A critic of Silicon Valley tech giants says governments and citizens need to take back control over the digital platforms that dominate modern life.
Canadian journalist Paris Marx told Q+A he was advocating for “digital sovereignty” through the development of publicly-owned alternatives, as well as more regulation for tech titans like Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Marx said he was particularly worried about how dependent people were on these largely US technologies.
He said: “I was writing about this even before the Trump moment happened, but I think it comes more into light now.
Mark Zuckerberg is one of five big tech bosses ordered to front at a fiery hearing in the US Senate. (Source: 1News)
“It’s time for countries to really think about the cost of that dependence and whether they have become too high to continue allowing us to be dependent on these American companies.”
In practice, starting to “carve out more sovereignty” could mean “thinking about public cloud [services], thinking about public development”, Marx said.
“But I think the other key piece of that is realising that a country like New Zealand on its own is not going to be able to develop a lot of these things. It’s going to take international alliances,” he added.
“It’s not about saying you all need to get off Facebook tomorrow or something, right?
“It’s about bringing in regulations that further try to push these platforms to align with the values, the rules, the expectations that we have for other companies that operate within our jurisdictions.”
The journalist was in New Zealand to attend a guest lecture at Auckland University earlier this week and has previously written for North and South magazine.
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air