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Tech giants dominate our digital world, but their monopolistic grip isn’t inevitable. In this blog, Taylor D.H. Rockhill explores how we can push back so the future of technology is in the hands of the users. 

I have spent the last decade researching the impacts of digital automation, platforms, AI, and the gig economy and its impact on wages and development in Nigeria. Over the course of this research process, I have become increasingly convinced that the problems existing in this area are not the platforms themselves, but rather the ownership.

The increasingly powerful monopolies of companies like Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Apple, and Samsung have made the space increasingly hostile to users, privacy, workers, and start-ups alike. To address this, we must advocate for breaking up these monopolies and empowering individuals to reclaim their digital spaces. I’ve often encouraged people to explore ways to navigate around—or even move away from - these monopolistic systems.

We must advocate for breaking up these monopolies and empowering individuals to reclaim their digital spaces.

My recent participation in the Festival of Social Sciences (FoSS), hosted by the SOAS IAA, offered an opportunity to engage with secondary school students, urging them to interrogate the realities of monopolistic digital spaces and forge their own digital identities in an increasingly online world.

Promoting open-source alternatives

In my ‘day job’, I teach econometrics and statistical computing, which increasingly revolves around two open-source coding languages, R and Python. In this capacity, I already promote the open-source movement to under and postgraduate students. However, by then many are used to, and reliant on closed-source computing systems, typically those of Microsoft, Apple, and Google, each of which have proven to be increasingly vulnerable to data mining by those very corporations.

These corporations also have, on numerous occasions, counted on the lengthy nature of End-User Licence Agreements (EULAs) to encourage customers to sign away a dizzying array of rights to their own computers and data to these companies. Increasingly, students do not own what is on their own machine. Therefore, the sooner we can promote alternatives such as the Linux operating system, the LibreOffice office suite, the Mozilla Firefox browser, OBS streaming service, Krita photo editor, or Kdenlive video editor, among others, the sooner we can help our youth to avoid falling into the same patterns of reliance and data theft that far too many of us have already fallen into.

Since the open-source movement does not have a major corporation behind it, it often lacks the kind of promotion that mainstream technology companies can push, relying instead on word-of-mouth across a variety of platforms to promote (and donors to fund) it.

Debunking myths about Linux

In addition to the lack of exposure to open-source software that many people have, I have found that the perception of Linux is that of a user-unfriendly operating system (OS). To help combat this, I feel it is important to educate people on the fact that not only is Linux not a single OS, but rather a multitude, but to also show people ‘friendly’ distribution of Linux to interact with, such as Ubuntu, Pop_OS! and Linux Mint in action, so they can see that Linux is not any more complicated than Windows or Macintosh.

By advocating for open-source alternatives and educating the next generation about their digital agency, we can push back against tech giants’ stranglehold.

Depending on the user’s levels and demands, much like Windows or Macintosh, the OS can either be the simplest way to achieve daily tasks or can scale to meet the demands of a ‘power user’ like myself. This requires more people to see Linux in use in daily settings, and what better group to make first think about open-source alternatives than the very group that will be buying their first computers for university shortly?

Engaging the next generation

In running a workshop on R coding at FOSS, I found that in many cases, we still underestimate the teenage mind’s capacity to engage with basic computer science. A struggle, of course, is discussing fairly advanced ideas whilst being approachable and yet not condescending. A struggle, that truth told, I have also encountered whilst teaching undergrads. That said, it is no exaggeration to suggest that computers can be a universally interesting topic, since it is nearly impossible to navigate a day in modern Britain without coming across at least one.

It is no overstatement to suggest that nearly every life on this planet has been touched by computers, that as the current AI gold rush carries on, that an ever-increasing level of both anxiety and misinformation have followed computers everywhere they go. For many, discussions about AI and digital automation invoke images of JARVIS from Marvel, the Terminator from the eponymous film, or the machines from the Matrix franchise.

The only way to calm many of these anxieties is to fight the misinformation with the facts on the limitations, complexities, and realities of AI, and help students understand that computers are far from thinking, and far from ‘magic boxes’, but rather machines that can be built, modified, and, most importantly, still have to obey the law of physics.

The monopolistic control of our digital spaces isn’t inevitable. By advocating for open-source alternatives and educating the next generation about their digital agency, we can push back against tech giants’ stranglehold. Whether by teaching R and Python, promoting Linux, or addressing misconceptions about AI, we can empower individuals to reclaim their digital independence. The future of our digital world depends on equipping young people with the tools and knowledge to make informed choices.

Header image credit: Gilles Lambert via Unsplash.