{"id":24860,"date":"2021-10-29T22:18:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T22:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/?p=24860"},"modified":"2021-11-30T03:14:30","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T03:14:30","slug":"is-this-really-big-techs-big-tobacco-moment-only-congress-can-make-it-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/is-this-really-big-techs-big-tobacco-moment-only-congress-can-make-it-so\/","title":{"rendered":"Is This Really Big Tech’s ‘Big Tobacco’ Moment? Only Congress Can Make It So."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cFacebook and Big Tech are facing a <\/em>Big Tobacco moment<\/em><\/a>, a moment of reckoning. The parallel is striking. I sued Big Tobacco as Connecticut’s attorney general; I helped to lead the states in that legal action and I remember very, very well the moment in the course of our litigation when we learned of those files that showed not only that Big Tobacco knew that its product caused cancer, but that they had done the research and they concealed the files. Big Tech now faces that Big Tobacco, jaw-dropping moment of truth.\u201d <\/em><\/p>

<\/p>– Senator Richard Blumenthal, Chairman of the Commerce Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, and one of the members of Congress most empowered to regulate Big Tech, at the hearing, \u201cProtecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower\u201d on October 5, 2021.<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Big Tech and Big Tobacco: it\u2019s an analogy that has been made<\/a> a lot<\/a> lately<\/a> (also here<\/a>, and here<\/a>) due to the emergence of a whistleblower, Frances Haugen, with thousands of pages of research showing Facebook is aware of some of its platforms\u2019 worst impacts on teens, political polarization, and ethnic genocide. But the analogy goes back to at least 2018, in an interview<\/a> with Salesforce\u2019s Marc Benioff (it\u2019s a theme he has repeated<\/a> since). It had also become a rallying<\/a> cry<\/a> for some academics (and Public Knowledge used the analogy<\/a> earlier this year, too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So is it true? Does the analogy hold up? And if it does, what do we do about it now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parallels Between Big Tech and Big Tobacco<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Big Tech\/Big Tobacco comparison is being made all over the place now because Haugen\u2019s receipts<\/a> showed Facebook is aware of the harms it causes and conceals them, similar to a decades-long campaign by the biggest tobacco companies to mislead the public about the cancerous and habit-forming effects of cigarettes. Both industries undermined and tried to cast doubt on public health research (even their own<\/a>) while denying researchers<\/a> access to their data, which would be the best way to study users\u2019 habits and outcomes related to their products. The Surgeon General released its first conclusions about smoking and cancer and other diseases in 1964. This year, the Surgeon General released a report<\/a> identifying misinformation on social media platforms as a \u201csignificant public health challenge\u201d and asking technology companies to \u201ctake responsibility for addressing the harms of their products.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until Jeffrey Wigand, the tobacco whistleblower, appeared for his own interview on \u201c60 Minutes\u201d in 1995 that long-standing suspicions that tobacco companies had been fully aware of the catastrophic health outcomes of smoking for decades were confirmed, and regulation of the tobacco industry gained momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both industries applied their knowledge of their products\u2019 harms not to mitigate the damage but to evolve their business strategies. For example, they recruited new, younger users to ensure their continued dominance. In the tobacco industry, this meant the creation of \u201creplacement smokers\u201d and the use of cartoon characters like Joe the Camel in marketing efforts to teenagers. For Facebook this has meant<\/a> using Messenger Kids (for 6-12 year-olds) or Instagram (for 13+ year-olds, and despite knowledge of its impact on teen girls\u2019 body image and eating disorders<\/a>) and the now paused development<\/a> of Instagram Kids to attract younger users. Both industries also exploited<\/a> underdeveloped markets<\/a> in the quest for growth and under-resourced<\/a> the safety mechanisms that ostensibly keep users safe in countries with lower risk of regulation. (They may have running from their toxic brands<\/a> in common, too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both industries also made efforts to make their products more addictive. You don\u2019t have to take our word for it: In his September 2020 testimony<\/a> to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, a former Facebook executive charged with early monetization of the platform, Tim Kendall, acknowledged that Facebook \u201ctook a page from Big Tobacco\u2019s playbook, working to make our offering addictive at the outset.\u201d He compared Facebook\u2019s status updates, photo tagging, and likes to Big Tobacco\u2019s bronchodilators, which spread smoke over more surface area of the lungs, and compared \u201cextreme, incendiary content\u201d to the ammonia added to cigarettes to increase the speed with which nicotine traveled to the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(What does Facebook have to say about the analogy now? In an interview with CNN<\/a>, Nick Clegg, Facebook\u2019s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communication, noted that the comparison was \u201cprofoundly false\u201d because, after all, \u201ca third of the world\u2019s population enjoys using\u201d Facebook\u2019s family of apps. It was a bad day for Nick, since a correspondent for NPR quickly pointed out<\/a> that when Jeffrey Wigand appeared on \u201c60 Minutes\u201d about 30 percent of the world\u2019s population smoked.