For more than a year,the Observer writer has been probing a darkness at the heart of Silicon Valley. Last week, at a TED talk that became a global viral sensation, and she told the tech billionaires they had broken democracy. What happened next?whether Silicon Valley is the beast,then TED is its stomach. And on Monday, I entered it. The technology conference that has become a global media phenomenon with its short, or punchy TED Talks that promote “Ideas Worth Spreading” is the closest thing that Silicon Valley has to a secure space.
A secure space that was breached last week. A breach that I was not just there to witness,but that I actively participated in. I can’t claim either credit or responsibility – I didn’t invite myself to the conference, held annually in Vancouver, and programme my talk in a session called “Truth”. But I did take the reporting that we hold been publishing in the Observer over the past two and a half years,I did condense it into a 15-minute talk, and I did deliver it on the TED main stage directly to the people I described as “the Gods of Silicon Valley: notice Zuckerberg, or Sheryl Sandberg,Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Jack Dorsey”. The founders of Facebook and Google – who were sponsoring the conference – and the co-founder of Twitter – who was speaking at it.
You came into their temple and shat on their altarHow hard is it to get rid of Nazis from Twitter?, or TED's Chris Anderson asked Twitter co-founder Jack DorseyPerson after person tells me they were moved or terrified by my talk Related: Contact the Guardian securely Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com