Big tech vs. nation-states

September 30, 2024

SEOUL – Elon Musk might be one of the richest and most influential people in the world, but he is not untouchable. In Brazil, he recently had to give in to a court order to remove far-right extremists’ accounts from X, the powerful social media platform he owns and runs. Having defied the court order for months in the name of free speech, Musk had to surrender finally as the court blocked the site for 20 million Brazilian users. This case shows how nation-states could rein in the seemingly invincible social networks and other big tech companies that can transmit fake news and hate speech. It could give some insight into the South Korean government which is also waging various battles against tech giants based overseas.

Overseas-based tech giants like Meta, Google, Apple, X, Netflix or Amazon have become so powerful and dominant that some nation-states have difficulty controlling and curbing their influence. In addition to sometimes transmitting misinformation or disinformation, they have been accused of disrupting industries and commerce via monopolies and other unfair business practices. Their algorithms are designed so that users can become addicted to their content and become captive targets of intensive marketing, bringing the companies a constant stream of revenue. Users’ private data can be misused to generate more revenue. In the process, smaller companies may be driven out of the market.

Alarmed by such issues, some governments have devised different measures to regulate certain aspects of big tech companies’ activities. I believe such efforts have so far been futile in general, but more recently there has been some progress, most pronounced in Europe. For example, the European Union in March