The data collected by platforms is increasingly recognized as a geopolitical asset (Gu, 2023). Concerns about election interference, data leaks, industrial espionage, and cyberattacks have fostered moves towards the ‘securitization of everything’ by governments (Newlove-Eriksson, 2022). The US government’s strategy to enhance cybersecurity contributes to the deepened incorporation of American platform firms into the military-industrial complex. Historically, the US government understood cyber threats as ‘technical problems to be solved primarily with a combination of defensive and limited deterrence measures’ (Alperovitch, 2022, 46). But cybersecurity is increasingly becoming an active field of geopolitical and geoeconomic competition in the face of incidents like the Solarwinds and Volt Typhoon hacks. Donald Trump’s first administration responded by making the US Cyber Command a unified combatant command within the US military, and establishing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Through the creation of bodies like the DHS’s Innovation Programme and its Science and Technology Directorate, Washington has increasingly ‘sought to play a market facilitation role with the broader internet technology sector to encourage [state-firm] cooperation’ on cybersecurity (Aggarwal and Reddie, 2018, 454). The Department of Defense (2023) National Security Strategy established a Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy to boost US platforms’ international expansion under the guise of embedding its firms as global cybersecurity providers. When Microsoft purchased a stake in UAE’s flagship AI firm G42, on the pretext of securing sensitive data by beating out Chinese investors, the Bureau’s Ambassador commented that he had ‘been in close contact with UAE Government, with G42, and with Microsoft to help ensure that that investment’ (Fick, 2024).
State Platform Capitalism
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