Best of tech opinion in 2022
Elon Musk essentially gambled $44bn on Twitter. So far, it hasn’t been the failure many envisage, but it has put him at risk of enormous reputational damage. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg admitted his investment into the metaverse had put Meta in the black, and across FAANG, there have been reams of laid off employees.
It was also the year of the Online Safety Bill, and in the EU the Digital Markets Act put tech giants on a collision course with European regulators.
Here’s some of our best analysis and opinion on the ins and outs of the bizarre world of tech billionaires and the internet.
Our fortnightly columnist Matthew Lesh, in his “let’s be honest” series, looks at the CMA’s decision to force Meta to sell Giphy, a small tech start up designed to furnish users with moving images, more commonly known as Gifs.
And after the failures of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, another writer with Morning Wire, who will be making a comeback as a regular columnist year, Josh Williams lays the blame at the feet of the pedestal we placed founders on.
One of our guest contributors this year was Pedro Pina, the EMEA Vice President of Youtube. After Amol Rajan had an incisive discussion on accent bias in broadcasting, the Youtube exec wrote about how opening up the array of people we see on our screens through social media can also help address some of the lack of representation.
And finally, a favourite of the Morning Wire comment desk, Susie Alegre, the barrister and author of Freedom to Think, wrote about her love of otters and the way algorithms keep serving up the furry water creatures to keep her happy – and keep her hooked.