Big tech is destroying democracy and political cowards are letting it happen

It seems a race is on. Will democratic states be able to control the tech companies and their products before the tech companies buy control of, or destroy the regulatory capacity of, democratic states?

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In the US, Violence-Inciter-in-Chief Donald Trump has advocated that the tech companies have a free hand in exploiting their internet platforms and developing artificial intelligence. Any regulation is denounced by Republicans and the extreme right as an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of enterprise.

In 2023-24 Elon Musk gave Republicans $290 million; in 2025-26 $90 million; and since the beginning of this financial year $352 million. And Republicans have received tens of millions more from corporations in the fields of energy and information technology.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, middle, and Liberal senator Sarah Henderson. Pictures by Darren Howe, Sitthixay Ditthavong, Shutterstock

It is a contest of power and money - the pursuit of low or no regulation and lower taxes by helping supplicant members of Congress get elected who will deregulate and vote to lower taxes so corporations can pursue profits and power unfettered by any requirement to heed the public's interest in protecting the environment and having consumer and labour standards.

It is not new for big media corporations to give money and support to political parties in return for favourable legislation when those they support get elected. But this is more pernicious.

This century's internet media is doing more than just publishing helpful propaganda for one side of politics in a democracy, rather it is knowingly undermining democracy itself so that it would never have to worry about elections and the broad public interest ever again. They could just continue accruing wealth and power unfettered by pesky legislation.

Before the internet, media barons like Hearst, Northcliffe and Murdoch manipulated democracy to their advantage through mass-circulation newspapers. It was a clever model. The newspapers appealed to working-class prurience with crime, sex and scandal stories to boost circulation. Having attracted them and got their attention, the press barons then plied their readers with politically biased material to influence their vote in favour of candidates, usually on the right, who would pursue policies in favour of big business.

But this legacy-media campaign of misinformation is relatively benign compared to what happens on internet platforms with algorithms.

The big internet platforms feed into people's screens. What the recipients see is determined by algorithms acting on what those people have viewed previously.

So, people are getting more of the same stuff and are being linked to people who post similar stuff. If advertisers or political influencers buy enough space, their material will eventually be clicked on and begin influencing what else is being sent to a person, which then further influences the next feed, crowding out alternatives and making the unsuspecting recipient think that the whole world is thinking the same way as the content they are being fed.

The internet platforms are influencing how people think, not merely what they think.

When hostile, offensive and violence-inciting content is added to this literally explosive mix, the results are a catastrophic change to attitudes to violence - it becomes seen as more acceptable, when in a wholesome society it should always be condemned.

It may well be that the intention of the owners of social media platforms did not intend the propensity to anger, hostility, and violence. They merely wanted to hold users' attention to increase advertising revenue. But the amplification of hostility, anger and propensity to violence are the result of this business model and its effect is palpable in the reports of politicians, particularly female politicians, about increased threats of violence and acts of violence perpetrated upon them.

Left unchecked, democracy becomes almost unworkable as more people fear the consequences of seeking elected office and fewer stand and as more security measures isolate politicians from their electors - ironically, the very isolation that those who express anger at "the system" object to.

As billions of dollars are generated for the owners of the platforms, those owners resist attempts at regulation. Worse, they actively seek to wreck regulatory mechanisms. The actions of Elon Musk (owner of X formerly Twitter) in firing thousands of US officials as the head of the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) is the prime example.

So what is to be done?

The existential threat to democracy has to be met with an existential threat to the financial viability of the social media platforms which threaten that democracy. That can only be done with regulation and the threat of heavy financial penalties.

This is being proposed in Australia and is in effect in the US.

In New Mexico a judge ordered Meta, the owner of Facebook, to pay a $25 billion civil penalty after a jury found the company liable for 43 million violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act. Jurors determined that Meta made 26 statements that intentionally misled consumers about data privacy on Facebook. Each of the 43 million violations carried a potential penalty of up to $5000.

In another New Mexico case, Meta was so ordered to pay $942 million total ($375 million in penalties plus $567 million for a teen mental health fund) for designing platforms like Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to children.

With those sorts of penalties, social media platforms might find it easier to behave decently rather than defend and continue their harmful conduct.

The evidence of widespread harm from social media platforms is clear.

The Australian proposal - the digital-duty-of-care legislation - is instructive. It uses the language of tort law to impose a liability upon internet platforms that permit content that causes harm. The liability sounds in damages and civil penalties of up to $109 million.

To whom do the platforms have a duty? In the words of Lord Justice Atkin in the famous 1932 case of Donoghue v Stevenson they are "neighbours" - "persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation [when I act]."

The case made a ginger-beer manufacturer liable to the consumer even though the consumer did not have a contract with the manufacturer only the (often impecunious) retailer.

At the time, the case was condemned by business as a threat to commerce. Sound familiar?

Social media platforms know they directly affect people and they know they should be liable for the damage they cause. But the Coalition thinks otherwise.

The opposition spokeswoman for communications and digital safety, Sarah Henderson, says the Coalition prefers measures that empower parents with choice, transparency, and control rather than top-down government mandates.

It is the tobacco argument. People should be free to choose to get addicted and kill themselves without regulating tobacco sales. Parents would always be "empowered" to tell their children not to smoke and not to get addicted. Here we go again.

We know that the Coalition does not have too many female MPs to protect, but surely the attack on independent MP Helen Haines and the disturbing and astonishing revelations about the too-frequent threats and actual incidents of violence against MPs, particularly female MPs, should jolt them into accepting a digital duty of care and having a change of heart on this legislation before our democracy disintegrates.

And Labor, if it is to be principled, should extend the attention to the duty of care and toughen up on gambling and fossil fuels.

• Crispin Hull is a former editor of The Canberra Times and regular columnist. www.crispinhull.com.au

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