CARE, INC.: HOW BIG TECH RESPONDED TO THE END OF ROE

Abstract

After the leak of the Dobbs decision that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade, technology companies made a series of public statements in support of user privacy: Apple released an advertisement showcasing privacy features; Google promised to delete location data of abortion clinic visitors; Meta announced testing of default end-to-end-encryption. Corporations like Meta once worked to convince users that their platforms were morally neutral. Now, they publicly “crack down” on manipulation and speak out for racial justice, despite privately subjecting activists to state surveillance. To bolster their authority and popularity, platforms engage in “commodity activism,” in which corporations take positions on social issues. Ultimately, this enhances corporate capital rather than enacting social change. Care, in its ideal, is opposed to neoliberalism: resisting individuality in favor of community and refusing to reduce humans to capital. Yet, paternalistic care can be a weapon – used to ensnare and to oppress. Through a critical technocultural discourse analysis of platforms’ public utterances and policy changes after the Dobbs leak, we find that platforms redefine care in three main ways. For users, care is neoliberal - platforms provide good privacy options, for which users are individually responsible. For employees, care is paternalistic - employees are offered money for healthcare, at the expense of free expression. Finally, ultimate care is for the platform - that company culture is protected, alliance with the state unthreatened, and above all, profit is promoted. Platform decisions are revealed to extend care in some ways, while also maintaining control over users and their data.