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Throughout 2017-2018 Comcast was the largest single corporate spender lobbying against the Obama-era Title II net neutrality framework, ultimately helping secure the December 2017 FCC vote (3-2) under chair Ajit Pai to repeal the rules. Comcast spent more than $15M on federal lobbying annually during this period and ran a multi-million-dollar advocacy campaign through industry trade group NCTA. Comcast also led litigation that overturned the FCC's 2010 net neutrality framework in Comcast v. FCC (2010), establishing the legal foundation for the later Title II classification fight.

Reid Hoffman admitted to funding 'Project Birmingham,' a technology firm that created fake social media personas to convince conservatives to sit out the 2017 Alabama Senate special election against Roy Moore. The initiative created fake Facebook pages designed to discourage Republican voters. Hoffman later apologized, claiming ignorance of the tactics used.

In 2017, Cloudflare launched the Athenian Project, providing free enterprise-level security services to state and local government election websites. The project protects voter registration, polling place information, and election results websites from cyberattacks. By 2024, the project covered 359 election entities across 31 US states, and expanded internationally to protect election infrastructure worldwide.

After observing only six Black attendees among an estimated 8,500 people at the 2016 NeurIPS conference, Gebru co-founded Black in AI with Rediet Abebe in 2017. The organization advocates for increased Black representation in AI research and development, hosting workshops at major AI conferences and building community among underrepresented researchers.

In a November 2017 talk at Stanford and subsequent media appearances, former Facebook VP of user growth Chamath Palihapitiya warned that social media is 'eroding the core foundations of how people behave' and expressed 'tremendous guilt' about the tools he helped build. He stated that 'short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we've created are destroying how society works' and that Facebook 'optimized for short-term profitability at the sake of our democracy.' He also revealed he keeps his own children away from social media with 'no screen time whatsoever.' Facebook disputed the comments, noting he hadn't worked there in six years.

In 2017, YouTube faced a major scandal known as 'Elsagate' where disturbing content disguised as children's videos—featuring violent, sexual, and abusive themes with popular children's characters—accumulated tens of millions of views. YouTube's content moderation systems failed to detect these videos, which were tagged to circumvent safety algorithms. YouTube Kids was also affected, with the platform later admitting its electronic moderation system was defunct. YouTube eventually removed over 150,000 videos, terminated 50+ channels, and disabled 625,000+ comment sections.

At a White House Oval Office ceremony, CEO Hock Tan and President Trump jointly announced that Broadcom would move its headquarters from Singapore to the United States. Trump lauded Broadcom as 'one of the really great, great companies.' Tan said 'America is once again the best place to lead a business with a global footprint.'

In October 2017, following Hurricane Maria's devastation of Puerto Rico's power grid, Tesla donated and installed 700 solar panels and Powerpack battery systems at Hospital del Niño, a children's hospital in San Juan. The system generates 200 kWh and stores 600 kWh, enabling the hospital to operate day and night without diesel generators. Elon Musk personally donated $250,000 to relief efforts. This was the first of Tesla's post-hurricane solar+storage projects on the island.

In 2017, Facebook's React JavaScript library used a BSD+Patents license that included a patent retaliation clause, meaning users who sued Facebook for any patent infringement would lose their license to use React. The Apache Software Foundation banned the license, calling it incompatible with Apache projects. After widespread community backlash and organizations threatening to migrate away, Facebook relicensed React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js to the standard MIT license in September 2017.

In September 2017, Li was included in email chains discussing Google's Pentagon Project Maven contract for AI-enabled drone surveillance. Internal emails show Li praised the contract but wrote 'This is red meat to the media to find all ways to damage Google' and 'I don't know what would happen if the media starts picking up a theme that Google is secretly building AI weapons.' Critics noted these communications 'struck some as being at odds with Li's public image of being an advocate for the ethical use of AI.' Li defended herself saying 'It is deeply against my principles to work on any project that I think is to weaponize AI,' but the emails reveal prioritization of Google's image over ethical concerns. Li left Google in June 2018 after Maven controversy, returning to Stanford.

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton departed Facebook in September 2017, forfeiting $850 million in unvested stock by leaving before his four-year vesting period. Disagreed with Mark Zuckerberg over monetization plans including ads and data sharing. Later revealed he was 'coached' to mislead EU regulators about data merging capabilities during acquisition approval. Stated 'I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I live with that every day.' Tweeted #deletefacebook during Cambridge Analytica scandal in March 2018. Invested $50M in privacy-focused Signal app.

Lee Jae-yong was convicted of bribing associates of President Park Geun-hye approximately $38 million (43.3 billion won) to secure government support for a 2015 merger that consolidated his control of Samsung. Bribes included funding for equestrian training and horses worth $3.2 million. He served 18 months in prison before being released on parole.

Between 2012-2018, Facebook's recommendation algorithms systematically amplified hate speech and disinformation against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority. UN investigators concluded this played a 'determining role' in inciting genocide. The Myanmar military used Facebook as a tool for ethnic cleansing propaganda over multiple years. Over 10,000 Rohingya were killed in 2017 and more than 740,000 forced to flee. Facebook knew its algorithms amplified harmful content from internal studies dating to 2012, but failed to adequately invest in content moderation. Zuckerberg was presented with options to remove algorithmic amplification in April 2020 but chose not to. Facebook apologized in April 2018 but civil rights groups dismissed it as 'grossly insufficient.' Rohingya refugees filed a $150 billion lawsuit in 2021; a survivor filed SEC whistleblower complaint in January 2025.

In August 2017, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince personally decided to terminate services for neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer following the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. Prince acknowledged the decision was arbitrary, writing internally 'I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the internet.' This was the first time Cloudflare had ever terminated a customer for content.

