Social media monopolies need to be disrupted

We were warned. The venture capitalist and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen wrote a widely read essay in 2011 entitled, “Why Software Is Eating the World.” But at that time we did not take Andreessen seriously. Now we face the challenge of extracting the world from the jaws of Internet platform monopolies.

Each new wave of technology increased productivity and access to knowledge. For decades, it made the world a better place, and we assumed it always would.

Then came 2016, when the Internet revealed two dark sides. One is related to individual users. Smartphones with LTE mobile infrastructure created the first content-delivery platform that was available every waking moment.

With little regulatory supervision, companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Alibaba used techniques common in propaganda, such as constant notifications, to foster psychological addiction.

The other dark side is geopolitical. In the United States, Western Europe, and Asia, Internet platforms, especially Facebook, enable the powerful to inflict harm on the powerless in politics, foreign policy, and commerce.

I am sure that the founders of Facebook, Google, and other major Internet platforms did not intend to cause harm when they adopted their business models. But then came the smartphone, which transformed all media and effectively put Facebook, Google, and a few others in control of the information flow.

The filters that give users “what they want” had the effect of polarising populations and eroding the legitimacy of fundamental democratic institutions. In the US, approximately one-third of the adult population has become impervious to new ideas. Such people are easy to manipulate. Western democracies are unprepared to deal with this threat.

The United States has no effective regulatory framework for Internet platforms, and lacks the political will to create one. The European Union has both a regulatory framework and the necessary political will, but neither is adequate to the challenge.

We are at a critical juncture. Awareness of the risks posed by Internet platforms is growing, but the convenience of the products and addiction to them are such that it may take a generation to effect change from the user side, as it did with antismoking campaigns.

Awareness that they can be manipulated to undermine democracy is also growing.

The challenges posed by Internet platform monopolies require new approaches beyond antitrust enforcement. We must recognise and address these challenges as a threat to public health. One possibility is to treat social media in a manner analogous to tobacco and alcohol, combining education and regulation.

For the sake of restoring balance to our lives and hope to our politics, it is time to disrupt the disrupters. (For full article, visit: www.hindustantimes.com) Roger Mcnamee is a cofounder of Elevation Partners and an early investor in Facebook, Google, and Amazon Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2018 The views expressed are personal