Tech and ethics: Regulation is not the only way

SINGAPORE (Nov 12): Reid Hoffman, who co-founded LinkedIn and was chief operating officer at PayPal before that, has come out to say he is for “some regulation” in the tech industry — provided it does not stifle innovation and jeopardise the US tech industry’s leadership.

In an interview on Bloomberg TV, broadcast on Nov 8, Hoffman acknowledged that the responsibilities of the tech sector have changed. “We’re not just the challengers and the disruptors. We’re becoming part of the infrastructure,” he said. “We have to be transparent. We have to be disclosive... we have to more careful with which risks we take, because we have a greater impact with that.”

Hoffman’s comments come amid increasing concerns about how tech and social media platforms have come to dominate our lives, and with that the almost automatic collection of data from users, and the repercussions.

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