Time to rein in the tech giants

For too long politicians have been seduced by tech giants allowing them to grow unchecked, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson has said.

The Chief Executive of News Corp, Robert Thomson. Picture: AAP

For too long politicians around the world have been seduced by the Silicon Valley technology giants allowing them to grow unchecked, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson has said.

In wide-ranging speech at the Keith Murdoch Oration at the State Library of Victoria last night, Mr Thomson said the dominance of the digital search and social media giants allowed for bad behaviour to be “institutionally ingrained”.

Mr Thomson, a long-time critic of the rising dominance of the Silicon Valley behemoths including Google and Facebook, said the “line of least compliance” should not have been the starting point for the world’s journey into the future.

“As a result, we have institutionally ingrained some seriously bad behaviour and have dominant digital companies culturally ill-equipped to cope with contemporary challenges,” he said.

Businessman Gerry Harvey with AFL boss Gillon McLachlan. Picture: Tony Gough

“Had fewer politicians, and not just in Australia, not been seduced by net narcissism, we may have cognisant communities better able to cope with the ‘e-existential’ challenges,” he said.

Mr Thomson hit out at the “seamless spread of witless nonsense, delivered digitally, globally, endlessly, daily”. He said the “village square had shrunk and been subdivided”, as the population sought affirmation through alienation and virtue in victimhood, in contrast to the joy that used to flow from shared experiences.

It was now clear, as well, that verticals in the digital world ran deep and had radicalised some participants, transforming them into jihadists and contemporary fascists, he said.

“At least there is a more vigorous debate on those subjects, and it’s clear there will be more regulation of companies who have sought to defy definition and avoid a reckoning,” he said.

His comments came after Australia’s competition watchdog found in a landmark review of the sector last December that a greater level of regulatory oversight was needed for players such as Facebook and Google.

Sport Australia boss John Wylie with senator Mitch Fifield. Picture: Aaron Francis

The platforms’ algorithms also ranked and displayed advertising and news content in a way that lacked transparency to advertisers and news organisations.

As developed nations grappled clumsily with their digital futures, Mr Thomson said the challenges were even greater in countries such as China, India and Indonesia.

Such countries were combining their digital revolutions with industrial revolutions, confronting mass rural-to-urban mobility in the age of the mobile telephone.

Mr Thomson blamed the “anarchic” designers of the internet for the proliferation of “digital drivel”.

Meanwhile, Mr Thomson, a former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and editor of London’s The Times, was confident global superpowers China and the US would strike a trade deal.

Former minister Gareth Evans and wife Merran. Picture: AAP

He said global affairs had reached a “complicated phase” with more at stake for both countries and the world. Any deal could have historic significance as it would signal “a new realm of responsibility” for the Asian superpower, he said.

Mr Thomson said there was private acknowledgment among Chinese officials that for some time they had the better of the bilateral deal. “We are in a different, rather complicated phase with more at stake for both countries and the world. But, when you speak privately with Chinese officials, they are almost surprised that they haven’t been called out years ago for dodgy trade practices,” Mr Thomson said.

“China still has a binary approach to trade and, on those monochromatic terms, the country recognises that it has obviously had the better of the bilateral deal,” he said.

He said the world was fortunate that China vice-premier and economic tsar Liu He “understands that we are in a defining moment in world affairs”.