"Whole chunks of our environment are being privatised" says Silicon States author Lucie Greene
Silicon Valley companies including Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook are threatening democracy by usurping governments as the key provider of public spaces and services, according to a new book examining the rising power of tech giants.
In her book Silicon States, author Lucie Greene argues that these glamorous, fast-moving "big tech" firms are now competing against the "slow and unsexy" public sector to provide key services ? and depriving authorities of vital tax revenues.
"They are looking at sectors regulated by the state and local authorities as their next areas to disrupt and fix, including health, town planning, education, transport, life sciences and space travel," Greene told Dezeen.
"They are doing this with altruistic rhetoric but more often than not there is a commercial interest." Internet titans more powerful than governments
Silicon States argues that technology companies are becoming more powerful than governments and are increasingly shaping the world on their own terms.
"Big tech leaders and companies increasingly transcend the influence of government from a political, economic, cultural and ideological perspective," said Greene, who is global director of the The Innovation Group, a consumer insight unit at marketing and communications giant J Walter Thompson.
In addition, she says, "they are co-opting traditional power centres that live outside government, for example supplanting the media and starting to...
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