According to Andrew Young, why Washington failed to control Big Tech

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Data privacy has been a contentious issue in the United States, especially as politicians have called for greater control over big tech companies.

Yet, much of the legislation is in place in Congress, and according to Andrew Young, a candidate for both the US presidency and New York City mayoralty, most of the disagreement is with older politicians.

In an interview with Yahoo Financial Editor-in-Chief Andy Sergei, Yang said, “In this country, we have gerantocracy in a country where the president can turn 80.” This year our congressional leaders are in their 70s and 80s. And that is good in some ways. In other ways, however, we are being pushed back on issues such as technology, which I think are becoming more and more important.

That’s why Young said it was dominated by major technology companies such as Meta (FBC), Google (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN), especially in terms of user data collection.

Former Cambridge Analytical Research Director Christopher Weley testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on May 16, 2018.  REUTERS / Al Drago

Former Cambridge Analytical Research Director Christopher Weley testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on May 16, 2018. REUTERS / Al Drago

In 2018, Christopher Weekly, former research director at Cambridge Analytics, The company claims to have collected personal information from millions of meta users without their consent. And just last year, a massive crackdown exposed the data of 700 million LinkedIn users.

“Big Tech has now taken control of many aspects of our lives, and they have gone from being a hero to all villains,” Young said. One of the things I’m winning is to own our own data, which is currently selling over $ 200 billion a year.

“Our government is sleeping on the switch.”

According to Pew Research, 44% of American technology companies think they need more control. Opinion polls from Ipsos show that 34% of American companies think they are doing a good job of protecting their personal information.

Technology companies pose a threat not only to Americans’ privacy but also to their mental health.

In a recent testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Nyuyu psychologist Jonathan Hyde said: “With the advent of social media since 2010, the mental health of teens has been declining rapidly. Day “Teenagers are more likely to be depressed than those who use their phones for an hour or less a day.”

Andrew Young spoke at the Bitcoin 2022 conference at Miami Beach Conference Center on April 7, 2022.  (Photo by Marco Belo / Getty Images)

Andrew Young spoke at the Bitcoin 2022 conference at Miami Beach Conference Center on April 7, 2022. (Photo by Marco Belo / Getty Images)

“Our government is asleep on this set of problems,” Young said. “This threatens to undermine our democracy, it hurts the mental health of our children, and as usual, our government will be there for years or decades.”

Due to its popularity among teens and adults, Tiktok has been under intense scrutiny. The technology company is known for promoting “challenges” where a user can post a video and encourage others to look like it. It is said that after the death of their children while participating in the Blackout challenge, many parents sued the company and encouraged individuals to humiliate themselves until their deaths.

In addition to the impact of technology on mental health, Yang said, in terms of providing facts that everyone agrees on, how did information and misinformation campaigns succeed?

Young said, “The average senator is 64.” “They don’t understand technology. It’s not about scattering people over a certain age, but the fact is that if you don’t use some of these technologies, you don’t understand how much of an impact they have.”

Dylan Croll is a Yahoo Finance reporter and researcher. Follow him on Twitter @CrollonPatrol.

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