Big Tech’s Speech-Centric Competitors Need To Also Offer Healthier Use – The Federalist

Amid drama at Spotify, Joe Rogan reportedly declined Rumbles $100 million offer to host his podcast this week. Yet its remarkable that Rumble, a much-needed competitor to YouTube, was in a position to even make the pitch. The platform is growing fast, serving like Parler as a critical test of our free market system and its resilience against monopoly power.

That experiment, however, raises a major challenge for Big Techs competitors, who offer alternatives almost entirely on the basis of their approach to free expression, but havent yet distinguished themselves from their counterparts unhealthy business models.

In moderation, YouTube is great. I trust the public to moderate their use of it more than I trust the government to moderate for us. This is basically the debate conservatives made against Michael Bloombergs mayoral effort to ban Big Gulps.

Indeed, the Chinese government is taking an increasingly active role in moderating individuals time on social media. Hoping to stay in the governments good graces, ByteDance makes Douyin users take a five-second pause when theyve been on the app for too long. Childrens daily use is capped and confined to certain hours.

The Chinese government is using a cost-benefit-analysis that posits the social costs of excess Douyin use are not worth the heightened financial benefits to the company and the country. Its the basic cost-benefit-analysis lawmakers here apply to questions of regulatory oversight, from tobacco to seatbelts, but with a high-tech twist.

Of course, China wants its companies to be successful. The more Coca-Cola we drink, the more profitable an American company is. The same goes for the more time people spend on Douyin or, in Americas case, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Again, I trust the public to make these personal health decisions more than the government. When youre in the throes of mass addiction and dependence, however, that project becomes more difficult.

This is the situation in which we find ourselves now. Big Tech is a public health emergency in the way some see Big Tobacco, but on an infinitely wider scaleweve transferred our personal and professional and political lives onto platforms designed to affect us like slot machines. There is absolutely no historical precedent for this.

Its why, in a sense, classical liberalism has to be the savior of classical liberalism. Our contemporary interpretation of it may need some post-postmodern modifications, to be sure. But without free markets to boost competitors and a free press to hold power accountable, the solution would be outsourcing more personal decisions to our broken and bloated federal government. That wont be better.

As conservatives join forces with heterodox centrists and liberals to build parallel institutions that compete with Big Tech, from Rumble to Parler to Gettr to all of the future platforms, theyre participating in an absolutely critical experiment. Its perhaps the single most important effort in the country today, the only thing that can loosen us from the control of poisonous platforms and their oligarchical executives. But the public health concerns are as important as those regarding free expression.

Yes, this requires Big Techs competitors to sacrifice user addiction in the hopes that people want to be less addicted and more free to speak openly. I think thats still a good bet.

Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young Americas Foundation. Shes interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including Fox News Sunday, Media Buzz, and The McLaughlin Group. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center and a visiting fellow at Independent Women's Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.

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Big Tech's Speech-Centric Competitors Need To Also Offer Healthier Use - The Federalist