Social media platforms have grown rich from systems that amplify outrage and harmful content. Australia’s proposed digital duty of care would shift responsibility back onto the companies that design them.

It seems a race is on. Will democratic states be able to control the tech companies and their products before the tech companies buy control of, or destroy the regulatory capacity of, democratic states?

In the US, Violence-Inciter-in-Chief Donald Trump has advocated that the tech companies have a free hand in exploiting their internet platforms and developing artificial intelligence. Any regulation is denounced by Republicans and the extreme right as an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of enterprise.

In 2023–24 Elon Musk gave Republicans $290 million; in 2025–26 $90 million; and since the beginning of this financial year $352 million. And Republicans have received tens of millions more from corporations in the fields of energy and information technology.

It is a contest of power and money – the pursuit of low or no regulation and lower taxes by helping supplicant members of Congress get elected who will deregulate and vote to lower taxes so corporations can pursue profits and power unfettered by any requirement to heed the public’s interest in protecting the environment and having consumer and labour standards.

It is not new for big media corporations to give money and support to political parties in return for favourable legislation when those they support get elected. But this is more pernicious.

This century’s internet media is doing more than just publishing helpful propaganda for one side of politics in a democracy; rather, it is knowingly undermining democracy itself so that it would never have to worry about elections and the broad public interest ever again. They could just continue accruing wealth and power unfettered by pesky legislation.

Before the internet, media barons like Hearst, Northcliffe and Murdoch manipulated democracy to their advantage........

© Pearls and Irritations