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6 Ways Conservatives Betray Their First Principles with Online Child Safety Regulations

by on September 20, 2022 · 2 comments

I’ve been floating around in conservative policy circles for 30 years and I have spent much of that time covering media policy and child safety issues. My time in conservative circles began in 1992 with a 9-year stint at the Heritage Foundation, where I launched the organization’s policy efforts on media regulation, the Internet, and digital technology. Meanwhile, my work on child safety has spanned 4 think tanks, multiple blue ribbon child safety commissions, countless essays, dozens of filings and testimonies, and even a multi-edition book.

During this three-decade run, I’ve tried my hardest to find balanced ways of addressing some of the legitimate concerns that many conservatives have about kids, media content, and online safety issues. Raising kids is the hardest job in the world. My daughter and son are now off at college, but the last twenty years of helping them figure out how to navigate the world and all the challenges it poses was filled with difficulties. This was especially true because my daughter and son faced completely different challenges when it came to media content and online interactions. Simply put, there is no one-size-fits-all playbook when it comes to raising kids or addressing concerns about healthy media interactions. Continue reading →

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Should All Kids Under 18 Be Banned from Social Media?

by on April 18, 2022 · 0 comments

This weekend, The Wall Street Journal ran my short letter to the editor entitled, “We Can Protect Children and Keep the Internet Free.” My letter was a response to columnist Peggy Noonan’s April 9 oped, “Can Anyone Tame Big Tech?” in which she proposed banning everyone under 18 from all social-media sites. She specifically singled out TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram and argued “You’re not allowed to drink at 14 or drive at 12; you can’t vote at 15. Isn’t there a public interest here?”

I briefly explained why Noonan’s proposal is neither practical nor sensible, noting how it:

would turn every kid into an instant criminal for seeking access to information and culture on the dominant medium of their generation. I wonder how she would have felt about adults proposing to ban all kids from listening to TV or radio during her youth. Let’s work to empower parents to help them guide their children’s digital experiences. Better online-safety and media-literacy efforts can prepare kids for a hyperconnected future. We can find workable solutions that wouldn’t usher in unprecedented government control of speech.

Let me elaborate just a bit because this was the focus of much of my writing a decade ago, including my book, Parental Controls & Online Child Protection: A Survey of Tools & Methods, which spanned several editions. Online child safety is a matter I take seriously and the concerns that Noonan raised in her oped have been heard repeatedly since the earliest days of the Internet. Regulatory efforts were immediately tried. They focused on restricting underage access to objectionable online content (as well as video games), but were immediately challenged and struck down as unconstitutionally overbroad restrictions on free speech and a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Continue reading →

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European Industrial Policy Follies

by on February 15, 2021 · 2 comments

Over at Discourse magazine, Connor Haaland and I have an new essay (“Can European-Style Industrial Policies Create Tech Supremacy?”) examining Europe’s effort to develop national champion in a variety of tech sectors using highly targeted industrial policy efforts. The results have not been encouraging, we find.

Thus far, however, the Europeans don’t have much to show for their attempts to produce home-grown tech champions. Despite highly targeted and expensive efforts to foster a domestic tech base, the EU has instead generated a string of industrial policy failures that should serve as a cautionary tale for U.S. pundits and policymakers, who seem increasingly open to more government-steered innovation efforts.

We examine case studies in internet access, search, GPS, video services, and the sharing economy. We then explore newly-proposed industrial policy efforts aimed at developing their domestic AI market. We note how:

no amount of centralized state planning or spending will be able to overcome Europe’s aversion to technological risk-taking and disruption. The EU’s innovation culture generally values stability—of existing laws, institutions and businesses—over disruptive technological change. […] There are no European versions of Microsoft, Google or Apple, even though Europeans obviously demand and consume the sort of products and services those U.S.-based companies provide. It’s simply not possible given the EU’s current regulatory regime.

It seems unlikely that Europe will have much better luck developing home-grown champions in AI and robotics using this same playbook. “American academics and policymakers with an affinity for industrial policy might want to consider a model other than Europe’s misguided combination of fruitless state planning and heavy-handed regulatory edicts,” we conclude.

Head over to Discourse  to read the entire essay.

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6 Ways Trump’s Social Media Executive Order Betrays Conservative Principles

by on June 5, 2020 · 2 comments

[Co-authored with Connor Haaland and originally published on The Bridge as, “Do Our Leaders Believe in Free Speech and Online Freedom Anymore?”]

The president is a counterpuncher': Trump on familiar ground in ...A major policy battle has developed regarding the wisdom of regulating social media platforms in the United States, with the internet’s most important law potentially in the crosshairs. Leaders in both major parties are calling for sweeping regulation.

Specifically, President Trump and his presumptive opponent in the coming presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden, have both called for “Section 230” of the Communications Decency Act to be repealed. Last week, the president took a misguided step in this direction by signing an executive order that, if fully carried out, will result in significantly greater regulation of the internet and of speech.

