By Robert Reich
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Dorsey
has the correct approach but the debate skirts the bigger question: Who is
responsible for protecting democracy from big, dangerous lies?
Donald
Trump lies like most people breathe.
As he’s been cornered, his lies have grown more vicious and dangerous.
He conjures up conspiracies, spews hate and says established facts are lies and lies are truths.
As he’s been cornered, his lies have grown more vicious and dangerous.
He conjures up conspiracies, spews hate and says established facts are lies and lies are truths.
This
would be hard enough for a democracy to handle without Facebook sending Trump’s
unfiltered lies to the 45 percent of Americans who look to it for news. Twitter
sends them to 68 million users every day.
A
major characteristic of the internet goes by the fancy term
“disintermediation”. Put simply, it means sellers are linked directly to
customers with no need for middlemen.
Amazon
eliminates the need for retailers. Online investing eliminates the need for
stock brokers. Travel agents and real estate brokers are obsolete. At a
keystroke, consumers get all the information they need.
But
democracy can’t be disintermediated. We’re not just buyers and sellers. We’re
citizens who need to know what’s happening around us in order to exercise our
right to self-government, and responsibility for it.
If a president and his enablers are peddling vicious and dangerous lies, we need reliable intermediaries that help us see them.
Intermediating
between the powerful and the people was once mainly the job of publishers and
journalists – hence the term “media”.
This
role was understood to be so critical to democracy that the constitution
enshrined it in the first amendment, guaranteeing freedom of the press.
With
that freedom came public responsibility, to be a bulwark against powerful
lies. The media haven’t always lived up to it. We had yellow journalism in
the 19th century and today endure shock radio, the National Enquirer and Fox
News.
But
most publishers and journalists have recognized that duty. Think of the
Pentagon Papers, Watergate and, just weeks ago, the exposure of Trump’s
withholding $400 million in security aid to Ukraine until it investigated his
major political rival, Joe Biden.
Zuckerberg
and Dorsey insist they aren’t publishers or journalists. They say Facebook and
Twitter are just “platforms” that convey everything and anything – facts, lies,
conspiracies, vendettas – with none of the public responsibilities that come
with being part of the press.
Rubbish.
They can’t be the major carriers of the news on which most Americans rely while
taking no responsibility for its content.
Advertising
isn’t the issue. It doesn’t matter whether Trump pays Facebook or
Twitter to post dishonest ads about Joe Biden and his son, or Trump and his
enablers post the same lies on Facebook and Twitter. Or even if Russia and Iran
repeat the lies in their own subversive posts.
The
problem is we have a president who will say anything to preserve his power, and
two giant entities that spread his lies uncritically, like global-sized
bullhorns.
We
can’t do anything about Trump until election day or until he’s convicted of an
impeachable offense. But we can and should take action against the power of
these two super-enablers. If they’re unwilling to protect the public
against powerful lies, they shouldn’t have as much power to spread them.
The
reason 45 percent of Americans rely on Facebook for news and Trump’s tweets
reach 68 million is because these platforms are near monopolies, dominating the
information marketplace. No TV network, cable giant or newspaper even
comes close. Fox News’ viewership rarely exceeds 3 million.
The New York Times
has 4.7 million subscribers.
Facebook
and Twitter aren’t just participants in the information marketplace. They’re
quickly becoming the information marketplace.
Antitrust
law was designed to check the power of giant commercial entities. Its purpose
wasn’t just to hold down consumer prices but also to protect
democracy. Antitrust should be used against Facebook and Twitter. They
should be broken up.
So
instead of two mammoth megaphones trumpeting Trump’s lies, or those of any
similarly truth-challenged successor, the public will have more diverse sources
of information, some of which will expose the lies.
Of
course, a diverse information marketplace is no guarantee against tyranny. But
we now have a president who lies through his teeth and two giant uncritical
conveyors of those lies. It is a system that invites it.
Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at
the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center
for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books,
including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of
Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The
Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding
editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning
documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix
original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.