big tech and its connection with power and politics. She has covered Silicon Valley and

the major players that have made the industry as powerful as it is today, with big tech

becoming a major influence in today's political world. It's important to understand where

we are and where the industry is going. Now let's hear from Kara herself. Think of Kara

and welcome Villers writing it out, because I think all of always could say it. Very good.

Social media obviously played a big role in the preparation of storming the Capitol. Do

you agree? January six is kind of the 9/11 for social media.

Well, I don't know, I think it's a 9/11. You know, it's not I don't want to compare those

crisis's, you know, because that was the amount of the amount of deaths that that thing was

really quite amazing. But it was it is a moment to reflect on the impact of not just social

media, but media in general on on on getting people amplified and weaponized. And I think

that's really what it was in a lot of, you know, look, Donald Trump being down at the

down at the White House, yelling at them to do that was just as important as what had

prepared them to feel that way and act once. He said, you know, gave the go word, essentially.

And so what these people have been doing is they've been inhaling and and been flooded

with all kinds of misinformation, lies a lot by Donald Trump, but a lot everywhere. And

so they've been surrounded by lies. And therefore, when he said, go fix it, it was he had soften

them up. He and others had soften them up to do what they did. And I don't think people

I do think people have free will. But when you get into a mindset and you believe it

because you're surrounded by media, that's telling you that what's happening is being

taken to it's not as confusing to understand why they did what they did. You know, they

look like idiots, but are they or are they people that were just incredibly manipulated?

And that's something obviously Germans know about really well. And so this idea of constant

reaffirmation of things that are untrue created the situation that led to that for sure.

OK, so let's stick with the tech industry for a moment. You think they're all complicit

in allowing the storming to occur? Are you here? I think I lost you. A single

lost to. So here we are again, sorry for that. So we

had some some technical problems, obviously. So my question is, you get it. OK, let's maybe

we can go back. OK, go ahead. What do you want me to go back? I just wanted you to know.

So I wanted to go back to the big tech industry frozen again. And now it's so interesting

to people. Is the tech industry that all complicit in allowing the storming to occur? What's

your what's your take on that? Yeah, I think one thing that you have to separate

is two things. They may have done the right thing by by platforming Donald Trump at this

moment, but everything has led up to it has been because they haven't done anything and

they have allowed everything to go on, including all this misinformation, including the behavior

of Donald Trump and his minions. You know what I mean? It's it's an entire network where

misinformation bubbles up and bubbles back down. And so, yes, the way they built their

platforms has caused this situation to happen, giving them kudos for finally doing the right

thing. I'm not sure you got a kudos for doing the right thing, which is in this case, it's

the correct answer. But it also points the fact that how much power these companies have

and way too much power, that sometimes they make the right decision. But boy, do we not

like that. It took two companies to shut this down, just two people. And that's problematic

in this country. Do they have to rethink their whole model?

I mean, is there kind of also taking over all these conspiracy theories? And, you know,

would you say that and how? Well, you know, everyone's sort of like, how

could this happen? Everything was built this way. The way it is built is the way it is

behaving because it reflects humanity. And anytime humanity gets any kind of tool like

this, the abuse of it is usually right away. And so I think one of the things that's built

around advertising, it's built around engagement, it's not built around community, even though

they say it is. And so therefore, what has happened is what should happen, because this

is this is the kind of tools they build. And so the question is, is their engagement

oriented business plan a good business plan in this way, in this highly politicized age?

And also if engagement along with addiction of these platforms and things like that lead

to this enragement is not really a business we need to be in, and it leads to enragement

inevitably and not to the the better outcomes that they say they could lead to it, doesn't

it? There's so much proof of where this goes,

but it is their business model. So what how could they change that?

Well, you can imagine like I could think about, you know, TV has a business model of advertising

and you could have you know, you saw the movie network, you know, you could make it into

if it was the only thing people were getting and they were getting the individual messages

aligned to them, you could see how that could be because, well, we have we have government

entities that control the airwaves in some way. And there are there's there's there's

lawsuits that happen when you break a rule. And in this case, the Internet industry doesn't

have any laws governing them and therefore they can do whatever they want. Every other

major media, as much as we go on about freedom of speech here, every media has some strictures

on it. And we have to figure out what the strictures are for this media.

And it's going to have to come from government, not from them, because they can't sell self-regulation.

So, Carol, we often talk about we need more regulation on these big, big, overpowerful

companies that were actually allowed to become so big in the past. Like maybe we can focus

or talk a little bit about the mistakes which are happening now. You know, maybe you can

give us a couple of examples of where governments need to be taking action right now that we

don't kind of run into the same situation. Well, the European Union has, you know, Margaret

Vestager and others have tried on lots of different things, not just not just around

speech, but actually around power. And that's what this is about. Like, let's just be it's

like not about speech. Every all the right wing goes on or about speech and they never

shut up. That's a fascinating kind of development, is that they talk about being censored and

you can't stop listening. You can't they never stop broadcasting. So I think it's an issue

of that. There's not been any regulation and the regulation should be around market concentration,

market power, because with innovation and the ability to have more companies, you have

more voices. It solves the problem. If you don't have two companies in charge, one company

in charge of social media, one company in charge of search, one company in charge of

commerce, you're going to inevitably lead to abuses. And then the lack of innovation

means the lack of voices. And so we need regulation, you know, around privacy. We need regulation

around liability for some of these companies, et cetera, et cetera. And so there's there

aren't any rules. That's like in 20 years there's there's one rule that helps them.

