FOCUS: Sacha Baron Cohen | The 'Silicon Six' Spread Propaganda. It's Time to Regulate Social Media Sites
25 November 19
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25 November 19
FOCUS: Sacha Baron Cohen | The 'Silicon Six' Spread Propaganda. It's Time to Regulate Social Media Sites
Sacha Baron Cohen, The Washington Post
Cohen writes: "I get it: I'm one of the last people you'd expect to hear warning about the danger of conspiracies and lies."
Sacha Baron Cohen, The Washington Post
Cohen writes: "I get it: I'm one of the last people you'd expect to hear warning about the danger of conspiracies and lies."
EXCERPTS:
Zuckerberg seemed to equate regulation of companies like his to the actions of “the most repressive societies.” This, from one of the six people who run the companies that decide what information so much of the world sees: Zuckerberg at Facebook; Sundar Pichai at Google; Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google’s parent company, Alphabet; Brin’s ex-sister-in-law, Susan Wojcicki, at YouTube; and Jack Dorsey at Twitter. These super-rich “Silicon Six” care more about boosting their share price than about protecting democracy. This is ideological imperialism — six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley imposing their vision on the rest of the world, unaccountable to any government and acting like they’re above the reach of law. Surely, instead of letting the Silicon Six decide the fate of the world order, our democratically elected representatives should have at least some say.
Zuckerberg seemed to equate regulation of companies like his to the actions of “the most repressive societies.” This, from one of the six people who run the companies that decide what information so much of the world sees: Zuckerberg at Facebook; Sundar Pichai at Google; Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google’s parent company, Alphabet; Brin’s ex-sister-in-law, Susan Wojcicki, at YouTube; and Jack Dorsey at Twitter. These super-rich “Silicon Six” care more about boosting their share price than about protecting democracy. This is ideological imperialism — six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley imposing their vision on the rest of the world, unaccountable to any government and acting like they’re above the reach of law. Surely, instead of letting the Silicon Six decide the fate of the world order, our democratically elected representatives should have at least some say.
Zuckerberg said social media companies should “live up to their responsibilities,” but he’s totally silent about what should happen when they don’t. By now, it’s pretty clear that they cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. In other industries, you can be sued for the harm you cause: Publishers can be sued for libel; people can be sued for defamation. I’ve been sued many times. But social media companies are almost completely protected from liability for the content their users post — no matter how indecent — by Section 230 of, get ready for it, the Communications Decency Act.
That immunity has warped their whole worldview. Take political ads. Fortunately, Twitter finally banned them, and Google says it will make changes, too. But if you pay Facebook, it will run any “political” ad you want, even if it’s a lie. It’ll even help you micro-target those lies to users for maximum effect. Under this twisted logic, if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Adolf Hitler to post 30-second ads on his “solution” to the “Jewish problem.” Here’s a good way for Facebook to “live up to” its responsibilities: Start fact-checking political ads before running them, stop micro-targeted lies immediately, and when ads are false, don’t publish them.
Section 230 was amended last year so that tech companies can be held responsible for pedophiles who use their sites to target children. Let’s also hold them responsible for users who advocate for the mass murder of children because of their race or religion. And maybe fines are not enough. Maybe it’s time for Congress to tell Zuckerberg and his fellow CEOs: You already allowed one foreign power to interfere in U.S. elections; you already facilitated one genocide; do it again and you go to prison.
In the end, we have to decide what kind of world we want. Zuckerberg claims his main goal is to “uphold as wide a definition of freedom of expression as possible.” Yet our freedoms are not only an end in themselves, they’re also a means to another end — to our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And today these rights are threatened by hate, conspiracies and lies.
A pluralistic democratic society should make sure people are not targeted, not harassed and not murdered because of who they are, where they come from, who they love or how they pray. If we do that — if we prioritize truth over lies, tolerance over prejudice, empathy over indifference and experts over ignoramuses — maybe we have a chance of stopping the greatest propaganda machine in history. We can save democracy. We can still have a place for free speech and free expression.
And, most important, my jokes will still work.
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