A Growing Call to Regulate Internet Platforms

The ramifications of these threats and steps could not be more profound. Without Section 230—also known as “the 26 words that created the internet”—we would have a much less advanced internet ecosystem. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia would have never grown as quickly. Indeed, the repeal of Section 230 means many fewer jobs, less information distribution, and, frankly, less joy.

Shockingly, by backing Trump’s recent push for regulating these internet platforms, many conservatives are betraying their own principles—the ones that support freedom of expression and the ability to run private businesses without government interference.

Section 230 limits the liability online intermediaries face for the content and communications that travel over their networks. The immunities granted by Section 230 let online speech and commerce flow freely, without the constant threat of legal action or onerous liability looming overhead for digital platforms. To put it another way, without this provision, today’s vibrant internet ecosystem likely would not exist. Continue reading →

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Socialize Journalism in Order to Save It?

by on September 9, 2019 · 3 comments

Originally published on 9/9/19 at The Bridge as, “Beware Calls for Government to ‘Save the Press‘”
—– by Adam Thierer & Andrea O’Sullivan Anytime someone proposes a top-down, government-directed “plan for journalism,” we should be a little wary. Journalism should not be treated like it’s a New Deal-era public works program or a struggling business sector requiring bailouts or an industrial policy plan. Such ideas are both dangerous and unnecessary. Journalism is still thriving in America, and people have more access to more news content than ever before. The news business faces serious challenges and upheaval, but that does not mean central planning for journalism makes sense. Unfortunately, some politicians and academics are once again insisting we need government action to “save journalism.” Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (D-VT) recently penned an op-ed for the  Columbia Journalism Review that adds media consolidation and lack of union representation to the parade of horrors that is apparently destroying journalism. And a recent University of Chicago report warns that “digital platforms” like Facebook and Google “present formidable new threats to the news media that market forces, left to their own devices, will not be sufficient” to continue providing high-quality journalism. Critics of the current media landscape are quick to offer policy interventions. “The Sanders scheme would add layers of regulatory supervision to the news business,” notes media critic Jack Shafer. Sanders promises to prevent or rollback media mergers, increase regulations on who can own what kinds of platforms, flex antitrust muscles against online distributors, and extend privileges to those employed by media outlets. The academics who penned the University of Chicago report recommend public funding for journalism, regulations that “ensure necessary transparency regarding information flows and algorithms,” and rolling back liability protections for platforms afforded through Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Both plans feature government subsidies, too. Sen. Sanders proposes “taxing targeted ads and using the revenue to fund nonprofit civic-minded media” as part of a broader effort “to substantially increase funding for programs that support public media’s news-gathering operations at the local level.” The Chicago plan proposed a taxpayer-funded $50 media voucher that each citizen will then be able to spend on an eligible media operation of their choice. Such ideas have been floated before and the problems are still numerous. Apparently, “saving journalism” requires that media be placed on the public dole and become a ward of the state. Socializing media in order to save it seems like a bad plan in a country that cherishes the First Amendment. Continue reading →

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Sen. Hawley’s Radical, Paternalistic Plan to Remake the Internet

by on August 1, 2019 · 3 comments

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently delivered remarks at the National Conservatism Conference and a Young America’s Foundation conference in which he railed against political and academic elites, arguing that, “the old era is ending and the old ways will not do.” “It’s time that we stood up to big government, to the people in government who think they know better,” Hawley noted at the YAF event. “[W]e are for free competition… we are for the free market.”

That’s all nice-sounding rhetoric but it sure doesn’t seem to match up with Hawley’s recent essays and policy proposals, which are straight out of the old era’s elitist and highly paternalistic Washington-Knows-Best playbook. Specifically, Hawley has called for a top-down, technocratic regulatory regime for the Internet and the digital economy more generally. Hawley has repeatedly made claims that digital technology companies have gotten a sweetheart deal from government and they they have censored conservative voices. That’s utter nonsense, but those arguments have driven his increasingly fanatic rhetoric and command-and-control policy proposals. If he succeeds in his plan to empower unelected bureaucrats inside the Beltway to reshape the Internet, it will destroy one of the greatest American success stories in recent memory. It’s hard to understand how that could be labelled “conservative” in any sense of the word. Continue reading →

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How Conservatives Came to Favor the Fairness Doctrine & Net Neutrality

by on June 19, 2019 · 1 comment

I have been covering telecom and Internet policy for almost 30 years now. During much of that time – which included a nine year stint at the Heritage Foundation — I have interacted with conservatives on various policy issues and often worked very closely with them to advance certain reforms.

If I divided my time in Tech Policy Land into two big chunks of time, I’d say the biggest tech-related policy issue for conservatives during the first 15 years I was in the business (roughly 1990 – 2005) was preventing the resurrection of the so-called Fairness Doctrine. And the biggest issue during the second 15-year period (roughly 2005 – present) was stopping the imposition of “Net neutrality” mandates on the Internet. In both cases, conservatives vociferously blasted the notion that unelected government bureaucrats should sit in judgment of what constituted “fairness” in media or “neutrality” online.

