Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience last week has caused ripples within DC policy circles. Namely, Zuckerberg claimed the FBI reached out to him in the run-up to the 2020 election, saying to be on the lookout for foreign disinformation. As part of this effort, the company targeted the infamous New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story. Zuckerberg said Facebook still allowed sharing of the story, but limited its algorithmic reach. Big tech opponents used this anecdote to further their crusade against Silicon Valley, and called for greater regulation and even the breakup of these companies.
Unfortunately, most all of the approaches being bandied about would give the federal government more ability to regulate speech. In the instance of the Hunter Biden laptop story, among a host of others, we see the government’s inclination is more censorship, not less. Some approaches would give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the ability to dictate fairness online by initiating antitrust proceedings. Currently, the chair of the FTC is Lina Khan, who’s expressed a preference for censoring viewpoints that undermine “social justice.” This is hardly a recipe for more open discourse online.
Big tech skeptics have been pushing a bevy of political “solutions” to their gripes. Some want to go beyond the antitrust route and revoke certain speech liability protections for platforms. This would actually incentivize more censorship, as tech companies would now be legally responsible for anything said on their sites. To avoid such liability, they’d have to become more censorious.
Others go all the way, outright calling for a breakup of these companies, or a formal public utility designation. These proposals have been on the table for months and years. Rather than being an inflection point, the Zuckerberg revelation provided these lawmakers with an excuse to push their same, tired ideas.
The problem that revealed itself on the Joe Rogan Experience was that unelected government officials put their thumbs on the scale and force private companies – even the biggest ones – to bend. Any solution to that problem that involves giving government more power and taking it away from companies is ludicrous, rewarding the bad behavior of big government and punishing its victims.
For a good while, the correct, principled response to anyone calling for the sanction or breakup of big tech companies because of their content moderation policies has been simple. Facebook and Twitter – and every other social media platform out there – are private companies and should be free, under the law, to censor or not censor as they see fit. There are no First Amendment concerns. The anti-tech forces in Washington see this supposed link between the FBI and social media companies as proof that these companies are acting as arms of the government.
However, this type of response misses the mark by a wide margin. Plainly and simple, government is force. Government edicts are enforced by the threat of force – and actual force if there is further disobedience. No interaction with the government can be said to be even-handed as the government makes, enforces, and adjudicates the rules of the game. A government without coercion can hardly be considered a government at all.
When stories break about a federal law enforcement agency – like the FBI – telling a social media company to censor or restrict information, the response ought to be revulsion. However, the target of that revulsion should be the government exerting this pressure on private companies, not the companies that succumbed to said pressure. It also must be noted this pressure does not appear to be specific to the Hunter Biden laptop story, but a part of a larger pattern of government intervention in content moderation.
Under almost any other circumstance, a business leader whose practices were dictated in part due to FBI pressure would be viewed as a victim of sorts. However, big tech companies like Meta have become a popular target for politicians as of late. Those on the left zero in on these companies as the epitome of the corporate greed they bemoan and those to the right see them as tools of the left, trying to censor opposing viewpoints.
Free speech is a valuable part of American society. It’s natural that responses be strong when it feels threatened. However, if elected leaders respond by limiting the ability of American companies to run their operations as they see fit, that will be just as big a blow to speech in the long run. If an example of government force is used to punish the free market, it will engender more cynicism towards Washington than that which already exists. In order to actually address the issues felt by many, we need to be clear on who the actual threat is, instead of zero-ing in on politically convenient opponents.
