Social media is harmful to individuals and society. Social media is addictive.
Smoking is harmful to individuals and society. Smoking is addictive.
People on the right side of history tried but couldn’t outlaw smoking. People on the right side of history are trying but haven’t yet managed to outlaw social media.
How can social engineers Build a Better World™ if they can’t force society to adopt their remedies?
Wait, wait, I know. Let’s give social media the cigarette treatment and make the government a silent partner by grabbing half the profits!
This is the wisdom proposed by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, two MIT professors who are proposing a 50% flat tax on digital advertising revenue.
Move over, Willie.
Their noble goal is to “nudge” social media companies into transitioning from an advertising model, which promotes hate speech and misinformation, to a subscription model, under which truth-seeking and the objective, nonpartisan journalism standards practiced by Legacy Media will surely prevail.
What would we do without armchair economists giving politicians ideological cover to agglomerate money and power?
For their next act, the good professors are working on a study that will measure the impact of social media subscription prices on marginalized communities. It calls for the establishment of a new EBT Card plan that will subsidize subscriptions for the poor to make sure they’re not left behind by the Digital Divide.