Thread by @doctorow

Hey @KyleKulinski! I'd love a chance to talk with you about a better alternative to turning platforms into regulated utilities (which will just give them more power - that's the strategy that led to AT&T surviving intact for 68 years after its initial antitrust investigation)

Rather than deputizing the wildly imperfect and unperfectable platforms as arms of the state - with powerful stakeholders in the national security blob who will defend their continued bad acts - we could make them weaker.

Key to this is increasing interoperability with Big Tech, so new platforms - co-ops, nonprofits, hobby projects AND startups - can offer their users more tailored moderation policies, better privacy guarantees, etc.

All without losing access to the friends, customers and communities who stay behind on the Big Tech platforms because they aren't (yet) pissed off enough to leave.

Interop reduces the "switching costs" of leaving Big Tech, stripping it of its power to retain its users by holding their friends and family hostage.

eff.org/deeplinks/2021…

Interop has a long history in tech as a de-monopolizing force; it's a complex subject, but the case-studies are fascinating:

eff.org/deeplinks/2019…

I love listening to you and Krystal each week, but I wince when I hear you state the false binary of "Either we have a censorious Big Tech or we make it into a common carrier."

That's a pre-emptive surrender to Big Tech, effectively saying that the problem is that Zuck is the wrong guy to be in charge of 3 billion peoples' social lives, which precludes the possibility that we should just abolish that job.

Interop has all kinds of advantages. From a realpolitik perspective, it's supported by both leftists (because it pluralizes power and strikes at big business) and market advocates (because it provides for competition), and by policy and tech people - that's a rare beast.

What's more, interop gives immediate relief to people who chafe at Big Tech's idiotic moderation - rather than waiting for a 68-year AT&T breakup or imposing conduct remedies on tech giants and then suing to make them abide by them, it works RIGHT AWAY:

doctorow.medium.com/jam-to-day-46b…

Interop is having a moment! It would be amazing to get you advocating for it as a powerful, immediate, realizible, administrible anti-Big Tech measure that we can do RIGHT NOW.

There's interop bills in Congress (ACCESS Act) and the EU (Digital Markets Act) we can support, along with Right to Repair and other adjacent initiatives. It's got momentum!