The Scumbags Aren't Power Mongers, You Know?

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You don't have to be in the government to be powerful. You can just be super rich, or have a platform like gugl and decide what gets upranked in people's search results for a certain idea,. And it's tremendous to me, if youa take goat accord and you can crush an esoutlet and destroy it, you have some power. Right? It is true, and that's something that we have a lot of research on. Now, they really have sucked up the margins of the publishing industry.

Paris Marx is joined by Rob Larson to discuss how tech billionaires use philanthropy to massage their images, how they're creating a world that leaves nearly everyone else worse off, and how we need to respond with an online socialism to bring tech platforms under worker control.

Rob Larson is the author of “Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley” and an economics professor at Tacoma Community College. He also recently wrote about how billionaire-funded philanthropy is a public-relations scam for Jacobin and how the tech platforms are on their best behavior during COVID-19 for Current Affairs. Follow Rob on Twitter as @IronicProfessor.

Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.

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