Skip to main content

How Big Tech Regulation Limits Misinformation

Across the globe, government regulators are eager to contain the influence of Big Tech for a number of reasons that pose a significant threat to democracy and the security of a civil society.

These include concerns about the companies' market power, their ability to stifle competition, their impact on privacy and data protection, and their role in spreading misinformation. 

Regulators are also concerned about the power that Big Tech companies have over their citizens' lives, as they control the information we see and the way we interact with the online economy.

Big Tech Global Market Development

Over the next few years, regulators will crackdown on some of the world’s biggest tech companies -- including Amazon, Google, Meta, X (Twitter), Alibaba, and Tencent -- according to the latest worldwide market study by GlobalData.

The insightful GlobalData survey findings predict that regulators will pursue the most influential Big Tech companies in 12 key regulatory arenas.

Those include data security, data privacy, antitrust, tax avoidance, misinformation, online harm, artificial intelligence (AI) ethics, copyright, net neutrality, US-China tech sanctions, environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), and obstruction of justice.

Sweeping new regulations will come on multiple fronts, but data privacy, antitrust, AI ethics, and online harm will be the main targets of regulators’ investigations in the foreseeable near-term.

These areas are critical to ensure a safe Global Networked Economy, and the protection of democratic ideals that are under attack by authoritarian governments and their corrupt dictators.

Brussels is taking the lead in promoting new regulation -- including on AI -- with a string of new EU laws targeting Big Tech's business model. In Washington, despite President Biden’s resolve to step up tech regulation, a divided U.S. Congress makes a change in the legal landscape unlikely.

For its part, the Chinese government must strike a delicate balance: maintaining regulatory oversight of the tech sector while innovating fast in the technologies most under pressure from the U.S. leaders.

"Ad-funded internet companies treating data as a free resource — like Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, and Baidu — face the highest regulatory risk," said Laura Petrone, principal analyst at GlobalData.

While Microsoft and Apple are less at risk from data privacy issues, they are both highly exposed to antitrust regulation and meet the criteria -- alongside Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet -- to qualify as ‘gatekeepers’ under the EU’s new antitrust legislation.

According to the GlobalData assessment, Salesforce, Samsung Electronics, Nvidia, and Netflix will encounter the lowest regulatory risk, as they do not face significant scrutiny in the critical regulatory arenas of data privacy, antitrust, and online harm.

"All companies investing in AI will face significant scrutiny by regulators in AI ethics, but Big Tech again has the most at stake," Petrone concludes.

Outlook for Big Tech AI Applications Growth

The EU’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act has the potential to hold providers of foundation models, which create content from limited human input, accountable for assessing and mitigating possible risks.

Should the U.S. and the UK regulators align with the EU Brussels’ approach, companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta will be deemed responsible for how their systems are used, even if they have no control over specific applications of the technology.

That said, I believe Big Tech platforms have been used to spread misinformation and hate speech, and the ramifications on society as a whole have been dramatic. The unfiltered publication of blatant lies has had a negative impact on democracy and public discourse. This is the key issue that must be resolved ASAP.

Popular posts from this blog

AI Semiconductor Revenue will Reach $119.4B

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will guide Generative AI initiatives within the large enterprise C-Suite. They may already have the technical expertise and experience to understand the capabilities and limitations of Gen AI. They also have the authority and budget to make the necessary investments in infrastructure and talent to support Gen AI initiatives. Enterprise AI infrastructure is proven to be expensive to build, operate and maintain. That's why public cloud service provider solutions are often used for new AI use cases. AI Semiconductor Market Development Semiconductors designed to execute Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads will represent a $53.4 billion revenue opportunity for the global semiconductor industry in 2023, an increase of 20.9 percent from 2022, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "The developments in generative AI and the increasing use of a wide range AI-based applications in data c

Industrial Cloud Computing Apps Gain Momentum

In the manufacturing industry, cloud computing can help leaders improve their production efficiency by providing them with real-time data about their operations. This has gained the attention of the C-suite. Total forecast Industrial Cloud platform revenue in manufacturing will surpass $300 billion by 2033 with a CAGR of 22.57 percent, driven by solution providers enhancing platform interoperability while expanding partner ecosystems for application development. ABI Research found the cloud computing manufacturing market will grow over the next decade due to the adoption of new architectural frameworks that enhance data extraction and interoperability for manufacturers looking to maximize utility from their data. Industrial Cloud Computing Market Development "Historically, manufacturers have built out their infrastructure to include expensive data housing in the form of on-premises servers. The large initial upfront cost of purchasing, setting up, and maintaining these servers is

Demand for Quantum Computing as a Service

The enterprise demand for quantum computing is still in its early stages, growing slowly. As the technology becomes more usable, we may see demand evolve beyond scientific applications. The global quantum computing market is forecast to grow from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $7.6 billion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). That's a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48.1 percent. The forecast includes base Quantum Computing as a Service, as well as enabling and adjacent Quantum Computing as a Service. However, this updated forecast is considerably lower than IDC's previous quantum computing forecast, which was published in 2021, due to lower demand globally. Quantum Computing Market Development In the interim, customer spend for quantum computing has been negatively impacted by several factors, including: slower than expected advances in quantum hardware development, which have delayed potential return on inve