Digital Dominance

This related multi-author volume reflects on the economic, social and political power of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple as we as a society try to come to grips with the nature of these new digital platforms and how best to regulate them. The three sections deal with economy, society and politics, beginning with a discussion of the evolution of digital dominance and the emergence of a winner-takes-all situation, which also results in a massive siphoning-off of advertising from traditional print media. The processes involve factors such as economies of scale, strong user brands and habitual usage, network effects and switching costs. Unlike traditional anti-trust situations, monopolies may not actually harm consumers, and in the case of Amazon they use predatory pricing policies to prioritise growth in profits for their own long-term benefit. Last year, Amazon accounted for 46% of US e-commerce. Digital platforms are also growing their function as providers of news, which can exacerbate the lack of exposure to diverse points of view and reinforce confirmation bias, a theme taken up by Cass Sunstein in relation to democracy. They become gatekeepers for our news feeds and prioritise impulse over serious deliberation. One chapter suggests that the free press has been submerged within the fabric of the political and commercial surveillance economy.

The political section looks in more detail at social media power and election legitimacy with particular reference to the EU referendum and the 2016 US presidential election. Campaigns have moved increasingly online, as has advertising spending – Damian Tambini describes the generic stages of building a social media campaign in terms of audience, segmentation, message creation and testing, then the message targeting and delivery. This gives a real insight into the dynamics and the effects of targeted reminders and voting. A new avenue for me was the power of search engines to influence opinions in terms of manipulation and suggestion – 90% of searches are from the first page of Google results. Research shows that search engine manipulation can dramatically shift the opinions of people who are undecided. The same dynamics of advertising and persuasion are present, but on an unprecedented scale and frequency. The final chapter discusses platform power and responsibility in the attention economy where, as Herbert Simon warned in 1971, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and resulting competition for that attention. The chapter builds on Bertrand Russell's definition of power is the ability to produce intended effects, in this case 'creating addictive distractions that maximise user engagement on which revenue and profits ultimately depend.' Crucially, this privileges impulses over intentions, representing a manipulation of the will. The conclusion reinforces the unprecedented nature of digital dominance and the need to develop a more adequate theory of harm. This book and the previous one enables readers to gain a more thorough understanding of these critical emerging issues.