I just completed The Tyranny of Big Tech (Regnery 2021), by Senator Josh Hawley. Its a short but significant work that certainly will engender debate. .
The publishing of the book itself had some wrinkles. Senator Hawley, Republican of Missouri, and a former attorney general of that state, originally signed up with Simon and Schuster to get his book published. However, although Mr. Hawley condemned the January 6 riots at the Capitol, the publishing house decided to spike Mr. Hawleys book on account of the Senators objection to the certification of some state electors, something that numerous Democratic senators had done in recent elections won by GOP presidential candidates. As it happened, the book was picked up by Regnery, the conservative publishing house, and has landed on numerous bestseller lists. Nevertheless, the initial decision not to publish seems like an unfortunate example of cancel culture.
Senator Hawleys thesis is that the big tech companies are the present day successors to the monopolistic robber baron enterprise that dominated American society at the beginning of the 20th century, and very much need to be reined in. In Mr. Hawleys view, President Theodore Roosevelt tried valiantly to shut down large monopolistic companies, only to be thwarted in the end and his trust busting efforts were supplanted by an era of corporate liberalism that continues to this day. Mr. Hawleys contention is that Big Tech is in many ways the present day incarnation of the robber barons.
The strength of Mr. Hawleys book is his catalogue of numerous problems with a tech world dominated by a relatively few enormous players. He details how Big Tech uses personal information about customers to construct profiles of social media users and then steer them to make buying decisions. He describes how the tech giants have undue influence over the advertising market and have enormous political influence in Washington. He points out how algorithms set up by Big Tech have the effect of altering search engine results. He also points out that excessive time spent online can, for a variety of reasons, have negative effects on children.
As a political leader, Mr. Hawley not surprisingly spends quite a bit of time on the topic of ideological censorship by Big Tech and its squelching of news stories unfavorable to its political favorites, for example New York Post revelations about Hunter Biden. Mr. Hawley draws on information supplied by Mike Gilgan, pseudonym for a Facebook information manager, and makes the claim that the censorship is coordinated among the tech giants.
In the end, Mr. Hawley calls for a strong response to the tech giants. For example, he believes that antitrust statutes should be dusted off and that the tech giants be required to divest themselves of some of their holdings. He also favors a rethinking of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields many tech companies from liability for posted content. On a more personal level, he calls for individuals and families to wean themselves from excessive time spent online.
I do believe that Mr. Hawley gives unduly short shrift to some of the benefits of the new online technology provided by the Big Tech companies. The ability to shop online, for example, can be a major saver of effort, and indeed was a lifesaver during the pandemic. Purchasing online also allows consumers a better opportunity to compare price and quality. Being able to gather information quickly is very useful in all sorts of endeavors. Just to take an example close to my heart, I believe that ability to find and check online information that appears in this column has improved its quality over the years and made my life much easier. Social media can be overused, but it has allowed numerous people to connect with others and to maintain important business and personal relationships.
Nevertheless, Senator Hawley has produced an important and thought provoking book that is well worth reading.
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