At least governments respond to their people (especially in the case of democracies, much less so for authoritarian governments, but they still have to worry a minimum to avoid revolution). Corporations respond to profit only, everything else be damned.
> especially in the case of democracies, much less so for authoritarian governments, but they still have to worry a minimum to avoid revolution
What do you think is more likely to still be relevant in 100 years from now, China or Facebook? I think a 'revolution' is more likely to affect Facebook than China
I wonder. If your product is used to recruit soldiers, spread propaganda, disseminate hate speech, and organize and deploy said concentration camps or their equivalent, are you liable and culpable? If you've known for years and done next to nothing about sectarian violence and genocide, are you still blameless? When moderation could have been hired and trained for an immaterial amount of profit? SEA wages are notoriously low in dollar terms. Poorly implemented machine learning models don't suffice to halt genocide. Greed, ignorance, malevolence, sloth, arrogance. Take your pick.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/kill-facebook-fail...
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/r...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
It is not that government = bad.
It is that government having data which allows for influence of people == destruction of democracy as the government is supposed to reflect the will of people rather than the other way around. It is an incredibly short path to: autocracy, oligarchies, dictatorships, etc.
However government knowing about your private stuff is
Homophobic governments shouldn’t know about gay peoples privacy
Christian governments shouldn’t know about women’s abortion
The government can help, it shouldn’t get in the way — which is very much what can do under a dictatorship
That being said they are also highly disparate with a variety of motivations and are incredibly hard to whip (using this the way its used in congress) into directions that are nuanced. Things like "we wanna make more money" "regulations/unions are bad" ofc oligarchs in the US manage to see eye to eye on, but anything further nuanced - that class discipline - is harder to achieve in the US than China
Yes they're separate actors, but programs like PRISM suggest that they're still on a very short leash
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
There is too much sharing, IMO, without a doubt. That being said, they are not near synonymous as TikTok is.
Data regulation, privacy, influence through exposure are real issues worldwide. Tiktok has a raised profile due to its closeness with a governing state body.