Technology sells spiritual opium to the masses

Electronic poison afflicts the young, but the rest of society, too

More worrying information has appeared in the past week about the power and impact of the products and platforms of the world's tech giants. In my post last week I showed how they were reshaping the way we live, harming young people especially, but transforming the way everyone relates to each other, whether friends or in our working life, and often dividing children from their parents. 

The latest news about the damage to society caused by the money-making machines that the big tech companies are - their profit margins are well above the norm within business generally - involves the Chinese conglomerate Tencent, but also Apple.

Reuters reported that Tencent had been forced to set new curbs on youngsters' access to its top video game, "Honor of Kings", after a state media article described online games as "spiritual opium" and "electronic poison". This criticism, expressed in an accurate and powerful manner, sent Tencent's shares tumbling as investors reckoned that "robber baron" days for the company may be coming to an end.

Tencent was also battered when Chinese prosecutors initiated a civil public-interest lawsuit against the company's popular social messaging app WeChat, adding that this was because its "youth mode" does not comply with laws protecting minors. Young people have certainly been neglected by the dominant players in the tech world.

Another example of that was Apple's admitting, after long campaigns by groups and agencies tyring to protect children online, that at last it saw the need to scan US iPhones for images of child abuse in order to curb the trade in this form of pornography.

 John Clark from the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said:

With so many people using Apple products, these new safety measures have lifesaving potential for children who are being enticed online and whose horrific images are being circulated in child sexual abuse material.

Children left to play with a smartphone in their hands can easily be persuaded to do what they would never consider if they were supervised by their parents. However, once again, parents can be too busy or distracted because of the impact of technology, or just unaware of its dangers, to keep up the necessary oversight that new tech devices demands of parents.

In all this, China is showing itself willing to rein in its capitalist-corporate aristocracy because it retains a spiritual perspective as to the common good even in the midst of the Party's atheistic ideology. 

 As Reuters reported: 

Chinese authorities have called for minors to be better protected from online dangers, a sentiment echoed by state media this week which criticised the video gaming industry as well as online platforms that help promote celebrity culture.

The Verge adds some detail:

Tencent did not immediately comment about the lawsuit, but it said last week it would place restrictions on its "Honor of Kings" game —which the Chinese news article specifically referenced—for players under 18, limiting how long they can play the game daily. 

From Japan's Nikkei agency:

In 2018, the release of all new games stalled for months as Chinese authorities screened titles for any potential "bad influence" over minors.

Tencent's gaming business generated 156.1 billion yuan (US$24.1 billion) in revenue last year, accounting for over 30% of overall sales and ranking as the leading segment. The company invested heavily in titles capable of in-game purchases, a high-margin business.

Of course, it was not just the disregard of tech companies for the need to be proactive over the impact they are having in young people's lives that stirred the Chinese authorities. There was also the abusive behaviour toward customers and other businesses. The Verge continues:

The lawsuit is likely part of a larger crackdown by China on its largest tech companies in recent months; in April, it levied a $2.8 billion (18.23 billion yuan) fine against Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba because it claimed the company stifled competition. In July, the Cyberspace Administration of China ordered app stores to remove ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing’s app, claiming the company was collecting users’ personal data.

 And this from the Wall Street Journal:

As a result of China’s regulatory crackdown, the country’s large tech companies have come under greater scrutiny this year for practices that previously went unquestioned. One such issue raised by the tech-sector regulator is the “malicious blocking of website links” to other company sites and products, which keeps competitors locked out of major tech ecosystems and has created hard lines between rival platforms.

The point I am trying to drive home for greater awareness is that "what previously went unquestioned" in the evermore intrusive realm of new technology, run as it is in many parts of the world by the Big 5 American names, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon, but increasingly by Chinese entities also, must not be allowed to continue. 

The moral injury, that is, the damage to our emotions and spiritual integrity, inflicted by the design of the technologies or their associated devices which have been thrust at us without enough consideration of human needs, as we're rapidly realising, must be eliminated in the next generation of invention. Science and technology make a pathetic contribution to human advancement if each depletes the quality of life and curtails the common good.

In brief, and this is serious, we need to "unGoogle" our lives, in the wide sense, to have a thorough digital detox,  in order to maintain our integrity and ensure our spiritual resilience.

Bloomberg offers an insight into how we can reduce our ties to technology - and imagine if all the billions of excess cash earned by the elite few in the technology sector were put to a community use:

The State Council, China’s cabinet, published a circular Tuesday that outlined how Beijing aims to promote participation in sports and get more of the population to exercise. Those steps include renovating more than 2,000 sports parks, fitness centers and stadiums, as well as supporting small- and medium-sized companies that facilitate exercise, organize sporting events and produce fitness equipment. Shares of Anta, Li Ning and other firms in the sector rallied in response. 

I will leave you with two further articles that show how our day-to-day decision-making can be manipulated through the neglect of protection from technology - see here; and how the titans of technology can aspire to create a world in such a way that it rewards their own conglomerate handsomely even while producing new forms of "spiritual opium" within society. 

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