Platforms and power
In this cross-posting, 360info’s James Goldie investigates how today’s platforms are driving inequality and how both regulation and new technologies might shape the future web, for better or worse.
The modern web has allowed us to do more and connect with each other in more ways than ever. But being the ‘platforms’ on which people do business, socialise and exchange data has allowed some companies to amass enormous power and wealth, leaving little for the users whose content fuels their platform.
This power disparity has grown in the last decade, leaving the web less diverse and making it harder for users to understand their rights and the use of their data.
Users often have little idea how their personal data is used by platforms: “Companies unilaterally decide upon their own terms and conditions and privacy policies,” says Fabio Morreale of Waipapa Taumata Rau (the University of Auckland), “and these can be changed at any time”.
