Google and Facebook refuse to grow up and become responsible

Silhouettes are seen in front of the logo of US social media Facebook. Picture: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP

In joining Google’s crusade against Australia’s media bargaining code, Facebook claims the government “misunderstands the dynamics of the internet”. The more pertinent problem, however, is the Silicon Valley behemoths misunderstand the dynamics of history. Because if Australia’s fairly modest media bargaining code can prompt this level of furious resistance, what will Facebook and Google do when the real regulation comes?

And it will. Google and Facebook are hardly the first plucky private ventures to explore a new industry and accidentally mutate into monopolistic services. Capitalism is littered with examples of nimble enterprises that evolved into quasi-public utilities. Whenever this happens society rightly has demanded a regulatory role to ensure they operate in the public interest.

But it seems no one at Facebook or Google has googled this history. Instead, their response to a relatively straightforward proposal to pay Australian news creators for the value they create has been characterised by aggression and petulance. Google has written a vague series of thinly veiled threats into a blog post, then repeatedly forced that post down the throat of every Australian trying to search for something on the internet or to access a video on YouTube. On Tuesday, Facebook went a step further and explicitly flagged blocking all Australian news altogether.

It’s not unusual for industries to attempt to bully Australian policymakers by frightening the public. But the chest-thumping by Google and Facebook differs in three significant ways.

First, there’s their reach. Internet search is a necessary part of everyday life and a natural monopoly. The point is to give users a scan of everything. Through its search page and YouTube, Google has unique power to hit almost all Australians simultaneously with its propaganda. Likewise a social network such as Facebook naturally tends towards monopoly because it thrives on interconnectedness. Even the mighty mining lobby can only dream of such ubiquity.

Second, there’s the potential impact of Facebook and Google’s actions. Although it has been deliberately ambiguous about its intent, Google is in a unique position to threaten to unilaterally switch off a public utility in internet search. There is no comparable company in Australia that could single-handedly hold the nation to ransom in such a way. Likewise, Facebook has the power to manipulate and control the flow of information to millions of Australians in a manner that makes the media ownership debates of the 1990s seem quaint.

Third, there’s a seemingly wilful lack of self-awareness. Google and Facebook started as carefree garage start-ups and, despite morphing into two of the most influential corporations the world has seen, appear determined to reject the responsibility of power and maturity. It is disturbing to hear Google and Facebook describe news as if it is simply a line item on a balance sheet; something that can be easily evaluated in terms of click revenue and discarded accordingly. Both seem remarkably casual about the prospect of operating platforms in which real news has been abandoned or de-prioritised, leaving misinformation to fill the void.

The difference between information and misinformation, the value of the news to the functioning of democracy, the way in which malicious actors can weaponise fake news — none of these issues seems to exercise the leadership of Facebook or Google who see regulation as just an inconvenient impost on their immediate profits.

Yet democracies around the world are waking up to concerns about how Google and Facebook operate, the negative effect they cause and the outsize power they wield — the way these platforms create attention-optimising algorithms that lead to echo chambers, polarisation and the disproportionate amplification of dangerous fringe voices. The way they refuse to accept accountability and oversight for advertising that enables malicious actors to monetise disinformation and harmful content. The surveillance and selling of insights to personal data on every user, including young people.

Facebook and Google seem content to reap the unprecedented monopoly profits of the markets they created but recalcitrant when it comes to accepting even a small sliver of the responsibility such power demands. But when you sit in charge of functions this significant, you can no longer act like surly, unaccountable teenagers. When you’ve expanded this fast, you need to recognise regulation is part of growing up.

There are calls across the EU and the US to break up Facebook and Google under antitrust laws. These calls will grow louder. If the tech giants want to resist this and maintain integrity as single entities, they need to drop the threats and give ground to governments such as ours in the spirit of civic compromise.

Chris Cooper is executive director of Responsible Technology Australia.