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If conservatives had adopted the standard of evidence for policy that @DavidAFrench assumes here, they would have never opposed gay marriage. nationalreview.com/2019/08/agains…
@DavidAFrench I suspect the best way to think about @HawleyMO's bill is to treat it as supply-side regulation: it's not *opposed* to 'personal responsibility,' or individual freedom, but is aimed at altering the marketplace conditions in which those are expressed.
@DavidAFrench @HawleyMO Whether this sort of approach is justified hangs, I suspect, on whether you adopt the prior commitment that big tech and social media companies are *predatory* in the way pharmaceutical companies were in spreading opiods.
@DavidAFrench @HawleyMO Another way of putting this: in an environment of predatory tech companies, whose aim is to create mental and cognitive addictions, formerly ordinary virtues become heroic. As a result, few people will be able to take 'personal responsibility' in the way French demands.
@DavidAFrench @HawleyMO [Yes, the 'ordinary' becoming 'heroic' is a theme I've been thinking much about of late.]
@DavidAFrench @HawleyMO And, anyway, part of the aim of proposing legislation like this is not even to pass it, but to shift the moral ecology in places like Silicon Valley by exerting pressure on them to take their civic responsibilities seriously.
@DavidAFrench @HawleyMO One other thought: does anyone *really* doubt our country would be better off if people were limited to 30 minutes of use per platform?
@DavidAFrench @HawleyMO And with that: I only have 10 minutes left, which means I'll be logging off until later this afternoon. Enjoy the jokes at my expense!
