Reforming High Tech

For John, BLUF:  This is a longish read about how the Federal Government got it right about auto safety (GSA) and got it wrong (Congress)  The question is, will they do for high tech what they did for Detroit?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Lessons for Big Tech from Ralph Nader’s ‘Sack of Detroit’

From Quillette, by Writer Kenneth Whyte, 16 Sep 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

Until recently, Silicon Valley enjoyed a relatively high degree of freedom from US government regulation.  That was a deliberate policy choice.  Responding to public enthusiasm for the possibilities of global interconnectedness and an endless stream of easily accessible information, Congress decreed early that online platforms would have no liability for third-party content flowing through their pipes.  As a tool of progress, the Internet would be free.

Tech companies harnessed the massive energy exerted by billions of people eager to gain a presence online, to share, to learn, to be entertained, to work, to shop.  The web remade the United States physically, economically, and socially. Web culture became American culture and, increasingly, global culture.

It was only when the wonders of the Internet grew familiar, and tech companies became huge and powerful, that the adverse consequences of connecting everyone without appropriate oversight became glaringly apparent.  The Internet was used for pornography, sex trafficking, terrorist recruiting, an infinite variety of scams, the evasion of laws and regulations, the invasion of privacy, harassment and defamation, foreign propaganda, and fake news.

Tech giants were slow to confront the regrettable purposes to which their platforms and systems were being put, preferring to single-mindedly pursue growth and profits.  This was predictable.  That capitalists will “esteem [their] immediate interests … to be the common Measure of Good and Evil” was a truism remarked by Restoration-era English economist Dudley North a century before the American Revolution.

The government response, too, has been predictable.  Never mind that massive subsidies from the defense establishment have been critical to tech’s progress.  Never mind that Congress’s hands-off policy was instrumental in helping Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and other online giants scale up massively. Politicians are now tripping over one another in a race to investigate, indict, regulate, and dismember tech companies, as if they were solely responsible for the Internet’s ills.

I worry that the Congress will be barking up the wrong tree in going after high tech.  Yes, I worry about a sort of Silicon Valley "Social Credit" tyranny creaping in.  My concern is that the solutions to the perceived problems will just lock in the real problems.  What we need is more like an AT&T breakup, where more voices will flourish.

Frankly, I don't think Congress, under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer, is capable of not messing this up.  And Presidents who think of themselves as being along the lines of FDR or LBJ are not helpful to this kind of correction.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff