What should be done to curb Big Tech?

Republicans like Hawley and Ted Cruz are understandably angry about the status quo, but they’ve latched onto the wrong remedy, Sacks says. “Conservative demands to repeal 230 are basically a rage tweet. It wouldn’t stop Big Tech censorship, it would make it worse,” he told me in a conversation this week. “Ending Section 230 would only make companies like Facebook and Google censor more because more liability would make them even more risk-averse about the speech they allow on their platforms. In the meantime, it would also hurt small, innovative tech companies who would be vulnerable to frivolous lawsuits.” The Epstein position, Sacks thinks, has it right. “Why try to incentivize good behavior by threatening to punish Big Tech? Just require it. That’s what the common carrier solution does.” I think Sacks’s view of the big picture here is quite convincing: “When speech got digitized, the town square got privatized and the First Amendment got euthanized. If you can’t speak online — or if your ability to speak online is controlled by a tiny handful of companies with no due process — how do you really have a free speech right in this country any more?” he said. “Imposing a common carrier obligation on Big Tech would prevent these corporations from doing what they are doing now: discriminating on the basis of creed.”