If they can ban the globe’s most powerful man, what about you?

There is no doubt that Silicon Valley is getting too powerful and almost becoming a global shadow government. Tech power is growing stronger by the day and these companies have tentacles in each and every thing that you can think of.

2021 began in the US with chaos in Washington DC proving it may be an even more momentous year for Americans than even 2020. One of the offshoots was the US President getting kicked off from social media channels. While his detractors cheered this, a chilling question to be asked is, if they can simply kick out the most powerful man on Earth from the online world, then what can they do to you, a common citizen? What rights do you have in front of them? You can kick any head of state out of power, by virtue of being a voter. But do you have any kind of power over tech companies?

A look at their types of power, which is virtually limitless...

Money Power: In the 2000s, India became a trillion dollar economy joining the elite club of 10 odd countries at that time. While GDP is not exactly market capitalization, Silicon Valley has started a trillion dollar club. Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft all had a marcap of $1 trillion at some time or the other. These tech giants have become countries within themselves with a marcap greater than the GDP of most of the countries of the world.

Then there’s personal wealth too. Here it's a cool $100 billion club where the likes of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, NeuraLink) and Microsoft’s Bill Gates are at the top of the heap. After that there are many in the $50b club. Silicon Valley has a galaxy of billionaires each very powerful in his or her own right, but their combined money power is unprecedented in the history of the world.

Data Power: They say data is the new oil, but it is much more than that. Oil gets you money and influence. Data peers into your very soul. Oil is at the periphery and data is at the centre of your life. The amount of meaningful data that Silicon Valley has is probably more than the governments of the world. They know all about you. Where you stay, where you travel, what you eat, what apps you have, how you behave…

The amount of data that Silicon Valley has on global citizens is also unprecedented. They have already monetized that data, but then this personal data can be used to predict the future, control the masses and manipulate them. Whenever anyone has too much data on you then they have a power to use it to control you, maybe even in ways that you do not realize.

Censorship Power: Even a murder convict in prison has the right to make his problems and point of views heard. When he is out of prison, he has full freedom of speech if he is living in any democracy. However the social media giants decide which post should be boosted or downgraded, which trend should be up or down. They can even decide if you should be banned for life from your platform. Many individuals indeed have been banned from multiple popular platforms effectively losing their online freedom of speech.

We hold our political leaders accountable through the voting process. Then there’s the legislatures to put the heads of state and regional leaders in check. Finally there are the courts. This has served us well. Who are the social media giants to decide who should have freedom of speech or not, what is the truth or not and what is fake news or not?

Ideological Power: Silicon Valley has a strong Left-leaning ideology and they push it with all their might. Again there are many types of ideologies and who knows which is right and which is wrong? It is up to the people to decide that and elect their leaders accordingly. What gives Silicon Valley the right to decide which ideology would be propagated in the world?

Political Power: All of the above translates into huge political power. Everybody is scared of the tech moguls and they have the money, power and data to do as they please. Technology on its own is a powerful medium and with that it is enough to exert influence on the world, but with all of the above, the power is unprecedented in the world.

While the reach of social media is unprecedented, it's only counter is mainstream media, but as I had argued, even that has been taken over by Silicon Valley. They do well in good times or bad and they naturally tend toward monopolies. If in the yesteryears money barons of the financial world yielded immense power, then the online money barons of tomorrow will do the same. Again, that’s one area where Silicon Valley will dominate.

We are heading toward a Brave New World, and a handful of tech oligarchs call the shots.