Research Paper Digital World

Omar Obaid Qazi

Have tech giants done more harm than good to the society?

Report:
According to The Mercury News, the top 150 companies of Silicon Valley, which is essentially technol-
ogy’s hub, recorded a worldwide net profit of $3.5 trillion for the fiscal year of 2016 (Mercury
News,2017). Given the huge profits these companies have reaped from their global customers, the
question arises, have these tech giants impacted our lives and our world for the good or for the worse? I
found this topic to be very intriguing given the growing importance of everyone’s responsibility to give
back to society. In this report, I’ll explore how Tech giants have impacted the world from a Global Per-
spective as well as my country, Pakistan’s perspective. I hope to arrive at a conclusion after considering
both points of view. I’ve divided this report into aspects of technology that most impact our lives or
have significant future importance to us, namely social media and the economy.

Social Media:
At a 2012 manifesto for investors, founder Mark Zuckerberg asserted that Facebook was a tool to “a
more honest and transparent dialogue around government”, and that it would result in “better solu-
tions to some of the biggest problems of our time.”(New York Times, 2017). Today, Facebook is at the
centre of allegations of being used as a medium to spread fake news and influence voters during the
2016 United States General Elections, making us question whether it’s really become the transparent
political platform that it promised to become. The New York Times asserts that it’s become so easy to
spread fake news and influence politics that “companies themselves barely noticed it was happening”.
The source is a leading newspaper, however it tends to be biased against big corporations and is anti
status-quo.

However, as some may argue, it’s hard to ignore the number of events that are broadcast to social me-
dia by political candidates. These surely eliminate any bias. According to Social Media giant Twitter,
U.S President Donald Trump tweeted 9146 times during his election campaign, which, according to his
former Press Secretary Sean Spicer”is a direct pipeline to the American people”(The Atlantic,2018). The
source doesn’t seem to have any limitations as it is recent and a direct quotation.

Christian Picciolini, a former Neo Nazi, agreed with a CNN host during an interview that, “So much of
radicalization happens on quiet, scary corners of social media” (CNN,2017). This is mostly because tech
giants have failed to regulate content, implying that they are to blame for the rise of different forms of
hate speech. The source is biased against anti-liberal groups, however, it is very reliable and established
as one of the biggest journalism houses in the world.

So on a Global Perspective, it can be concluded that Tech giants’ failure to filter their content has led to
politics being influenced and the rise of bigotry and racism. However, in some cases, social media has
provided an unbiased, direct platform for the “honest and transparent dialogue” many including Mark
Zuckerberg promised.

Nationally, social media’s played a pivotal role in promoting education in Pakistan, perhaps it has acted
as a beacon of progress in an otherwise failing progress of education in the country. According to a poll
conducted by Hassan Khalid from Abdul Wali Khan University,”35% use social networking platforms for
Research Paper Digital World

educative purposes. It includes watching online tutorials regarding their courses, reading online mate-
rial etc”(Pro Pakistani,2016).. The source is reliable as the author has the relevant credentials, however,
we don’t know the methods through which this poll was carried out.

However, social media’s recently been in the limelight for the wrong reasons and tech giants have been
under severe scrutiny particularly over the Government’s allegations that there’s blasphemous content
on these sites. According to Reuters, in March 2017, the government of Pakistan requested a meeting
with social media giant Facebook to investigate and remove content which was considered blasphe-
mous, which carries the death sentence in Pakistan. Such content is often very sensitive and can tip
a country over into turmoil, thus many concerns were raised over Facebooks ability to adminis-
ter its content. This raised many concerns as to weather Facebook actually cared about com-
plaints in its community. The source is generally very credible and wouldn’t misinform the public
on such events.

In conclusion, Nationally, social media’s played a pivotal role in enhancing the education sector
in Pakistan, its failure yet again to filter content led to many tension boiling over.

Economy

It’s hard to ignore the sheer influence that tech companies have on today’s economy. According
to weforum.org, the world’s five largest companies are tech companies, namely Apple, Alphabet,
Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon(Weforum, 2018).Thus, it’s imperative that they give back to
the societies they earn their profits from.The source provide relevant statistics, and can be relied
upon to state facts.
Due to this massive rise of tech giants, it’s safe to say that tech giants play a huge role in the job
market. They’re increasingly creating new jobs as they progress towards new technology. As
mentioned by MRI-Network, one example is cloud computing, where “Some of the largest com-
panies in the U.S are devoting greater investment funds to cloud technology, and creating more
jobs in the process”, and as tech giants continue to generate vast incomes, they also expand
their offices, creating more jobs in the process(MRI Network,2018). For example, as ama-
zon.com looks to build it’s 2nd HeadQuarters in North America, the company says that it expects
to create 50,000 more jobs(amazon.com, 2018). Both sources are primary giving them great reli-
ability, however, these companies may be exaggerating their future aims to please certain peo-
ple.

