By EUGENIO BUCCI*
Freedom of speech or algorithmic dictatorship? When Big Tech hijacks public debate in the name of profit and domination
1.
This question needs to be answered calmly. Among other reasons, because the answer is infuriating. So let's get to the answer, but let's do it calmly.
Last Tuesday, the National Congress celebrated the newspaper's 150th anniversary. The State of S. Paul in a solemn session presided over by Senator Mara Gabrilli (PSD-SP). Freedom was the dominant theme. In the afternoon, in a hotel not far from Praça dos Três Poderes, the Estadão presented a seminar entirely dedicated to freedom of expression. I saw everything up close. I took an early flight from Congonhas, attended both events and returned to São Paulo at night. It was worth the trip.
It was worth attending the Legislative Branch's tribute to independent journalism, which is under threat in Brazil, the United States and many other countries. Afterwards, it was worth participating in a colloquium on this fundamental guarantee that is so mistreated, that has been usurped, parasitized and scrapped by forces that never tire of sabotaging the democratic order. What is happening these days is an absurd, unthinkable reversal, which, however, is becoming routine, as if it were a fact of the most peaceful normality.
2.
But who are the usurpers, who are the predators? We will get to that. Let us begin by remembering that freedom of expression is a human right. This means, among other things, that this right can only be exercised by human beings, those people who are made of flesh, bone and some spirit.
Legal entities, such as large corporations or states, are not subject to freedom of expression. They could never be. Nevertheless, almost every day, the largest economic groups on the planet strive to manipulate public opinion and then claim that they do so because they exercise the human right to express themselves freely.
This is complete nonsense. Algorithms have no freedom of speech. Artificial intelligence gadgets are not human beings, no matter how much they try to look like them. When one of these big tech goes public to convince his audience of his point of view (in fact, he will try to impose his private interest on everyone, using persuasive propaganda techniques), what is established is a practice that has nothing to do with freedom of expression.
There is no individual expressing an opinion in dialogue with other individuals. All that exists is a trillion-dollar facility distorting the plurality that would be desirable in the debate of ideas. No, what we see in these cases is definitely not a citizen making legitimate use of the word. What we see is abuse – abuse of economic and technological power.
Technology moguls are constantly trying to shift the balance of the public sphere through two intertwined tactics. The first tactic is to encourage the circulation of theories that are favorable to them. The second tactic is to halt, or even stifle, the circulation of theories that are not convenient to them. For them, “freedom” is a safe-conduct to render the freedom of others useless.
3.
There are several examples. I remember one of them. On May 2023, XNUMX, two years ago, Google printed on its page (better known as “home”) a link for an article that attacked the Bill that would be voted on in the Chamber of Deputies: PL 2630, also known as the Fake News Bill.
The poor internet user would go onto Google to type in a word he wanted information about and would come face to face with an invitation or, more precisely, a summons: if he had any sense, he would have to read the alarmist text against PL 2630.
A Pollyanna could say that there was no problem with that. Well, Google was just sharing with mortals what it thought of a decision that Brazilian society should make sovereignly. It turns out that Google itself already held, at that time, more than 90% of all searches that Brazilians made on the Internet.
In practice, it held a monopoly and, by filling its entire domain with the opinion of its owners, who were not even Brazilian, it prevented other views on the subject from having the same visibility. Google's freedom of expression, in that episode, resulted in the silencing of the freedom of expression of others. Usurpation is an understatement.
We should call this not freedom of speech, but abuse of power. Others big tech has had similar behaviors. Recently, a company called Uber bought all the space on the front pages of the two largest newspapers in São Paulo to use cute advertising pieces to LOBBY in the open air and convince the municipality to authorize services of, with all the quotation marks, “uber moto”. So what? Freedom of expression or abuse of power? By chance, did the opposing opinion, which does not have the same capital, have an equivalent expression?
We must be careful. Often, those who speak out in the name of freedom of expression only want to silence dissenting voices. And they do not come alone: they rely on the power of technology, money and a certain president of the United States to give them breathing space and cover.
* Eugene Bucci He is a professor at the School of Communications and Arts at USP. Author, among other books, of Uncertainty, an essay: how we think about the idea that disorients us (and orients the digital world) (authentic). [https://amzn.to/3SytDKl]
Originally published in the newspaper The State of S. Paul.
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