What bases are there for regulating a industry/a company/a collection of companies? It seems there are at least three ways we could approach regulating "big tech." I'm sure this has been discussed, but until I find good coverage I'll try to analyze it myself a bit…
This will involve learning some "big picture" stuff about the nature of regulation, as well as specific regulatory theories that experts have advanced. Ultimately, I'm interested in a regulatory approach that is narrowly focused on the negative aspects of social media, and doesn't damage entities with less centralized control, like Wikipedia. So #1 is the most interesting to me.
I'm also curious about what rhetoric/arguments will be persuasive to the public.
1. Editorial control 2. Use of public rights of way 3. Anti-trust
## 1. Editorial control My view: Companies like Facebook and YouTube should be regarded as editorial entities, not covered by §230, because of the algorithms they use. They make decisions about what people should see; it doesn't matter whether their goal is to advance a political agenda or to maximize their profit. If they are exerting influence over what we see, they are editorial entities, not neutral platforms. This would not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia has no such central algorithmic curation. I'm sure this view has been argued effectively elsewhere; I'd like to find a good writeup.
## 2. Public rights of way This topic is central to the Net Neutrality debate. When companies use wires that go along publicly owned rights of way, or airwaves that are generally subject to government regulation, etc., we should have a say in how they use them. The problem with this one for regulating "Big Tech" and social media is that it makes no useful distinction between Facebook vs. Wikipedia vs. Comcast.
## 3. Anti-trust
Antitrust regulation seems like maybe the most basic, or default, kind of regulation. It's what got Microsoft and Bell, and maybe Google has to be mindful of this now that they're more vertically integrated, e.g. ChromeOS heavily favors Chrome browser, has Google search as default. How would it apply to Facebook or Twitter which have less vertical integration? Not so sure.
## Who Pete follows - Jason Kint - Jay Rosen - Luther Lowe - Roger McNamee