And so I don't mean to say we should get rid of Section 230, which is that is the one that's

always controversial. But we need to reform it because it was it was done at a time when

these are international laws. Explain to our international audience what

that is. Section 230 is a law that was part of another

act that largely was declared unconstitutional, but not this part of it, which gives broad

immunity to Internet platforms for third party material on there. You know, so they're not

liable for everything everybody says on Facebook that would just put it out of business instantly.

Facebook was not in existence when this happened, by the way. It was way before any of these

companies. And so it was because if these companies were not really media, but they

weren't really platforms. And so how do you how do you protect them from being sued out

of business? Well, now they've used that to grow to great proportions and not had enough

responsibility around what's on their platforms. And so it suggests you don't have responsibility.

And so now we have to sort of move the responsibly back to these very wealthy companies, because

each of these companies is now the biggest companies in the world. Now, they're not nascent.

They are powerful. They are the most powerful, the richest. Their owners are the richest

people in the world. And therefore, the rule has to be rewritten for the reality of the

situation today. But there are so powerful. Do you think this

will really happen? Well, John D. Rockefeller was powerful. Somehow

they got him in, you know what I mean? They ran. Everybody in government is the only solution

in this case because, you know, consumer pressure is important. Media pressure is important.

Grassroots activists efforts is important. But the only thing that's going to rein these

people in is the government. And you know what? We got rid of AT&T. We had Microsoft,

we got John D. Rockefeller, Big Oil. It's the trains. This is something that's, you

know, Teddy Roosevelt was a trustbuster. And therefore, there is a way to to do this. And

there's a history in this government, this company country, of doing that. So two people

say they're too powerful. Well, you know, so are a lot of people.

You just mentioned Margaret Vestager, you you, commissioner, she's probably the most

powerful woman in the world when it comes to her. If you would be in her shoes for one

day, which executive order? Now, what what would you do?

Like doing all the things? I think sometimes she goes a little far, but that's OK. You

know, I think Europe has a very different idea about privacy in the U.S. does, I think

First Amendment issues. You can't do a lot of things in the U.S. that she's allowed to

do. The First Amendment does get in the way with government. You know, it's very clear

government she'll make you know, Congress shall make no law governing freedom of speech.

So among other things. And so you have to work within those boundaries here. But in

her case, she has power in Europe and the areas she's regulating. She doesn't have power

in the U.S. And these companies are largely U.S. based companies. And so it has to be

the U.S. government, not the state governments. California has been trying to do has done

a privacy bill. California is the one leading a lot of this legislation around all the Internet

companies, whether it's Uber or anybody else. So it has to come from the, ah, the U.S. federal

government to govern U.S. companies. And even though we're in a global society and these

are global companies, are U.S. companies, and so it has to come from here. So I don't

know what else she can do except continue when they move over into her area to regulate

them and then maybe set the tone like GDP did for the rest of the world.

What do you expect from the incoming Biden administration regarding these topics we're

just talking about? I think it's going to be bipartisan. There's

a lot of people knowing that this is a problem. I think there'll be more action. Although,

you know, it's interesting, I was waiting for lawsuits. The Justice Department antitrust

lawsuit suing the Obama administration never happened. Trump is Trump's bill. Barr is the

one who started the who initiated the Google. The FTC in this era is moving against Facebook.

Now, these things take a while to do, but I do see people like David Cicilline and some

others on the Hill being really active in terms of figuring out what to do here. And

I don't think the bottom is I think my decision is, is as much as they get called socialist,

they're very centrist. They're very accommodating to the middle. And so I don't expect to see

enormous amounts. I think the antitrust lawsuits will go on. They'll be more they'll be fines,

there'll be regulations, etc. And that's where you're going to see. I think Trump tried to

do it in weird ways, but like attack tactic talk. But he didn't really because he was

so superficial. He just like to type out executive orders that were badly written and had no

had no force, no force of law. And so I think it has to be a bipartisan effort by a lot

of people to just the way all the other regulations of big companies were. And then that's and

to remove the politics out of it and talk about the body politic of this country and

how badly they're hurt by this power. And if we if we do it in terms of power and not

partisanship, everybody gets that. There's not a Republican or Democrat to understand

too much power in the hands of too few people leads to abuses, no matter how nice those

people are, you know, and usually they're not so nice.

Some of them aren't so nice. Why was Chancellor Angela Merkel wrong about

banning Trump on Twitter? You know, I think she I was surprised by that.

I'm not sure it was really odd because I. I was like, you know, he he lies almost incessantly,

he's using a forum, not a public forum, a private forum. I'm not sure that was, you

know, look, Twitter and Facebook are private companies that can do whatever they want.

For some reason. I think she thinks the public square and they're not their private money

making institution and companies and and I and they can do whatever they please. I think

what she was talking about was that that newsworthy figures deserve to be heard all the time.

But you know what I always said about Donald Trump, I'm like, it's not like he lived in

a house. You know, we're downstairs. There was a podium that reached every media outlet

in the world. This guy had plenty of chances to do that. And in this case, he just violated

the rules of a several different companies, one too many times. I don't think it's more

complex than that. Why did you say that?