In August 2017, after the deadly Charlottesville violence, Twilio updated its terms of service to explicitly prohibit use of its products for hate speech or in any way that 'degrades, intimidates, incites violence against, or encourages prejudicial action against anyone based on protected categories.' CEO Jeff Lawson called it an 'easy decision.'

Cloudflare has been a consistent advocate for net neutrality. Co-founder Michelle Zatlyn served on the FCC's Open Internet Advisory Committee, contributing to the 2015 net neutrality vote. In 2017, Cloudflare partnered with Fight for the Future for Net Neutrality Day, reaching 178 million page views urging users to contact Congress. Cloudflare filed FCC comments in 2024 supporting net neutrality principles.

On July 7, 2017, as W3C Director, Berners-Lee approved the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) standard enabling DRM in web browsers despite unprecedented opposition from the EFF, Free Software Foundation, security researchers, and a UN official. Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and the MPAA supported the standard. The EFF resigned from W3C in September 2017 - the first member resignation in protest - calling it a betrayal of open web principles that creates 'legally unauditable attack-surface' in browsers.

In 2015, DeepMind signed a deal with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust gaining access to identifiable medical records of 1.6 million patients — including HIV status, drug overdoses, and abortions — without patient consent. The data was used to develop Streams, a kidney disease detection app. In 2017, the UK Information Commissioner's Office ruled the data-sharing agreement failed to comply with data protection law. New Scientist revealed the full scope of identifiable data accessed. A class-action lawsuit on behalf of 1.6 million affected patients was filed in 2021 but dismissed in 2023 on procedural grounds.

In 2017, users discovered NZXT's CAM monitoring software was consuming massive bandwidth (9-22 GB per month, with constant 0.1-0.5 Mbps usage). CAM collects hardware configuration, IP addresses, computer names, fan speeds, temperatures, installed games/applications, and game performance data. The software requires mandatory online account login to control NZXT hardware. NZXT founder Johnny Hou acknowledged the concerns on Reddit.

In June 2017, five major Uber investors demanded Kalanick's resignation following cascading scandals: the Susan Fowler harassment revelations, the Greyball regulatory evasion tool, the Waymo trade secret theft lawsuit, a leaked video of Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver, and the Eric Holder investigation findings. Kalanick resigned as CEO on June 20, 2017.

The Intercept shared unredacted NSA documents with the government for verification, inadvertently revealing machine-readable printer codes and metadata that led to Reality Winner's arrest on June 3, 2017. Winner received the longest prison sentence ever (63 months) for an unauthorized release to media. First Look Media pledged legal support but Winner alleges they stopped payments after her August 2018 sentencing, leaving '30% of agreed cost' unpaid, with lawyers continuing pro bono after First Look 'fell behind.'

Palantir's software was used by ICE to identify and arrest 443 relatives of unaccompanied migrant children who had come forward as potential sponsors. The software enabled family targeting that critics called a betrayal of families who trusted the government's sponsor program.

Throughout 2017, Persson tweeted 'It's okay to be white' (a far-right slogan associated with 4chan), called feminism a 'social disease', said those opposing a heterosexual pride day 'deserve to be shot' (later deleted), called developer Zoë Quinn a slur, and endorsed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. He later rescinded the heterosexual pride day comments.

After leaving Baidu, Ng founded DeepLearning.AI to provide accessible deep learning courses and resources. The platform offers specialized technical training including the Deep Learning Specialization and AI for Everyone course, reaching an estimated 8 million learners globally and helping bridge the AI skills gap.

After leaving Meta in 2017, Palmer Luckey founded Anduril Industries in 2017, a defense technology company building autonomous drones, AI-powered surveillance towers (Lattice), and counter-drone systems for the US military and border patrol. Anduril has won billions in defense contracts including a $1B+ USSOCOM contract and was valued at $14B+ by 2024.

In 2017, Brave launched the Basic Attention Token (BAT), an opt-in advertising system where users choose to view privacy-preserving ads and earn up to 70% of ad revenue as BAT tokens. Ad matching happens locally on the device so neither Brave nor advertisers learn user browsing habits. The browser is free and open-source (Chromium-based), aiming to realign incentives between users, publishers, and advertisers without requiring data collection.

As early as May 2017, McKinsey partners discussed keeping documents from being discovered in Purdue lawsuits, including using neutral templates without Purdue logos and showing only hard copies that could be deleted. A senior partner described the benefit: documents would live only on laptops and then could be deleted. A former senior partner was charged with felony obstruction of justice for deleting opioid-related documents. McKinsey terminated two senior partners over the conduct.

LinkedIn filed suit against hiQ Labs for scraping publicly available LinkedIn profile data. The landmark case reached the Supreme Court in 2021, which remanded it. The Ninth Circuit ruled scraping public data doesn't violate the CFAA. Ultimately LinkedIn won a $500,000 judgment in December 2022 on breach of contract and CFAA claims related to hiQ's use of fake accounts. The case established key precedents about platform control over publicly accessible data versus open internet principles.

In 2017, Google became the first major company to match 100% of its global electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases. Google has been carbon neutral for operations since 2007 and in 2020 announced its goal to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy at all data centers and campuses by 2030. By 2023, Google's global average was 64% carbon-free energy on an hourly basis. Google also committed to achieving net-zero emissions across all operations and value chain by 2030, though data center energy usage has surged due to AI workloads.

Berners-Lee was a leading voice against the FCC's 2017 net neutrality repeal. He testified before the US House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, signed open letters to Congress with Vint Cerf and Steve Wozniak, and met with FCC leadership. He argued net neutrality enabled him to invent the web without permission and that its repeal would force innovators to ask ISPs for permission.