However, these companies have also drawn criticism for the potential harm they may have ren-
dered to the economy. Critics point out that with their future aims, such as Artificial Intelligence,
tech giants are taking humans out of the process and essentially replacing them. In a recent ar-
ticle for salon.com, Scott Galloway, an NYU professor asserted “If you look at technology’s focus
right now, it’s mostly on artificial intelligence, stores without cashiers. It’s all about taking hu-
mans out of the process.”(salon.com). The professor is of the relevant field, but he may be bi-
ased against AI due to personal beliefs.
Research Paper Digital World

Many also argue that tech giants have also restricted the building of diversified economy. For
example, just recently in November, cities in the United States were lining up to become ama-
zon.com's 2nd headquarter, which would mean that those cities would be entirely be dependent
on Amazon as far as their economy is concerned. Geekwire takes the example of Pittsburgh,
and states that if the city is chosen as Amazon’s H.Q, the increasing number of six-figure jobs
will only increase inequality and would lead to rising rents.(geekwire.com, 2018). The source is
not well known and may not be a credible reporter.

On a Global Perspective, the rise of tech giants has led to a growth in jobs and benefitted the
economy as these companies pay taxes. However, looking towards the future, these enterprises
are investing in technology( A.I) that can eliminate human jobs and are making local economies
entirely dependent on them.

On a National Perspective, there are pro’s and con’s as to how tech giants have affected the
economy.

Many Pakistanis are employed by tech giants, an example can be taken by ride hailing services
Careem and Uber. These companies have affected the society overall as they provide relatively
cheaper transport services to those who can’t or don’t drive. Moreover, these companies have
also provided jobs to the youth helping to counter unemployment. They have also boosted Paki-
stan’s auto-industry as its employees look for cheaper cars to buy.( The News on Sun-
day,2018).. The News on Sunday is a well read local media source, however, it may be exag-
gerating the governments success in these industries as it’s pro establishment.

However, these ride hailing services have also put traditional taxi drivers at a risk, as many con-
sumers prefer to not ride traditional taxis due to pricing, security concerns and uncomfortable
rides.

It is also worth noting that while social media services like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter,
Youtube etc are functioning in Pakistan, they do not have any tangible offices or jobs present in
Pakistan, therefore it is troubling that while they are generating advertisement revenue from
here, they are not going back to the community itself.

Possible Courses of Action:

Social media:
There’s a lot of debate on how the problem of social media should be dealt with. The general
consensus is that regulation of content should take place without limiting free speech. So one
solution could be that tech giants spend some money out of their pockets and hire scores of em-
ployees that manually regulate content. These employees could be given a set of guidelines in
order to help them remove the right content. These guidelines should be made taken into con-
sideration demands from government and the general public. Given the huge treasury they
have, it is entirely feasible from an economic standpoint for tech giants to embark on this pro-
ject. However, it should be kept in mind that as humans commit to this task, mistakes could be
made and content could be wrongfully removed leading to protest which would result in the
same problem which was being avoided in the first place. Alternatively, another solution could
Research Paper Digital World

be to bolster the development of algorithms which would do so instead of humans. This would
also cost considerably less, it would mean that AI gets human jobs.

Economy:
As far as the economy is concerned, there is a desperate need to stop A.I from taking over jobs
which can easily be carried out by humans. Otherwise, unemployment will skyrocket. As the
Guardian states, AI could takeover 4 million jobs in the next 10 years to come.(Guardian,2018)
A number of measures could be taken into consideration. One possible solution is to equip peo-
ple to be compatible with A.I. So instead of AI taking over their jobs completely, they can learn
to use AI to be more productive at their jobs

I believe the way to stop tech giants’ increasing control is to diversify. It is clear that tech giants
dominate and make up a major portion of the global economy and their collapse would cause
disastrous effects on the global economy and cities alike as many livelihoods are dependent on
them. I suggest that startup incubators be set up. In effect these would support entrepreneurs
with business ideas financially and strategically. This way, the global economy would have more
sources of income and people in these cities will also be able to move out of tech giants’ um-
brella. The government could initiate these incubators and also fund other industrial sectors to
reduce independence on tech giants.

Conclusion

After abundant research, I’ve come to the conclusion that the economy is the more important of
the issues, mainly because it has widespread global consequences. An economic collapse due
to these tech giants can very easily cause a worldwide collapse which would ruin the economy’s
of many countries and also sour relations as they would compete with each other for resources
in illegal ways. It’s very much possible that this could lead to war. On the other hand, social me-
dia does have negative consequences, but in my opinion, they wont be as disastrous as an eco-
nomic collapse

On a personal level, I now believe that tech giants have caused more harm than good. This re-
port has certainly changed my opinion on the matter. I was previously ignorant of tech giants re-
sponsibility towards society and only aware of the revolution brought about by them in this digi-
tal day and age. However, I have learned that with the massive power they have yielded, they
have also caused problems and their actions can cause significant future consequences.