Book Review: Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy by Jonathan Taplin

This review was first published by Booklist on March 3, 2017.

Taplin urges caution in the face of our increasingly connected technology. Facebook, Google, and Amazon seem to be taking over the world. These companies are monopolies, wielding more wealth and power than any companies in history, and are even shaping laws in their own favor. He examines what motivates the men who lead these companies and discovers a frightening landscape of unchecked Randian libertarianism. His conclusion that they represent a threat to democracy itself may be hyperbolic, but it’s valuable to consider—current events may soon show whether he’s correct. Taplin also takes on the state of copyright laws and media distribution in the digital age. Here, his arguments become less nuanced. He shows little awareness of the substance of the myriad counter-arguments in the copyright debate, some of his positions are misinformed, even factually incorrect (such as his condemnation of streaming media services)—and he offers overly simplistic understandings of complex issues. But he does present a necessary challenge to conventional wisdom about modern technology and how it affects all our lives.