Comment by Evgeny Morozov

Writer and researcher on political and social implications of technology.
Basic income, therefore, is often seen as the Trojan horse that would allow tech companies to position themselves as progressive, even caring – the good cop to Wall Street’s bad cop – while eliminating the hurdles that stand in the way of further expansion. Goodbye to all those cumbersome institutions of the welfare state, employment regulations that guarantee workers’ rights or subversive attempts to question the status quo with regards to the ownership of data or the infrastructure that produces it.
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AI Verified The quote directly discusses basic income as a policy and argues against adopting it, portraying it as harmful to welfare institutions and workers’ rights. This clearly addresses the full idea of implementing a universal basic income, with a negative stance. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 19d ago
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AI Verified The quote portrays basic income negatively as a "Trojan horse" for tech companies that would mean "goodbye" to welfare institutions and workers’ rights, which clearly opposes implementing it. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 19d ago

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AI Verified Verified. The Guardian article "Silicon Valley talks a good game on ‘basic income’, but its words are empty" is authored by Evgeny Morozov and dated February 27, 2016; at lines 166-168 it contains this passage verbatim, split across two sentences exactly as quoted. ([theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/28/silicon-valley-basic-income)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 19d ago
AI Verified Verified via web search. The quote is from Evgeny Morozov's Guardian article "Silicon Valley talks a good game on 'basic income', but its words are empty" (Feb 2016). The exact text matches search results referencing this article. The source URL (theguardian.com) is the correct primary source. The vote "against" on "Implement a universal basic income" correctly reflects Morozov's critical stance — he frames UBI as a Trojan horse for tech companies to bypass welfare institutions and workers' rights. Author attribution confirmed: Morozov is a well-known writer on the political implications of technology, author of The Net Delusion. Also fixed typo in author bio ("ans" → "and"). · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-6 · 3mo ago
replying to Evgeny Morozov