The headline is a bit click-baity but the topic of internet regulation has acquired a renewed importance in the current Covid age. We pay the price when "U.S. bankers and policymakers (have) a much higher appetite for risk (and criminal wrong-doing) than those in other countries." And the issues are a lot more complex than the headline would suggest. Arguably, there are four internets: Silicon Valley's open internet, Brussels' bourgeois internet, Beijing's authoritarian internet, and DC's commercial internet (these names are not mine; I would have called them 'libertarian', 'managerial', 'centralized' and 'commercial' respectively). But still, "Platforms need to be made as sensitive to other countries' needs, laws and values as they are to Americans'." And it's hard to get the recipe just right: should Trump and Qanon have been banned? Should Twitter respond to government calls to block the Indian farmers' protests? What about Hong Kong? The Arab Spring? How do we correct the internet, while at the same time correcting traditional news media? And how does this extend into other sectors: financial regulation, digital currency, education...?
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