Battered at SXSW, Tech Insiders Argue for Political Middle Ground

South by Southwest — already a hotbed of style, entertainment and innovation — has become something of a lightning rod as politicians turned out to blast big tech. Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez kicked off the critiques, warning about the dangers of mass automation in a society with no safeguards for disenfranchised workers. Left-leaning presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for the break-up of data-guzzling tech giants Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon, while fellow candidate and Sen. Amy Klobuchar — who’s more of a moderate — said she wanted to explore the need for busting them up. That may be a sobering reality for an industry that tends to skew liberal, not to mention the companies that rely on their platforms. But it’s not at all clear if or how seriously the titans of tech take these rebukes. In some corners of the tech world, blasé attitudes abound. “This isn’t the first time people got pissed at tech companies,” said a SXSW attendee who works at one of the aforementioned companies, speaking to WWD on condition of anonymity. “Some Silicon Valley companies get caught up in scandals regularly — you could set your clock to it,” the person said. “I’m not saying people will just

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