By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-3-19
First-year senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has made hammering Big Tech his signature issue, provided a Hoover Institute audience Thursday with a dystopian view of social media as an addiction that imperils its users and “sucks” the brightest minds to the coasts – abandoning flyover country – and said it provides “little or no productive value to the United States economy.”
The strength of his condemnation evoked Hill attacks on violent video games and indecent broadcast content and gory comic books from legislators past.
Hawley said that social media poses many novel problems and they are in need of addressing, but they are downstream from a bigger question: Just what are social media giants worth. His answer is that in the balance of cost benefit, they come out wanting.
Hawley said one of the chief problems is how social media platforms keep the virtuous internet garden “pruned,” as in free of criminal activity and “other vices,” without “inserting their own political or content biases.” » Read More