14 NEWSWEEK.COM OCTOBER 04, 2019
Periscope
STUMBLING BLOCK Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has
declared himself the “grim reaper” for
repeatedly blocking legislation.emptions that were granted all of
these platforms.Can you explain Section 230?
Section 230 was called the Commu-
nications Decency Act in the late
’90s, and at that moment in time,
there was a decision made that so-
cial media companies, and their con-
nections, were going to be viewed as
kind of just dumb pipes, not unlike
a telco. The platform companies
would have no obligation for the
content that went over their net-
works. In the late ’90s, that might
have made sense. But in 2019, when
65 percent of Americans get some—
or all—of their news from Facebook
and Google, there is clearly some cu-
ration going on. There are two ways
to get at this in terms of some of the
hate mongering and other racist
outrageous behavior. One is to try
to think of these platforms as media
companies. The other would be to
move toward identity validation. I
think a healthy debate ought to take
place because, again, the one thing
we do know is we see not only hate
speech, but then as we see govern-
ments like Myanmar use encrypted
Facebook posts to encourage mass
violence against the Rohingya. The
idea that the status quo is okay just
doesn’t pass the smell test.
What do you think? Are they
media companies?
I don’t believe they have total immu-
nity against the content that appears
on their sites. But, you know, I’m
nervous about how you would set
it up. Facebook promised they were
hiring 10,000 people to help screen
content to make sure that it fits into
their standards of duty or standards
of operation. But do you then open
up the possibility that they might
favor either content on the rightor content on the left? There’s also
concern about some big government
regulator. One idea that’s not fully
fleshed out but has some potential:
go at it the way the film industry has
done around content—an indus-
try-driven regulatory rating system.A new report published by the
think tank Data & Society aims
to create a taxonomy of trolling
tactics, and they followed some
viral false memes started by trolls
that were retweeted by President
Trump. They call that the Mount
Everest of trolling, to get the
president to retweet a false meme.
Do you think that the president
should be tweeting at all?
Well, I think it’s hard to ignore the
President of the United States mak-
ing statements, whether they’re oral,
written or tweeted. I think we would
have more thoughtful policies if thepresident tweeted less. I’m not sure
I’m willing, though, to say [he should
not]... because should the president
be restricted? Should members of
Congress be restricted on tweeting?
But if the president is being manip-
ulated by trolls or particularly trolls
that may be driven by foreign adver-
saries, at what level does his person-
al freedom of speech interfere with
his equally important responsibili-
ties as commander-in-chief?Why don’t Americans care as much
about privacy as Europeans? And
are we going to get to a point where
people will have to pay for
their privacy?
Some of it has to do with age. My kids
are in their 20s and have grown up
with this remarkable sharing. Most
younger people have not seen the
negative consequences of what can
come out with that post or photo
along the way. I hope we don’t ever
get to the point where you have to pay
for your privacy, but if you knew how
much your data was worth, and then
you were offering to, in a sense, sell