Apple’s iPad Pro May 2024 advertisement showed a steel hydraulic press smash music and art. Paints, lights, and screens explode, as well as humanistic figures like an emoji whose eyes popped out of its head from the untenable pressure, opening again to reveal nothing but a shiny new device. Throughout, the Sonny and Cher song “All I Ever Need Is You” plays in the background.⁴²³ Many saw the destruction shown in the advertisement unsettling⁴²⁴, including Wall Street Journal reporter Katie Deighton who wrote: “This ad perfectly encapsulates the insight that people think technology is killing everything we ever found joy in. And then presents that as a good thing.”⁴²⁵ Apple’s advertising sits within a wider context where promises of technology’s positive impacts on society have long experienced a dissonance between the way it is marketed to mainstream audiences and the reality of the consequences caused by it.

We should retire notions of techno-solutionism — technology will not save us from ourselves because everything we create comes from the limitations of our own minds and muscle memory. We need to look frankly at the consequences of technology as environmentally and socially harmful physical infrastructures. We also need to face the ways in which our collective data is being used for purposes that harm individuals and society. Is this really the reality we want for ourselves? At the same time, it is senseless to demonize technology in and of itself. We haven’t yet reached a futuristic reality where killer robots are rolling around without the aid of human beings to build, program, and implement them, as well as to charge their batteries and service their systems. We keep coming back to the same key point: human beings are ultimately responsible for the harms inflicted upon the environment and humanity.

Since the dotcom boom of the 90s, tech companies, and more specifically the founders and owners of tech startups, have garnered attention and notoriety. “Tech culture increasingly gave the star treatment to young entrepreneurs whose success boiled down to a few thousand lines of computer code.” Critics in the 90s raised concerns of the possibility of ‘technofascism,’⁴²⁶ a term which has resurfaced today. Notably, researching the term ‘technofascism,’ raises more questions than it answers and the lines between far left and far right become blurry. Another buzzword since US President Trump’s 2025 inauguration is “broligarchy” which blends the concept of “bros” or “tech bros” (very specifically: a small group of wealthy and well-connected men) with oligarchs. One article noted, “the rise of the ‘broligarchy’ carries a bit of irony too because men, overall, are not doing too well right now. [...] Many are struggling economically. Many feel disenfranchised.”⁴²⁷ ‘Broligarchs’ illustrate how much power and influence owners of tech companies have on politics and the inverse – how politics in the United States is more steadily harnessing technological power to fulfill their visions.

Depending on who holds positions of power over people in vulnerable situations, what information they are collecting and how they are collecting it, as well as the consequences of that information can cause grievous harm. Data can be used as a force for good or for heinous crimes against humanity depending on who is behind the steering wheel. “As in many cases, tech is neither good nor bad here: technology is stupid but never neutral. It all depends [on] what the intentions are of those who use it.”⁴²⁸ Digitized Divides has explored just some of the places who are concentrating technological systems of power, namely the United States, Israel, and Europe – all of which have seen a sharp rise of the far-right in recent years^{429, 430, 431}.

According to a survey of over 120,000 United States voters, more than 50% of men under the age of 30 supported Trump during the 2024 presidential election⁴³². A 2024 Pew Research Center study found that nearly 80% of people under the age of 30 in the US are Instagram users and 93% use YouTube – overall, 75% of under 30s adults use at least five of the social media platforms they were asked about.⁴³³ At the same time, the right-wing social media influencer landscape is booming; researchers described that in the past couple of years, young men are increasingly relying on podcasters and live streamers as a primary source of information, and those influencers are not uncommonly platforming and promoting far-right political leanings.⁴³⁴ At the same time, the US Democratic party has not strategically harnessed the internet and digital influencer power in the same way. Activist Matt Bernstein discussed this topic with commentator and journalist Taylor Lorenz, stating: “Democrats don't respect the internet,” as they explored missed opportunities to connect with Gen Z in the run-up to the 2024 US presidential elections.⁴³⁵

People are hurting other people and the planet using technology as a means to exploit and extract with mass efficiency. One key example is that AI tools are not inventing sexual harassment, rather, they are making the existing societal problem of sexual harassment even more pervasive, such as through the creation and sharing of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII – these are intimate photos or videos, including nudity, or sexually suggestive or explicit images exposing someone's real or AI-generated body, shared without their permission). According to a 2021 Pew Research Center study, 41% of over 10,000 survey respondents in the US said that they had personally experienced a form of online harassment. Of the respondents under 35 years old, 33% of women and 11% of men said they had specifically experienced sexual harassment online.⁴³⁶ A 2023 analysis of over 95,000 deepfake videos found that up to 98% of them were deepfake pornography – and of those, 99% of the individuals targeted were women. Other vulnerable groups, such as minors and LGBTQ+ people, are also disproportionately victims of online sexual harassment.⁴³⁷ There are increasing concerns about the growing use of AI in sextortion schemes.⁴³⁸ Violence against women is deeply rooted in systems and societies around the world and this common thread is seen throughout history.

