Former Harvard law prof, now Massachusetts senator, Elizabeth Warren, is a big fan of the bureaucratic state. It’s hard to say what Lindsay Graham is a fan of, but at the moment it would appear it’s Senator Warren, as reflected in a New York Times op-ed announcing their bipartisan bill to create a new administrative agency to rule the internet.

Nobody elected Big Tech executives to govern anything, let alone the entire digital world. If democracy means anything, it means that leaders on both sides of the aisle must take responsibility for protecting the freedom of the American people from the ever-changing whims of these powerful companies and their unaccountable C.E.O.s. Today we’re stepping up to that challenge with a bipartisan bill to treat Big Tech the way we treat other industries.

They’re not wrong that nobody elected Big Tech executives to govern anything, and the fact that internet enterprises stand athwart parochial control is hardly an unserious concern. I’m not thrilled to hand control of the metaverse to Zuck, and neither, apparently, are Warren and Graham.

Enough is enough. It’s time to rein in Big Tech. And we can’t do it with a law that only nibbles around the edges of the problem. Piecemeal efforts to stop abusive and dangerous practices have failed. Congress is too slow, it lacks the tech expertise, and the army of Big Tech lobbyists can pick off individual efforts easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Meaningful change — the change worth engaging every member of Congress to fight for — is structural.

Ah, structural, which is the alternative to systemic, the jargon that makes hearts sing and minds shut. They run through a litany of problems with the internet, most of which are not merely real, but deeply concerning. Bad things happen there, and why aren’t the Lords of the Ether protecting us from it? Bad things happen there, and the Lords of the Ether are doing it to us, like scraping every aspect of our lives to be used against us, sold, and used against us again.

Stories of children driven to suicide by online bullying break our hearts. Stories of cyberattacks stealing our most intimate data scare us to death. Stories of intentional misinformation designed to twist the malleable minds into violent extremists shock us.

Something must be done
Warren: This is something.
Graham: Me too.
This must be done.

And what, prey (not a typo, Beth) tell, does this daring duo have in mind?

Our Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation’s biggest tech companies — like Meta, Google and Amazon — to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans’ privacy and protect national security. The new watchdog would focus on the unique threats posed by tech giants while strengthening the tools available to the federal agencies and state attorneys general who have authority to regulate Big Tech.

Licensing? The rationale for the FCC overseeing broadcast television was that networks leased bandwidth from the government, and with it came a duty to be regulated. But that’s not the internet. It’s not limited to any one nation. It’s not compelled to use official government channels, so it need not reluctantly agree to be regulated to get its bandwidth.

But the really dystopian part is that it will “promote free speech,” much like war is peace, slavery is freedom. ignorance is strength. They can string the words together, but that doesn’t make it so. Granted, the lowest of free speech haters like Mary Anne Franks will take comfort in the claim, just as she’s already preparing her C.V. to apply for the job of Minister of Internet Truth. It’s long been her view that by silencing speech she abhors, it will promote speech she adores since there will be no backlash to her favored speech and hers, and hers alone, will ring throughout the land with nary a discouraging word.

Our legislation would guarantee common-sense safeguards for everyone who uses tech platforms. Families would have the right to protect their children from sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and deadly drugs. Certain digital platforms have promoted the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, suicidal ideation and eating disorders or done precious little to combat these evils; our bill would require Big Tech to mitigate such harms and allow families to seek redress if they do not.

Of course it will be “common sense,” the opiate of the simpleminded. What safeguards “for everyone who uses tech platforms,” these will be goes unmentioned, because there is no safeguard against “these evils” that doesn’t also impair constitutional rights, freedom and, yes, free speech. Just not the free speech that politicians tend to like.

Of course, the unspoken gap between the Warren side and the Graham side of this bipartisan effort might well include prohibiting “disinformation” or “fake news,” according to who gets to appoint the HIgh Priestess of the Interwebs, but that’s a battle to be fought on election day. In the meantime, both believe they are on the right side of power and will be in control of internet truth in perpetuity. One of them is going to be very disappointed.

If our legislation is enacted, platforms would face consequences for suppressing speech in violation of their own terms of service. The commission would have the flexibility and agility to develop more expertise and respond to new risks, like those posed by generative A.I.

Granted, Congress has demonstrated that it’s incapable of understanding tech, no less dealing with it. A chamber of fertile (minded) octogenarians posting stickers to the wall really isn’t likely to be of much use in the extremely difficult task of crafting laws that both control the excesses of Tech Titans while steering clear of unconstitutional limitations and moving fast without breaking things. Will one new administrative agency with vast powers over the most significant force shaping society make things better? Sadly, there is likely a lot of support for the creation of this monster by the disaffected on the left and right. Maybe I should polish up my  résumé too.