I’ve been thinking about what’s at stake, and what we can lose, if the tech monopolies aren’t stopped.

For example: Silicon Valley apps like Uber Eats and Grubhub have destroyed the decades-long tradition in Manhattan of calling restaurants in your neighborhood to order takeout.

I recorded a special audio piece for Techtonic on this very topic: it’s a reading of Matthew Elefant’s essay “San Francisco Killed New York Food Delivery.”

Listen to my reading here.

Matthew Elefant’s essay was originally published in ILoveTheUpperWestSide – read it here.

Note that I posted my video on Exquisite.tube, an open-source alternative to YouTube. (To be more accurate, it’s an instance of PeerTube.) The point is that it is possible to post videos without using Google’s YouTube. Enjoy the video with no surveillance, and no Google manipulation of any kind. I hope you’ll post your next video here, rather than (or, if necessary, in addition to) YouTube.

Big Tech threatens our relationships, our traditions. Here’s a very different example – and yet, somehow, similar to the one from New York City. (And it’s another reason to get off Google’s YouTube.)

The story comes from Murphy Campbell, an Appalachian musician based in North Carolina. In this brief video she describes how her YouTube videos, showing her playing music, were scraped and fed into an AI engine, which spat out AI-generated versions of her music, which were then uploaded to YouTube. Then the AI trolls issued a copyright claim on YouTube – that’s right, the trolls claimed copyright infringement by Murphy’s music, the very songs they had scraped – resulting in Google demonetizing her account. Murphy says that Google (of course) will do nothing.

You can listen to Murphy’s music on her Bandcamp page. Fortunately, the AI troll hasn’t managed to take that down yet. She also has a Kickstarter to fund an album preserving her family’s traditional songs.

There is good news afoot, however, and it points toward the time when our team – Murphy Campbell and family-owned restaurants and everyone fighting against Big Tech – will eventually win.

Most recently, we scored two big wins last week, as Facebook and Google both lost in major court cases – in New Mexico and California. Both cases found that the designs of toxic services like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are intentionally built to addict and harm users.

Previously Big Tech used Section 230 as a shield, allowing them immunity from the content pumped out by their sludge factories. But now it’s the design itself that was found to be at fault. That’s a huge precedent that, in the California case, could open the way for thousands more lawsuits.

If you’re interested in more detail, I invite you to listen to this week’s Techtonic episode, “Dystopia update: good news edition.”

• Episode page where you can listen and peruse the dozen-or-so resources and excerpts I’ve posted there

• Podcast version, if that’s easier

The good news is that Zuck lost twice in court – at the same time that he shut down the metaverse – all while people are starting to push back against his spy glasses. For example, Philadelphia courts ban all smart/AI eyeglasses (March 25, 2026):

anyone who attempts to bring eyeglasses equipped with video/audio recording capabilities into a Philadelphia courthouse will be barred from entering or expelled from courtroom and could face criminal contempt, arrest and prosecution . . .

But there are even more signs of good news springing up: people are beginning to undo the harms of Big Tech, little by little, through community building in their local regions. That’s a topic that I’ll cover more in future newsletters. But for the Murphy Campbells of the world – and even for the New Yorkers who miss getting to know their local restaurants – hang on a bit longer, because things are going to get better. We just have to route around Big Tech.

For now, post your videos to Peertube, and join us at Creative Good, a community exploring the paths of community and healthy technology – outside the grasp of Big Tech.

Until next time,

-mark

Mark Hurst, founder, Creative Good
Email: mark@creativegood.com
Podcast/radio show: techtonic.fm
Follow me on Bluesky or Mastodon