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Everything They Know


Mar 17, 2020

In previous episodes we’ve looked at this issue of tech dominance from several angles. We’ve seen how they gather data, what they can do with it, how they make money from it, and how social media allows them to muddy the water and shape the narrative. You may have asked yourself along the way, “how can they do this? Why doesn’t the government do anything about it?” 

The seven largest tech companies spent nearly $500 million dollars lobbying Congress in the last decade. That sounds like a huge amount of money, but when you consider that they’ve gained trillions in market value during the same period of time, it was just money well spent.

This episode, we’ll dive into why government has dropped the ball on tech regulation to such an extreme degree, and what they might be able to still do to rein in the worst of these big tech behaviors. 

Featured guests this episode: 

K Krasnow Waterman was the Chief Information Officer of the first post-9/11 data analytics facility established by the White House and, next, led the reorganization of the FBI's intelligence operations. She has held a multitude of roles across the government and business worlds, as well as being a Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Michael Slaby was the Chief Technology Officer of Obama for America in 2008. In 2012, he rejoined the campaign as Chief Integration and Innovation Officer. When the campaign finished, he began work on social impact organizations that leverage technology to create social movements. Today, he's the Chief Strategist at Harmony Labs

Jonathon Morgan is the founder of Yonder, a fast-growing Authentic Internet company on a mission to give the online world the same amount of authentic cultural context as the offline world. Using artificial intelligence, we help organizations identify the groups and narratives that drive conversation, revealing what matters and creating the confidence to act.

Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Open Markets Institute and the author of Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy

Katelyn Ringrose is a Christopher Wolf Diversity Fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum. She currently works on health and genetics privacy issues, and is tracking state and federal privacy legislation.