The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication

Nirit Weiss-Blatt

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781800430884, 9781800430860
• eBook ISBN: 9781800430877
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Over the years, tech companies were accustomed to cheerleading coverage of product launches, but in recent years the long tech-press honeymoon ended. It was replaced by a new era of mounting criticism focusing on tech's negative impact on society. This emerging tech backlash is a story of pendulum swings between tech-utopianism and tech-dystopianism. When and why did media coverage shift to corporate misdeeds, and how did tech companies respond?

The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication provides an in-depth analysis of the evolution of tech journalism and reveals the "inside story" of the Techlash. Furthermore, it shows how Big Tech companies defend themselves from scrutiny by attempting to reduce their responsibility. From employee activism to political pushback, the ramifications are growing.

Until now, the interplay between tech journalism and tech PR has been underexplored. Through analysis of both tech media and corporate crisis response, The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication examines the roots and characteristics of the Techlash. Insightful observations by tech journalists and tech PR professionals are added to the research data, illuminating the profound changes in the power dynamics between the media and the tech giants they cover. Nirit Weiss-Blatt explores theoretical and practical implications for both tech enthusiasts and critics.

The Techlash Era

Chapter 2

Big Tech – Big Scandals

According to this book’s research data, there is consensus on the turning point that created the Techlash: Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016 and the reckoning that followed it. All the interviewees from the industry and the media coverage analysis support this assertion. But it is also the accumulation of various issues at once that increased the tech criticism and made the Techlash stronger.

Thus, the shift in tech coverage is presented through the lens of different tech companies and their crises. Focusing only on the most recognizable story – Trump’s 2016 presidential election and the tech platforms – will not do the Techlash phenomena justice. A large number of events in a variety of issues shaped it. Their combination led to the “It’s enough” feeling, the mounting calls for tougher tech regulation, and the #BreakUpBigTech proposition.

To understand the roots of the Techlash, all of 2017’s tech coverage (in traditional media and tech blogs) were analyzed. This pivotal year’s main tech scandals include:

• (1) The Russian election interference (involving mainly Facebook, Google, and Twitter).
• (2) Cases of misinformation/disinformation, extremist content and hate speech, or fake news (e.g., after the Las Vegas shooting).
• (3) Privacy and data security issues, following major cyber-attacks. Examples of data breaches (e.g., Facebook/Uber/Yahoo) represented Big Tech’s data privacy and data protection challenges.
• (4) Allegations of an anti-diversity, sexual harassment, and discrimination culture (e.g., Susan Fowler’s allegations against Uber in February 2017, prior to the #MeToo movement).

Before we dive into those stories, we should note that the news cycle became extremely intense. “Every day, it seems there is a fresh hell to deal with online”: “Disinformation. Hate speech. Deep fakes. Online radicalization. Addiction. Depression. And, worst of all, murderous intent that leaps off the screen and into real life.”¹ As a result, “Major stories pack a big punch, but only for so long, as readers move onto the next. Undoubtedly, tech companies bank on these short attention spans to distract readers from their crises.”² Due to the speed of controversies and the shortening of our attention span, a fair amount of the tech crises may be forgotten. The review would refresh our memory.

The Emerging Techlash Background

In 2016, it was argued that the “technology beat” is starting to focus “less on the technology itself” and “more on how technology intersects with and transforms everything readers care about.”³

“I think we should really call people out on things … we don’t question things as much as we should,” argued Kara Swisher in December 2016. She concluded that in 2017, journalists have to be tougher on everybody: “We have to stop being quite as cooperative.”⁴

After the UK’s 2016 Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s victory in the US 2016 presidential election, the media covered the fake news/disinformation phenomenon with greater concern. Specifically, after Trump became the president, fake news became a top story invoked to help explain what had happened. The media explicitly or implicitly connected fake news to the electoral outcome.⁵

The coverage examined how digital media allowed fabricated news to flourish. Much of the attention was not directed at the individual producers of fake news, but the platforms that hosted them. “Social media, and Facebook primarily, were commonly faulted as creating conditions for fake news to spread.”⁶ That is when “Facebook became the bad guy.”⁷

During November–December 2016, the media published articles such as “Facebook and Google make lies as pretty as truth: How AMP and Instant Articles camouflage fake news,” referring to Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages and Facebook’s Instant Articles.⁸

The most influential article, from November 2016, was Craig Silverman’s BuzzFeed piece entitled, “This analysis shows how viral fake election news stories outperformed real news on Facebook.” This exposé revealed that in the final months of the presidential campaign, the top fake news stories generated more total engagement (shares, reactions, and comments) than top election stories from 19 major news outlets combined (including the New York Times or the Washington Post).⁹ Several research interviewees pointed to this specific article as their moment of reckoning. It was the first domino to topple. In 2017, the debate around the tech industry dramatically increased, and journalists indeed started to get tougher.

