted their quarterly earnings. And—unlike most other companies in the world—things aren’t looking so bad. With the global economy reeling, and people sheltering indoors, the tech giants have an opportunity to reshape the way we live. Don’t expect them to wait on the sidelines.
Guest: Elizabeth Dwoskin, Silicon Valley correspondent at the Washington Post
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When you're a reporter, especially one on a specific beat, you get to know your beat inside and out. |
| 0:11.1 | You watch for trends, you get acquainted with the characters, and you really get a feel for the narrative arcs in what you're covering. |
| 0:18.1 | That's what Elizabeth Dwaskin does. She's a reporter for the Washington |
| 0:21.7 | Post, and she's been covering her beat, Silicon Valley, for seven years. And when she talks about it, |
| 0:27.5 | you can hear her brain almost write chapters, past, present, and future. It's just a lens to look |
| 0:34.6 | at what is going on across the tech landscape. |
| 0:42.4 | When I moved to Silicon Valley, it was a moment of euphoria and it was a tech bubble. |
| 0:46.5 | This was the rise of Uber with its at the time $60 billion valuation. |
| 0:51.5 | And then, you know, that euphoria started to crash right around the 2016 election. And I covered that narrative. |
| 0:55.7 | Elizabeth was reporting as Tech's glossy narrative lost a little sheen. |
| 1:01.0 | Facebook had the Cambridge Analytica scandal and several other ones over privacy. |
| 1:05.5 | This was a major breach of trust, and I'm really sorry that this happened. |
| 1:09.7 | Both Amazon and Google had protests and |
| 1:12.2 | walkouts. And those same companies that once provoked wonder were often seen as villains. |
| 1:20.5 | Then governments started pushing back. The Department of Justice opened an antitrust review of the |
| 1:25.9 | leading tech companies. |
| 1:30.8 | Strict data privacy laws were passed in Europe and in California. |
| 1:35.2 | This comes amid an increasing global pushback against the big tech companies. |
| 1:40.8 | Late last summer, with all of this happening, Elizabeth left her beat to go on maternity leave. |
| 1:45.0 | She knew that when she came back, there was still going to be a lot to cover. So when I was leaving, I thought, really the biggest story on my beat in the year ahead is going to be the attempt at disassembling the power of big tech and the reckoning with the power of big tech, which has been going on for a number of years. |
| 2:00.0 | But the complaints, you know, around Facebook's content moderation, around Apple slowing down |
| 2:07.4 | phones and pushing other companies out of the app store, around Google, potentially |
... |
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