Published on October 2nd, 2021 📆 | 2790 Views ⚑
0Senators don’t understand technology. How can they regulate it?
One of the few issues of increasing bipartisan agreement in U.S. politics is the supposed need for the federal government to âdo somethingâ to crack down on Big Tech. While issues with social media giants certainly do exist , Congress just offered us yet another reminder of why it canât be trusted to regulate the tech sector.
During a Thursday Senate hearing on social mediaâs impact on teenagers, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, pursued a rather farcical line of questioning that quickly prompted viral ridicule.
âWill you commit to ending Finsta?â the senator asked Facebook Head of Global Safety Antigone Davis. (Instagram is owned by Facebook.)
For context, âFinstaâ refers to when someone makes a separate, secondary Instagram account that they only allow a select few friends to follow, where they post candid or embarrassing posts diary-style. Itâs simply a way some young people use Instagram, not an actual feature or anything built into the technology.
âSenator ⌠we donât actually do Finsta,â Davis explained. âWhat Finsta refers to is young people setting up accounts where they may want to have more privacy.â
âFinsta is one of your products or services,â Blumenthal falsely interjected. âWeâre not talking here about Google or Apple ⌠itâs Facebook, correct?â
âFinsta is slang for a type of account,â Davis again offered.
âOK. Will you end that type of account?â Blumenthal again interrupted.
Davis then tried to explain why that isnât possible, but Blumenthal wasnât happy. âI donât think thatâs an answer to my question,â he complained.
Perhaps it wasnât, but thatâs because the senatorâs question is incoherent. It doesnât make any sense. He clearly has no idea what a âFinstaâ is and yet is grilling a Facebook executive on âendingâ something that isnât a service or product the company offers. Itâs like demanding that phone companies âendâ phone tag or prank calls.
Of course, Blumenthal is 75 years old. Itâs eminently understandable that he wouldnât really grasp how social media works. And heâs not alone.
Many of Blumenthalâs peers in the Senate and in the House have had similarly embarrassing moments of technological illiteracy caught on camera. As recently as 2015, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham both admitted to barely even using email . In a hearing held last year, a congressman started grilling Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about censorship of Donald Trump Jr. â that happened on Twitter. Another congressman wanted the CEO of Google to explain why his campaign emails sometimes went to peopleâs spam filters.
This technological illiteracy isnât in itself a big deal. The problem is that the senator and his other ancient colleagues in Congress think that despite their utter lack of comprehension of tech issues, they have the right and ability to dictate to companies what their practices ought to be. Indeed, prominent lawmakers from both parties have introduced bills to regulate, micromanage, and otherwise overrule tech companies.
But Congress cannot competently regulate things it doesnât even begin to understand. And thereâs perhaps no issue with which boomer legislatorsâ ignorance is more pronounced than Big Tech. If elderly elected officials such as Richard Blumenthal insist on writing rules for an industry they can barely comprehend, dysfunction is sure to ensue.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo ) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and a Washington Examiner contributor. Subscribe to his YouTube channel or email him at bradpolumbojournalism@gmail.com .
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