The Sunday Debate: Break Up The Tech Giants

With so much data and power centralised in the hands of a few West Coast companies, the tech giants have become a serious threat to our basic freedoms and must be broken up. That’s the argument that was made at this major Intelligence Squared debate by the FT’s global business columnist Rana Foroohar and by businessman and former chairman of Channel 4 Luke Johnson.


But others would argue that it’s all too easy to make the tech giants a scapegoat for the inevitable upheavals caused by the digital revolution. The real winners of this revolution are not the tech companies but us, the users. Who could now imagine living without the services of Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft? That’s the case that was made in our debate by former head of Facebook’s European politics and government division Elizabeth Linder and competition law expert Pinar Akman. Who's right and who's wrong?  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.

 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More from Intelligence Squared

  1. 58:41Mental Health: Hope and Healing With Horatio Clare and Alex RileyMay 27, 2022
  2. 49:22Otherlands: A Journey Into Our Planet’s Deep Past, with Thomas HallidayMay 25, 2022
  3. 56:56The New Science of the Body Clock, with Russell FosterMay 23, 2022
  4. 01:05:41The Sunday Debate: The Left has right on its sideMay 22, 2022
  5. 42:15No Bullsh*t Leadership, with Roula KhalafMay 20, 2022
  6. 32:50The Afghan Women Writing for Freedom, with Marie Bamyani, Zarghuna Kargar and Lucy HannahMay 18, 2022
  7. 01:00:35How to Avert the Climate Catastrophe and a Financial Meltdown, with Eugene LindenMay 16, 2022
  8. 01:01:35Is it Time to Abandon the Five-Day Work Week?May 15, 2022
  9. 01:02:33How to Make Democracy Work for Everyone, with Yascha MounkMay 13, 2022
  10. 01:07:31The Futureverse: The World Will Be a Better Place in 5, 50 and 500 YearsMay 11, 2022