Could big tech platforms improve democracy rather than undermine it? Possibly, says Common Wealth

The digital platforms that make up ‘big tech’ as we know it today have done very little for democracy. Ideas about ‘connecting people’, and the ‘sharing economy’ have turned out to be little more than rhetoric masking an insatiable drive to acquire the apparently endless riches that market mediation can offer. Google and Facebook have turned us into commodities to which we can be sold, Uber and Airbnb have crystallized value by placing relentless pressure on both labour and housing. Amazon, meanwhile, continues to rearchitect the infrastructure of commerce, digital, and logistics to its own advantage. This revolution of apparent convenience has undermined privacy, labour rights and, indeed, even our sense of ourselves as citizens, part of both global and local communities.

However, a new report by think tank Common Wealth suggests that these platforms could hold the key to a more democratic and truly collaborative future. “Given their collaborative and networked nature, the reports authors write, “platforms also have great potential to be organised through multi-stakeholder models of governance and ownership, giving suppliers and users of the platform genuine voice and control.”

This isn’t to say that the transformation will be easy – and certainly not inevitable. “The challenge is to liberate the democratic and enlivening potential of the platform from the logics of concentrated corporate ownership and profit maximisation.” We can do this, the report argues, through “a new architecture of ownership and control.”

Why recent and ongoing reform initiatives will likely fail

The Common Wealth report highlights how recent and ongoing attempts at reform or policing platforms through policy have been – and likely will be – unable to initiate truly transformative change.

Antitrust legislation

Take antitrust legislation. While it can be useful in certain contexts, Common Wealth claims that we need nothing less than “a wholesale revision of the grounds on which a company is deemed to be a monopoly or anti-competitive” for it to be truly successful at breaking up the power of big tech platforms. It also takes aim at antitrust initiatives’ “focus on consumer welfare and prices” which are “an inadequate standard for antitrust action against platforms where in most cases the ‘product’ is essentially provided for free.”

The report also says that “without additional changes to the structure of the companies… and the broader balance between market mechanisms (and imperatives) and state intervention, a reconcentration is almost inevitable.” Quoting Dipayan Ghosh of Harvard’s Digital Platforms and Democracy Project, it highlights that the very nature of the digital economy – insofar as it relies on ‘network effects,’ – makes monopolization almost a fact of an unmanaged digital sphere.

In essence, we can’t rely on antitrust to create a more positive and democratic version of our digital future. It’s not enough to simply pull big tech apart. We need to have a coherent alternative and practical mechanisms that can properly challenge the industry’s seemingly unassailable power.

Data and privacy

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are two of the most significant examples of privacy legislation. However, Common Wealth points out that both have proven to be incredibly difficult to enforce consistently. It also touches on a suggestion made by some that the demands of data protection legislation only really hurts smaller companies – big tech can easily handle compliance needs, while for smaller organizations it becomes a more significant burden.

Big tech’s influence

It’s impossible to disentable the current regulatory environment without recognising the involvement of big tech. It shouldn’t be surprising that companies as large as Facebook or Google feel they deserve should have a seat at the policy making table, but we should nevertheless be very cautious. At the moment, in spite of some tough talk, it appears that many governments are happy to buy into tech companies’ rhetoric of agility and problem-solving (just look, for example, at Joe Biden’s transition team).

Common Wealth highlights the fact that Mark Zuckerberg called for intervention in a Financial Times article from 2019; this was, the report notes, “interpreted as seeking a head start on shaping coming regulations.”

Other tech leaders have also spoken about regulation – Sundar Pichai, for example, has spoken on a number of occasions about regulating AI (at the start of 2020 he even suggested that GDPR could provide a model for doing so). Brad Smith of Microsoft has also spoken about the need for regulation: “I worry that if all of the data on which the world relies is in the hands of a small number of tech companies, you’re going to see a massive transfer of economic wealth.” Smith’s candour (and accuracy) deserves credit – but it’s done little more than give some brand credibility to Microsoft. Indeed, he never went as far to actually suggest specific reforms.

Read next: What is the techlash?

How can we use platforms to improve democracy?

One of the most interesting alternatives to the current challenges posed by large tech platforms is to turn them into public utilities. The report quotes law scholar Vincente Bagnoli who writes that “the platforms’ ecosystem deals with services, products, ideas and democracy… access to which has become essential for communities, consumers and sellers.” This means, Bagnoli argues, that digital platforms are “an infrastructure of a public-good nature.”

When you combine such a model with progressive approaches to ownership – such as cooperatives – a clearer picture of what the future of digital space and infrastructure might look like. However, Common Wealth argues that such an approach can throw up new issues, and have limited success. The report highlights that not only can it be difficult for cooperative models to scale in the way that other investor-backed initiatives can, but that they also work within the confines of existing capitalist logic. The report cites Dario Azzellini who says that while “cooperatives may represent a positive step in democratizing the ownership of enterprises within the frame of a capitalist economy… they are not automatically an alternative institutional form.”

Key proposals in the Common Wealth report

However, this doesn’t mean Common Wealth believes there is no alternative. The report puts forward clear policy proposals that it claims could lead to a more equitable and democratic society.

It includes:

• Bringing digital platforms into public ownership, decentralizing power (possibly “into local and regional public entities”), and “embedding democratic principles throughout the ownership and governance structures”
• Halting the risks of monopolization by the fintech industry by creating a Central Bank Digital Currency and postal banking system, and financing digital intiatives via national investment banks (thus undermining the economic aggression that comes with venture capital (VC) investment).
• Putting an end to the power of Venture Capital (and its negative social impact) by using national investment banks to finance digital initiatives, and creating three new public bodies that could support digital cooperatives and projects: “Public Platform Accelerator (PPA), a National Lab for Community Data (NLCD), and a network of Public Digital Cooperatives.”
• Strengthening employment laws to protect workers whose power has diminished as a result of the last decade of platform monopolization. This includes reinforcing the role of unions in protecting worker interests: “It is vital that in the US and UK we not only expand collective bargaining across the wider economy but also ensure that these mechanisms for rebalancing voice and power are also extended to platform work.”
• Ensuring greater collective decision making and transparency about data collection and usage with the creation of a multi-stakeholder agency. “The goal should be to ensure all stakeholders – workers, residents, community organisations, businesses, and more – can collectively shape the rules and regulations concerning data collection as well as the development and application of data technologies in their communities and workplaces, technologies which intimately pattern how we live and work.” Common Wealth also suggests that the work of this agency could be augmented by what it calls “data trusts”, which would be agencies that act as stewards for specific data sets (so, a specific sector of the economy might have a data trust for data relating to its activities).

Looking to the future of the platform economy

These recommendations are far-reaching. They will undoubtedly require a huge shift in perspective about both technology and society as a whole. However, what the Common Wealth report tries to make clear is that it’s only by being ambitious that real and lasting democratic change can be made.

However, Common Wealth also issues a warning: “the window for change is closing fast.” Just as climate catastrophe demands immediate action, so too does our present digital ecosystem. Indeed, we should see both challenges as intimately connected – we need to seize on the growing crisis as an opportunity for true change.