Democrats promise that if they win back the House, they will start regulating Silicon Valley.
Should American citizens get a new Bill of Rights for the internet?
Given all the damage that giant tech companies have done of late, including the disaster of the week — a breach at Facebook that exposed tens of millions of accounts and maybe lots more — many Democrats think the answer is yes.
In an interview with me this week, Nancy Pelosi even suggested that a new agency could be created to manage tech’s growing impact. “Something needs to be done,” she told me, to “protect the privacy of the American people” and “come up with overarching values” — a set of principles that everyone can agree on and adhere to.
Call it a Bill of Rights for the internet.
Six months ago, Ms. Pelosi charged Ro Khanna — the Democratic representative whose California district is home to Apple, Intel and Yahoo — with the creation of that list. After consulting with think tanks like the Center for Democracy and Technology and big Silicon Valley companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, as well as some of tech’s biggest brains, like Nicole Wong and Tim Berners-Lee, he came up with a list of 10 principles that cover topics such as privacy, net neutrality and discrimination.
Mr. Khanna gave me a copy of the list, the full contents of which have not been reported elsewhere, and which appears at the bottom of this essay.
To set the table, let’s be clear that the tech industry has long operated nearly unfettered, aided by laws that have given its major companies broad immunity and an open plain on which to operate. The goal was to foster and encourage innovation. And like the pioneers who once set out for California to make their fortune, tech companies have thrived in that regulation-free landscape.
But it has become ever clearer with every misstep — including but not limited to Russian interference on social media platforms, the amplification of hate speech and fake news, and the misuse of personal information — that tech’s freedom has come at a steep price to the American people. If voters give her the chance, the once and perhaps future speaker of the House says she will lead a push to get the industry in line.
In short: Horse, meet barn door.
The second says consumers should have to give their permission — an “opt in” rather than “opt out” system — before their data can be collected and shared with third parties. I like to call it the anti-Cambridge Analytica rule.
Mr. Khanna noted that this requirement must be fulfilled in a way that is not onerous — consumers shouldn’t have to click on something affirming their consent every time data is collected, for example. “If you have to click on something 50 times, it kind of defeats the purpose,” he said.
You could call that last one the Equifax/Facebook/Yahoo conundrum: How do we protect consumers from endless data incursions and hacking by bad actors while also getting all the benefits of a fully networked society?
It’s an admirable list, but I suspect that if Democrats try to turn these principles into law, it will be like pushing back the ocean, especially since the business models of many of these companies are predicated on sucking up as much data as they can and exploiting it for gain. The consumer is the product — as much as insiders at companies like Facebook scoff at the idea.
Mr. Khanna said he gets that it will be a slow road, and it will definitely require bipartisan support.
It already has in Europe — which has become the leader in stopping tech’s aggressive march — and in Ms. Pelosi’s home state, California, which has passed many of the kinds of laws that Congress should be considering.
Recent legislation out of Sacramento has included the nation’s most significant privacy law, as well as another on net neutrality (which is now being challenged by the Trump Justice Department) and even one to require publicly traded companies operating in the state to have at least one woman on their board.
The federal government is very late to the party, but Ms. Pelosi promised that if Democrats get back the House in November, there will be a push for action.
It’s certainly well past time to see something from the politicians whose job it is to protect the rest of us.