What the term “Big Tech” tells us about the future of Silicon Valley titans

By Freddie Hayward

Like Big Pharma and Big Tobacco, the phrase suggests a growing awareness of the outsized influence of these companies – and a desire to address it. 

The Big Tech lobbyists targeting Capitol Hill

By Kath Swindells and Georges Corbineau

In a major investigation, the New Statesman data team has analysed thousands of records from a decade of federal lobbying, to see how the major tech players wield influence at the heart of the US legislature.

Adam Curtis: “Big Tech and Big Data have been completely useless in this crisis”

By Gavin Jacobson

The film-maker’s new series Can’t Get You Out of My Head explores why the age of individualism has left us uncertain, anxious and distrustful. 

TikTok and self-loathing: why you probably don’t want to be a teenage girl in 2021

By Eleanor Peake

A new report highlights the negative impact social media has on adolescent girls. But how worried should we be?

As Parler returns, Twitter is still allowing mainstream Republicans to spread misinformation

By Ben van der Merwe

Influential accounts posting baseless voter fraud claims have largely been spared suspension in Twitter’s latest purge.

How to prevent AI from taking over the world

By Ruth Chang

If we can’t teach machines to internalise human values and make decisions based on them, we must accept – and ensure – that AI is of limited use to us.

What we lose when local news disappears

By Dominic Ponsford

Residents of 23 local authorities in the UK have no local news provision, creating a democratic deficit with real-world consequences.