While some of the pieces in this series brought up extraordinary examples of recent advances in medicine and medical technology, it is important to acknowledge that data to advance medical knowledge has historically and recently included significant instances of discriminatory, racist, and inhumane practices. People have committed terrible acts, and they were not even considered illegal most of the time. For example, in the United States, Black women have endured a brutal history of institutional practice such as forced sterilisation⁴³⁹. The racism and bias still reverberates today, resulting in less trust in medicine and reduced health outcomes among Black women in the United States⁴⁴⁰. In the United States, forced sterilization was also historically targeted at People with Disabilities, low-income people, People of Color,⁴⁴¹ and Indigenous people⁴⁴². Other cases in the West’s not-too-distant history of forced sterilisation also include Canada perpetuating these crimes against Indigenous women⁴⁴³ and significantly, Nazi Germany targeting Jewish people and People with Disabilities, and every other group they deemed as undesirable such as Roma and Sinti⁴⁴⁴. In 2020, reports broke that US border guards committed forced sterilization against immigrant women at the US-Mexico border detention facilities⁴⁴⁵. Unfortunately, there are countless other examples worldwide just from the last one-to-two generations cyclically perpetuating these harms onto women. It is no wonder that researchers have been wary of the health data collected by cycle-tracking apps⁴⁴⁶.

These heinous examples are brought up in order to illustrate how an act such as forced sterilization which is so clearly a violation of human rights persistently shows up time and time again. If societies and humanity cannot commit to stopping such clear violations, there is a concern we are doomed to continue repeating such harms – and with modern developments, they may be done with the assistance of technology to be faster, more efficient, and far reaching.

Researcher Carlos Delclós aptly noted: “Through its embedded biases, structural logic and alignment with corporate and state imperatives, AI operates as both a mirror and amplifier of existing inequalities [...] AI systems, trained on historical datasets and programmed by imperfect logics, embed systemic prejudices into their automated decisions.”⁴⁴⁷ Ultimately, technology mirrors the problems we grapple with in our physical world and these are reflected in our digital systems. Exploitation, dispossession, and subjugation of people is something that should not have a place in modern times — but these injustices also continue to be committed. We need to stop pointing our fingers elsewhere, and take a long hard look in the mirror at ourselves.

The popular marketing of technologies such as AI tend to repeat terms like “efficiency”... but what are we actually facilitating when we use technology? If we look together at the cases presented in Digitized Divides, what is being facilitated is (more often than not) human and environmental harm. It doesn’t have to remain this way, but how long will it take to make a change? And what will be lost along the way? A robot-lead reality is unlikely, but a reality where we accept violence as the status quo is already here.

⁴²² Apple. “Crush! | iPad Pro.” Published on YouTube, 2024.

⁴²³ Mueller, Saira. “A new Apple ad is sparking backlash from viewers who say it hits the wrong note.” CNN Business, 2024.

⁴²⁴ Deighton, Katie. “This ad perfectly....” X (formerly Twitter), 2024.

⁴²⁵ Lewis, Becca. “‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley.” The Guardian, 2025.

⁴²⁶ Trepany, Charles. “Trump's 'broligarchy' turned heads at the inauguration. It sends a powerful message.” USA Today, 2025.

⁴²⁷ Tuszynski, Marek; et al. “"Technology is Stupid": How to Choose Tech for Remote Working.” Tactical Tech, 2020.

⁴²⁸ Leal, Nicholas Dale. “The American far right is emboldened by the return of Donald Trump.” EL PAÍS, 2024.

⁴²⁹ Haaretz. “Far-right Israel Explained | What You Need to Know About Netanyahu's Radical New Government.” 2022.

⁴³⁰ Coi, Giovanna. “Mapped: Europe’s rapidly rising right.” Politico, 2024.

⁴³¹ Brown, Matt. “Young men swung to the right for Trump after a campaign dominated by masculine appeals.” The Associated Press, 2024.

⁴³² Pew Research Center. “How Americans Use Social Media.” 2024.

⁴³³ Alba, Davey; et al. “The Second Trump Presidency, Brought to You by YouTubers.” Bloomberg Technology, 2025.

⁴³⁴ Bernstein, Matt; et al. “How the Right is Winning Young Men.” A Bit Fruity Podcast published on YouTube, 2024.

⁴³⁵ Vogels, Emily A. “The State of Online Harassment.” Pew Research Center, 2021.

⁴³⁶ Security Hero. “2023 State Of Deepfakes: Realities, Threats, And Impact.” 2023.

⁴³⁷ Goodin, Dan. “FBI warns of increasing use of AI-generated deepfakes in sextortion schemes.” Ars Technica, 2023.

⁴³⁸ Murphy, Michael. “The Troubling Past of Forced Sterilization of Black Women and Girls in Mississippi and the South.” Mississippi Free Press, 2021.

⁴³⁹ Cox, Kiana. “Black Americans and mistrust of the U.S. health care system and medical research.” Pew Research Institute, 2024.

⁴⁴⁰ Ko, Lisa. “Unwanted: Forced sterilization and eugenics projects in the United States.” PBS, 2019.

⁴⁴¹ Blakemore, Erin. “The Little-Known History of the Forced Sterilization of Native American Women.” JSTOR Daily, 2016.

⁴⁴² Cheng, Maria. “Indigenous women in Canada forcibly sterilized decades after other rich countries stopped.” The Associated Press, 2023.

⁴⁴³ Roelcke, Prof Volker. “Nazi medicine and research on human beings.” The Lancet, 2004.

⁴⁴⁴ Manian, Maya. “Immigration Detention and Coerced Sterilization: History Tragically Repeats Itself.” ACLU, 2020.

⁴⁴⁶ Felsberger, Stefanie; et al. “Cycles of Control: Private Companies and the Surveillance of Reproductive Health.” Tactical Tech, 2022.

⁴⁴⁷ Delclós, Carlos. “The Internet Regime.” CCCB LAB, 2025.