The World Economic Forum in Davos has just opened. As the forum of movers and shakers has become bigger — some would say too big — over the years, it has turned into more of a dealmaking venue than a thought leadership salon. But Davos is still the greatest place in the world to put a finger to the wind and see what the key economic and political issues of the year will be. I’m betting that top of the list will be Big Tech’s attempt to rebrand itself.
The Fangs — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google — are having a crisis that encompasses the cognitive, the political and the economic. Activists, regulators and even some tech executives themselves are calling for an investigation into the addictive nature of smartphones and social media.
Just last week, Congress once again grilled Facebook, Google and Twitter about their management of extremist content. The bottom line? They have no clear answers about how they are going to prevent their platforms from being used for things such as Russian election meddling, or by governments in places such as Myanmar to prepare their populations for death squads and genocide.