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Instead of combatting Russian social media misinformation, punishing anti-competitive practices, or protecting Americans' data and privacy, the President has invited trolls, conspiracy theorists, anti-Semites, and the whole comments section to the White House. Give me a break.
*correction: the anti-Semitic cartoonist was disinvited when people started asking questions about how the heck he got invited to the White House in the first place.
Instead of complaining that internet trolls and conspiracy peddlers aren't getting as many retweets these days, what if the President of the United States used his platform to lead and address the real challenges we face regarding social media?
I’ve got a few ideas about where we can start.
First, we need to get serious about the ongoing vulnerabilities to social media misinformation by Russia and other bad actors. The #HonestAds Act would apply the same transparency rules for political TV, radio, and print ads to online political ads.
@SenAmyKlobuchar and I have another bill called the PAID AD Act, that would prevent foreign nationals from purchasing American political ads.
thehill.com/policy/cyberse…
thehill.com/policy/cyberse…
We also need to address the deceptive practices platforms use to coerce users into giving away their private data. That’s what the DETOUR Act would do.
Your private data is incredibly valuable to social media companies that profit off it. I think social media companies ought to let you know exactly what that data is worth, how they’re making money from it, and who they are sharing it with.
That’s what the DASHBOARD Act would do.
These are the bills we’ve put forward so far. I’m also working on ways to combat violent online hate speech, promote competition and consumer choice, give users the tools to migrate their data, cat videos, etc. to other platforms if they choose, and a few others to come.
I’ve put forward some broader proposals for combating disinformation, protecting user privacy, and promoting competition in the tech space in a white paper that’s intended to get the conversation started. If you’re interested, you can give it a read here:
warner.senate.gov/public/index.c…
warner.senate.gov/public/index.c…
The thing is, none of these issues are partisan. I’m working with Republicans on almost all of these ideas. That’s why it’s so frustrating to see the President try to center the debate around this fictional issue of “social media bias.”
This is isn’t about conservative vs. liberal or Democrat vs. Republican. It’s about the future vs. the past, and it’s time Congress and the President stepped up to deal with the real challenges we face.
Thanks for coming to my social media summit.
