Your days are numbered, Google, Facebook warned
Billionaire investor George Soros launched a scathing attack on tech giants, here, on Thursday, calling them monopolies that could be manipulated by authoritarians to subvert democracy.
During an annual dinner that he hosted at the World Economic Forum, here, Soros turned his sights on a host of subjects, including United States President Donald Trump and the speculation frenzy surrounding the bitcoin cryptocurrency.
But much of the Hungarian- born financier’s ire was reserved for the tech giants of Silicon Valley that, he argued, needed to be more strictly regulated.
“Facebook and Google effectively control over half of all Internet advertising revenue,” he said during a speech.
“They claim that they are merely distributors of information. The fact that they are near-monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulations, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open uni- versal access.”
He predicted tech giants would “compromise themselves” to access key markets like China, creating an “alliance between authoritarian states and these large, data rich IT monopolies”.
Predicting that governments would start to more heavily regulate the sector, he said: “Davos is a good place to announce that their days are numbered.”
Known for his successful currency trading, Soros also dis- missed bitcoin as a “typical bubble”.
But he said the cryptocurrency would likely avoid a full crash because authoritarians would still use it to make secret investments abroad.