Tech’s Biggest Scandals in 2017

A study conducted in 2018 analyzed the coverage of leading tech companies in 2017. Each peak in their timelines was examined to identify the specific story (that caused massive coverage). Figs. 4–7 demonstrate some of those peaks of coverage. Tables 3 and 4 provide chronological details to Uber’s and Google’s various negative stories. The data indicate that tech news expanded from the previous Product Journalism to the battlefield of the Techlash.

Fig. 4. Apple Coverage in 2017.

Fig. 5. Uber Coverage in 2017.

Fig. 6. Facebook Coverage in 2017.

Fig. 7. Google Coverage in 2017.

Apple

As a point for comparison, Apple’s yearly coverage illustrates how Product Journalism manifests itself. In contrast to the other Big Tech companies, Apple was mostly kept out of the Techlash coverage during 2017 (see “Why not these companies?”). Its major peaks were the product events, unveiling the new iOS, or the iPhone X, which its reviews were “super positive.”¹⁰

In October, the company fired an iPhone X engineer after his daughter’s video of the unreleased iPhone X went viral. The explanation was that it violated Apple’s strict policies.

Apple’s crisis, “Batterygate” occurred in December. The company was accused of intentionally slowing down older iPhones as it launched new models. Apple said it was aimed to compensate for decaying batteries. Apple offered to replace customers’ batteries for $29 instead of $79, and later on, more than 11 million replaced their iPhone batteries.

It was a meaningful scandal for Apple, as it also led to more than 60 lawsuits, which were consolidated into one class-action lawsuit, resulted in a settlement of $500 million.¹¹ But compared to the vast amount of coverage its new iPhone got, it wasn’t that big of a story. Displaying a one-year perspective provides this notable proportion regarding the coverage.

Uber

Uber, on the contrary, had a busy year with a wide variety of scandals ranging from the famous allegations of a culture of sexual harassment and discrimination; an undisclosed data breach; and various illegal accusations, such as “Greyball” or “Hell” (see Table 3).

Uber CEO (until June 2017), Travis Kalanick, was an important figure in those scandals and their coverage. “Kalanick’s ‘bro culture’ and ask-forgiveness-not-permission attitude … helped Uber attract VC and grow near-exponentially. But under Kalanick’s leadership, Uber was a scandal machine.”¹⁴ Consequently, his departure was a big deal for Uber, as you can see in the graph (Fig. 5).

Table. 3. Uber: Description of its Main Crises in 2017.

Title	Short Description
#DeleteUber – Taxi drivers’ strike	January: People were angered when Uber offered rides to JFK airport during a strike by the union representing NYC taxi drivers, in solidarity with people protesting Trump’s immigration ban. Reportedly, Uber lost around 500,000 customers
Kalanick stepped down from Trump’s business advisory council	February: Travis Kalanick left Trump’s business advisory council after Uber faced criticism for working with the new administration
Sexual harassment and discrimination	February: A former Uber engineer, Susan Fowler, alleges a culture of sexual harassment and discrimination. Her post initiated a wave of similar allegations, which later expanded to the #MeToo movement
Kalanick’s fight with an Uber driver	February: A viral video of Kalanick fighting with an Uber driver. It symbolized that Uber was not listening to the drivers’ concerns
Waymo lawsuit	February: Waymo (owned by Alphabet) filed a lawsuit alleging Uber used stolen trade secrets regarding autonomous tech^12
“Greyball” software – fake version to avoid regulators	March: Uber was caught deceiving local law enforcement with a fake version of itself, a software called Greyball, to avoid regulators in regions where it was operating illegally
“Hell” software – tracking which drivers also work for Lyft	April: Allegations of spying on the rival by using “Hell,” a secret software program Uber reportedly used to track which drivers were working for both Uber and Lyft (to help steer them away)
Secretly identifying and tagging iPhones	April: Allegations that Uber had been secretly identifying and tagging iPhones even after its app had been deleted and the devices erased. It allegedly stopped only after Tim Cook asked Kalanick to discontinue fingerprinting (or else the app would be removed from the app store for violating Apple’s privacy guidelines)
More than 20 employees fired, later Travis “resigned”	June 6: More than 20 employees were fired, following the investigation into the workplace culture. June 14: CEO Travis Kalanick took an “indefinite leave of absence.” Eventually (June 21), after investors demanded his departure, Travis “resigned.”
Twenty years of regular FTC audits	August: The company was hit with 20 years of regular FTC audits, over privacy and data security, after it allegedly failed to protect the information of its users
Banned from London	September: Uber was banned from London. The transport authority decided not to renew Uber’s license based on concerns about user safety and lack of corporate responsibility
Covered up a data breach affecting 57...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• The Pre-Techlash Era
• The Techlash Era
• The Post-Techlash Era
• Notes
• References
• Index