Thread by @BrendanCarrFCC

On Big Tech, conservatives should stand for more than nothing.

Here’s a plan for promoting greater transparency, accountability, and user empowerment.

newsweek.com/conservative-p…

For many Democrats, the path forward is clear. They want to break up Big Tech. They want a moratorium on mergers. And they want social media companies to censor even more online speech.

For many Republicans, this debate is about our path forward. Do we hold Big Tech accountable or do we sit on our hands and do nothing?

There are some on the Right who see no problems worth addressing or believe that any form of government-imposed accountability would do more harm than good. We must accept the status quo or reject the limited government, free market principles that conservatives stand for.

This is a false choice, of course. And this framing ignores the ways in which Big Tech has accumulated and now wields its power. A handful of corporations with state-like influence now shape everything from the information we consume to the places where we shop.

They’re not merely exercising market power; they’re abusing dominant positions.

They’re not simply prevailing in a free market; they’re taking advantage of a landscape skewed by the government to favor their business models over others.

Crony capitalism is not free enterprise

If you are a small biz for which an online presence is table stakes in today's economy, you have no choice but to accept the terms dictated to you by Big Tech. Take Google, which manipulates search results to benefit large, established firms at the expense of smaller competitors.

Or consider how Google recently leveraged its dominant position in the online advertising market to effectively shut down the comment section of The Federalist, a conservative online publication.

When Congress conferred special benefits on Internet companies in the 1990s, it did so, as Section 230 states, "to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists."

Has it worked out that way?

In the face of this unprecedented concentration of power and market distortion, an ostrich-like response to Big Tech is not the path forward.

Instead, conservatives should work towards change in three main areas: transparency, accountability, and user empowerment.

Start with transparency. Today, Big Tech offers a black box.

On Twitter, social media posts are left up or taken down, accounts suspended or permanently banned, without any apparent consistency.

At the FCC, we require Internet service providers to comply with a transparency rule that provides a good baseline for Big Tech.

Under this rule, ISPs must provide detailed disclosures about any practices that would shape Internet traffic—from blocking to discriminating.

The FCC and FTC should apply that same approach to Big Tech.

This would ensure that all Internet users, from entrepreneurs to small businesses, have the information they need to make informed choices.

Or take accountability.

When Big Tech represents that, for all of their content moderation practices, they do not engage in partisan, political takedowns, they should be held accountable for those representations. This is where the FTC should step up its scrutiny of Big Tech.

The FTC can examine Internet companies and their commitments through the lens of the agency's unfair or deceptive business practices authority, and it should start doing so with a vigor commensurate with the power wielded by those corporations.

The third guidepost for reform should be user empowerment. Section 230 itself codifies "user control" as an express goal, and it encourages Internet platforms to provide tools that will "empower" users to engage in their own content moderation.

As the FCC takes up the Administration's Section 230 petition, we should do so mindful of how we can return power to Internet users over their online experiences.

One idea is to let consumers turn off the bias filters.

On Big Tech, conservatives should stand for more than nothing. Work for transparency, accountability, & empowerment.

As William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote, "I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors"—and, I would add, not to Big Tech.