Many conservatives are suddenly changing their tune, however. President Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, have been increasingly critical of both traditional media and new tech companies in various public statements and suggested an openness to increased regulation. The President has gone after old and new media outlets alike, while Sen. Cruz (along with others like Sen. Lindsay Graham) has suggested during congressional hearings that increased oversight of social media platforms is needed, including potential antitrust action.

Meanwhile, during his short time in office, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has become one of the most vocal Internet critics on the Right. In a shockingly-worded USA Today editorial in late May, Hawley said, “social media wastes our time and resources” and is “a field of little productive value” that have only “given us an addiction economy.” He even referred to these sites as “parasites” and blamed them for a long list of social problems, leading him to suggest that, “we’d be better off if Facebook disappeared” along with various other sites and services.

Hawley’s moral panic over social media has now bubbled over into a regulatory crusade that would unleash federal bureaucrats on the Internet in an attempt to dictate “fair” speech on the Internet. He has introduced an astonishing piece of legislation aimed at undoing the liability protections that Internet providers rely upon to provide open platforms for speech and commerce. If Hawley’s absurdly misnamed new “Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act” is implemented, it would essentially combine the core elements of the Fairness Doctrine and Net Neutrality to create a massive new regulatory regime for the Internet. Continue reading →

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An Epic Moral Panic Over Social Media

by on May 30, 2019 · 2 comments

[This essay originally appeared on the AIER blog on May 28, 2019. The USA TODAY also ran a shorter version of this essay as a letter to the editor on June 2, 2019.]

In a hotly-worded USA Today op-ed last week, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) railed against social media sites Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. He argued that, “social media wastes our time and resources,” and is “a field of little productive value” that have only “given us an addiction economy.” Sen. Hawley refers to these sites as “parasites” and blames them for a litany of social problems (including an unproven link to increased suicide), leading him to declare that, “we’d be better off if Facebook disappeared.”

As far as moral panics go, Sen. Hawley’s will go down as one for the ages. Politicians have always castigated new technologies, media platforms, and content for supposedly corrupting the youth of their generation. But Sen. Hawley’s inflammatory rhetoric and proposals are something we haven’t seen in quite some time.

He sounds like those fire-breathing politicians and pundits of the past century who vociferously protested everything from comic books to cable television, the waltz to the Walkman, and rock-and-roll to rap music. In order to save the youth of America, many past critics said, we must destroy the media or media platforms they are supposedly addicted to. That is exactly what Sen. Hawley would have us do to today’s leading media platforms because, in his opinion, they “do our country more harm than good.”

We have to hope that Sen. Hawley is no more successful than past critics and politicians who wanted to take these choices away from the public. Paternalistic politicians should not be dictating content choices for the rest of us or destroying technologies and platforms that millions of people benefit from. Continue reading →

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Governing Virtual Reality Social Spaces

by on March 5, 2018 · 0 comments

“You don’t gank the noobs” my friend’s brother explained to me, growing angrier as he watched a high-level player repeatedly stalk and then cut down my feeble, low-level night elf cleric in the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game World of Warcraft. He logged on to the server to his “main,” a high-level gnome mage and went in search of my killer, carrying out two-dimensional justice. What he meant by his exclamation was that players have developed a social norm banning the “ganking” or killing of low-level “noobs” just starting out in the game. He reinforced that norm by punishing the overzealous player with premature annihilation.

Ganking noobs is an example of undesirable social behavior in a virtual space on par with cutting people off in traffic or budging people in line. Punishments for these behaviors take a variety of forms, from honking, to verbal confrontation, to virtual manslaughter. Virtual reality social spaces, defined as fully artificial digital environments, are the newest medium for social interaction. Increased agency and a sense of physical presence within a VR social world like VRChat allows users to more intensely experience both positive and negative situations, thus reopening the discussion for how best to govern these spaces.

Continue reading →

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new Mercatus paper on “Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy”

by on August 23, 2017 · 2 comments

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has just released a new paper on, “Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy,” which I co-authored with Andrea Castillo O’Sullivan and Raymond Russell. This 54-page paper can be downloaded via the Mercatus website, SSRN, or ResearchGate. Here is the abstract:

There is growing interest in the market potential of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and applications as well as in the potential risks that these technologies might pose. As a result, questions are being raised about the legal and regulatory governance of AI, machine learning, “autonomous” systems, and related robotic and data technologies. Fearing concerns about labor market effects, social inequality, and even physical harm, some have called for precautionary regulations that could have the effect of limiting AI development and deployment. In this paper, we recommend a different policy framework for AI technologies. At this nascent stage of AI technology development, we think a better case can be made for prudence, patience, and a continuing embrace of “permissionless innovation” as it pertains to modern digital technologies. Unless a compelling case can be made that a new invention will bring serious harm to society, innovation should be allowed to continue unabated, and problems, if they develop at all, can be addressed later.

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