Big Tech's response to COVID-19 may have paused the tech backlash that dominated the coverage of companies like Facebook and Amazon over the past 3+ years
The reprieve came with a catch that the follow-on coverage makes explicit — analysts argued the crisis gave tech giants a rare opening to expand power, crush rivals, and improve their political fortunes, while Stratechery countered that their dominance now demands novel legislative approaches to regulation.
First-order effects
Facebook and Amazon get an immediate reputational reset: governments and the public now depend on their infrastructure for remote work, commerce, and information, softening the scrutiny of the prior three years.
Platforms' new willingness to moderate aggressively on COVID-19 content reverses their long-standing resistance to strict content rules — a policy shift made under public-health pressure rather than regulatory compulsion.
Second-order effects
Regulators face a dilemma: the same dependence that pauses antitrust and privacy pressure also strengthens the case from voices like Stratechery that novel legislative approaches are needed precisely because the giants grew more dominant during the crisis.
Rival industries decimated by the pandemic — retail, media, travel — cede further ground to big tech's logistics and advertising machines, accelerating consolidation at competitors' expense.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, the industry's political standing becomes cyclical rather than fixed: crises buy goodwill, but each subsequent failure — as the year-end coverage shows with platforms falling behind on stopping COVID-19 misinformation even while leading the pandemic response — reopens the backlash on worse terms.
The episode points toward regulation designed around essential-infrastructure status: once platforms are treated as critical societal plumbing during emergencies, permanent oversight obligations become harder to avoid.
The trend: Big Tech's public standing is increasingly hostage to crisis performance — pandemic usefulness bought a temporary truce that misinformation failures are already eroding.
@balajis The good chunk of the “techlash” was misguided. We don't need it, Facebook isn't useful, I'd like to walk in the sand instead blah blah. That was nonsense and (falling) elite discomfort. There are remaining issues, particularly about the incentive structures in the risin…
@cwarzel Can you point to someone arguing “we ought to just sweep real issues of monopoly, broad scale surveillance and abuse/manipulation under the rug for good”?
As big tech companies respond with unusual alacrity to #COVID19, the backlash against #techgiants seems to be on pause. The question is whether it becomes permanent. https://www.theverge.com/...
https://www.theverge.com/... How US citizens change their mind about big tech companies in times of pandemic. Will it last? @NatSchirvel @vkokoszka @numerikare @HealthBuzzBE @dr_wardsam @B_Hf_T @bart @B_Hf_T @QuentinLamelyn @dr_l_alexandre @EVANVAERENBERGH
For better and for worse, Americans are relying on technology companies to get them through the next several months. If there was ever a moment for these companies to prove their worth, it's now. #tech cc @KMcDTech @SpirosMargaris @efipm https://www.theverge.com/... via @Verge
“tech giants have probably turned a corner in public opinion” Keep thinking about this and wondering is it accurate. Is techlash on pause? some tidbits below would suggest it's not, and what's coming post COVID-19 could be worse for big tech. https://www.theverge.com/...
the platforms and technologies are. true lifelines right now (though worth noting it took a very dystopian world where humans gathering has been outlawed to come to that realization).
but hoo boy it's real cynical to think that because people are terrified/isolated/sick/struggling to juggle jobs & homeschooling that we ought to just sweep real issues of monopoly, broad scale surveillance and abuse/manipulation under the rug for good
“The prevailing sentiment is accurate: tech giants have probably turned a corner in public opinion. I imagine that the next time The Verge does its survey of Americans, it will find that the decline in trust has at least slowed, if not entirely reversed.” https://www.theverge.com…