"Twice this week we've been told by our would-be tech oligarchs that people are being paid to hate them. Alex Karp said 10 percent of the world professionally hates Palantir and Kevin O'Leary said paid agitators were protesting his Utah data center. This is the familiar language we hear in politics when someone needs a ready scapegoat to explain away unpopularity."
"We should pay attention to this argument as it transfers from politics to technology, because it is revealing the alleged victims' intent. They have done, and are going to do, some very unpopular things and, when people push back, those complaints need to be quickly marginalized. Just like in a mob trial when the defense lawyer tells the court what the rat is getting from the government to squeal, calling people paid agitators or professional haters invites us to question their motives."
"Just when we are shocked by Karp's audacity, saying that he doesn't care if the Iran war is unpopular and that Palantir will support it, with the next breath, he tells us to check the pockets of the people picketing. Just when the public stirs and demands to know why a Shark Tank star wants to gobble up all the electricity and water in a state, he says the only green initiative they care about is in their wallet."
"It's also a dog whistle to those like-minded souls who hunger for enemies and grievance, that even a simple billionaire - doing nothing wrong other than selling software that helps the government select targets to bomb - can be picked on by people that hate America. It lets their compatriots in Podcastistan know how to feel and where to stand if they want to be on the right side of the argument."
Claims that critics are paid or professionally hateful are presented as a tactic for managing backlash. The framing shifts attention from unpopular actions to alleged motives, encouraging people to dismiss complaints as insincere. The language mirrors political scapegoating, where a ready target explains unpopularity. Examples include assertions about protests against a data center and statements about indifference to unpopular war-related policies while urging scrutiny of picketers. The approach also functions as a signal to supporters about how to take sides, positioning critics as enemies and aligning grievances with a preferred moral stance. It portrays criticism of government-targeting software and resource use as attacks driven by hatred rather than substance.
#tech-industry #political-scapegoating #protests-and-activism #government-contracting #public-backlash
Read at theregister
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]