Amnesty International published their latest fantasy policy document demanding governments "break up Big Tech," echoed by Common Dreams and supported by civil society organizations, apparently written by someone who thinks the internet is a series of tubes. The full 72-page briefing believes 50 smaller, incompatible companies with zero accountability would somehow improve human rights.
The Reality Amnesty Refuses to Acknowledge
Amnesty's comparison to water and electricity utilities is idiotic because utilities don't need constant innovation, security updates, and global-scale engineering. Breaking up these companies would fragment data protection, destroy security coordination, and leave users with 20 different incompatible messaging apps.
Want to see what "broken up" social media looks like? Check out the decentralized hellscape of Mastodon, where finding your friends requires a Computer Science degree and content moderation is handled by amateur volunteers with personal vendettas.
Missing the Actual Problem Entirely
The Myanmar genocide happened because Facebook had 12 content moderators covering 2 billion users, not because Facebook was "too big." Amnesty's 2022 investigation found Meta "substantially contributed" to the atrocities, while Rohingya survivors are now asking the SEC to investigate Meta's role. Breaking Facebook into five smaller companies would give you five platforms with 2-3 moderators each - exponentially worse for preventing genocide.
Amnesty's "break up Big Tech" plan reads like it was written by someone who's never used GitHub and thinks APIs are a type of medication. These companies suck, but creating 50 incompatible walled gardens with zero accountability would make everything catastrophically worse.
Privacy and Surveillance Concerns
The organization details extensive data collection practices that violate privacy rights. Google can read private emails and track exact locations, while both Google and Meta collect intimate details about users' lives, work, and relationships. Amnesty characterizes this data harvesting as "incompatible with the right to privacy."
The briefing includes a compelling personal account from human rights campaigner Tanya O'Carroll, who sued Meta after receiving baby-related advertisements while pregnant, before she had shared the pregnancy news with family. This case illustrates how invasive data profiling violates personal autonomy and privacy.
Labor Rights and Supply Chain Abuses
Amnesty also documents how Big Tech's economic power enables labor rights violations throughout global supply chains. The organization found that migrant workers in Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia were "deceived by recruitment agents, cheated of promised pay and benefits, punished if they complained and housed in squalid conditions." NBC News confirmed these abuses, while Amazon eventually paid $1.9 million in settlement following the investigation. However, The Guardian reports that many workers still haven't been compensated.
These findings reflect broader patterns where tech companies leverage economic power to minimize costs at the expense of vulnerable workers, demonstrating how market dominance enables exploitation beyond consumer-facing products and services.
Government Obligations and Antitrust Tools
Amnesty frames its breakup demands around governments' international human rights obligations, arguing that states must "protect, respect and fulfil human rights" by dismantling companies that violate those rights. The organization advocates for using antitrust and competition laws as "critical and underutilized tools in the state's human rights toolbox."
This approach represents innovative legal thinking, connecting traditional competition policy to human rights enforcement mechanisms. By framing antitrust action as human rights obligation rather than purely economic regulation, Amnesty provides governments with stronger justification for aggressive technology sector intervention.
Corporate Responses and Industry Reactions
On August 12, 2025, Amnesty wrote to all five companies regarding the briefing's findings. Meta and Microsoft provided written responses included in the briefing's annex, though Amnesty USA's press release suggests these responses were inadequate. The Law and Economics Center notes this represents escalating criticism of "big tech" data collection practices.
The timing of Amnesty's campaign coincides with increasing global scrutiny of Big Tech power. As governments worldwide grapple with regulating digital platforms, Amnesty's human rights framework provides advocates and policymakers with new arguments for structural intervention rather than incremental reform.
Amnesty's "Breaking up with Big Tech" campaign represents a watershed moment in technology policy debates, elevating human rights concerns to the center of discussions about corporate power and democratic governance in the digital age.