20.2. Colonialism in Tech# The tech industry is full of colonialist thinking and practices, some more subtle than others. To begin with, much of the tech industry is centralized geographically, specifically in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, California. The leaders and decisions in how tech operates come out of this one wealthy location in a wealthy nation. Then, much of tech is dependent on exploiting cheap labor, often in dangerous conditions, in other countries (thus extracting the resource of cheap labor, from places with “inferior” governments and economies). This labor might be physical labor, or dealing with dangerous chemicals, or the content moderators who deal with viewing horrific online content. Tech industry leaders in Silicon Valley then take what they made with exploited labor, and sell it around the world, feeling good about themselves, believing they are benefitting the world with their “superior” products.

we need to understand in order to get to the details of decision-making and strategies employed by social media companies. Shares / Stocks Shares or stocks are ownership of a percentage of a business, normally coming with getting a percentage of the profits and a percentage of power in making business decisions. Companies then have a board of directors who represent these shareholders. The board is in charge of choosing who runs the company (the CEO). They have the power to hire and fire CEOs For example: in 1985, the board of directors for Apple Computers denied Steve Jobs (co-founded Apple) the position of CEO and then they fired him completely CEOs of companies (like Mark Zuckerberg of Meta) are often both wage-laborers (they get a salary, Zuckerberg gets a tiny symbolic $1/year) and shareholders (they get a share of the profits, Zuckerberg owns 16.8%)