THE tech giants have suddenly found themselves without a political party to protect them, just when they most need one. On November 1st executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter will testify before the House Intelligence Committee about how their platforms were used by Russia’s government during last year’s election. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, though they see eye-to-eye on very little, seem to agree that giant internet companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google may pose a threat to society. “If data is the new oil, is [Amazon’s Jeff] Bezos the new Rockefeller?” asks Bruce Mehlman, a Republican lobbyist, in a report called “Navigating the New Gilded Age”, which is circulating in Washington.
Democrats, long backers of the tech sector’s innovative products, are no longer the allies they used to be. When Barack Obama was president techies got plum jobs in his administration, and the party’s supposedly superior data analytics seemed destined to help lock in...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2iB0qQw
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