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it isn\u2019t just Facebook and Instagram. The reliance on \u201cengagement-based ranking<\/a>\u201d to maximize users\u2019 time on their platforms is shared by Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, and other platforms that rely on advertising for their business model. For example, research has shown<\/a> that YouTube\u2019s algorithmic recommendation engine often leads to radicalization and extremism, and employees described<\/a> how their proposals to change the recommendations engine were ignored in the pursuit of user engagement. And this week , executives from Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube were called to a Senate hearing<\/a> to examine how their companies treat young audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Policy Implications of Big Tech\u2019s Big Tobacco Moment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analogy may be imperfect<\/a>. Most notably, in an ideal world the tobacco industry would be gone altogether, while even Big Tech\u2019s biggest critics admit that it provides substantial benefits. But in 1995, an industry whistleblower \u201ccrystallized and confirmed years of suspicions and helped compel U.S. government authorities to act\u201d on tobacco regulation. This past month, Frances Haugen did the same thing. Right now, this is the only part of the analogy that matters, and only Congress can make it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frances Haugen outlined a list of potential regulatory solutions in her testimony<\/a> to the Consumer Protection Subcommittee, and experts have proposed many more before and since. Congress has plenty of legislative solutions to consider to take advantage of her revelations. But unfortunately, and as tempting as it may be, this complex set of issues is not conducive to a single, simple, headline-grabbing regulatory solution. That would be the equivalent of regulating the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of the industry behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, other than the documents she provided to substantiate her claims, nothing in Haugen\u2019s testimony was completely new. Certainly it reinforced the idea that self-regulation will never be an effective antidote to Big Tech\u2019s ills, just as it wasn\u2019t an effective solution for the tobacco industry. There are too many clashing incentives. But it has also reinforced the need for broader, more durable policy solutions, some of which Public Knowledge has advocated for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, we need a dedicated digital regulator. Congress was ultimately forced to provide explicit power to the FDA to regulate tobacco in addition to food and pharmaceuticals. A specialized regulator may be even more important for the digital platforms due to the dynamic<\/a> and diverse nature of the industry; individual pieces of legislation run the risk of obsolescence or may not pertain to all the relevant platforms. An agency with a watchdog capability would ensure more transparency for government, researchers, and the public. Frances Haugen wants one. Public Knowledge wants one (in fact, we were first, as my colleague Harold Feld recently pointed out<\/a>). Even Facebook wants one<\/a>, for heaven\u2019s sake. Let\u2019s do this!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also need antitrust enforcement, and new laws and rules to promote competition against Facebook and the other dominant digital platforms. This would make it easier for users to switch when they are frustrated or fed up with a platform\u2019s missteps, and help create an environment where real alternatives to today\u2019s dominant platforms can thrive. If users have a real choice, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms may feel more pressure to get these tricky decisions right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal data privacy regulation that goes beyond notice and consent regimes would limit how user data is collected and used. The optimal<\/a> federal privacy law would provide substantive use limitations, include data minimization requirements, make no distinction between so-called \u201csensitive\u201d or \u201cnon-sensitive\u201d information, penalize companies that use dark patterns to circumvent user choice, and offer consumers meaningful redress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the breakthroughs in regulation of tobacco — after years of industry efforts to position smoking and acceptance of its risks as a \u201cpersonal choice\u201d —  came from public campaigns to communicate the dangers of secondhand<\/em> smoke; that is, when it was understood<\/a> that individual choices to engage in certain behaviors could harm other people. <\/em>We have offered an analogous policy proposal: A \u201cSuperfund for the Internet\u201d<\/a> would consider the societal harms associated with disinformation on digital platforms and mandate that they adopt an approach in their content moderation that serves the public interest. It calls for the creation of an independent trust fund, funded by a federal user fee from the platforms, and a mandate to use fact-checking along with labeling and other friction strategies (including some Haugen described in her testimony) to slow down the virality of harmful disinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstagram is that first childhood cigarette meant to get teens hooked early. Exploiting the peer pressure of popularity and ultimately endangering their health. Facebook is just like Big Tobacco, pushing a product that they know is harmful to the health of young people, <\/em>pushing it to them early<\/em><\/a>. Also, Facebook can make money. IG stands for Instagram, but it also stands for \u2018Insta-greed.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Senator Edward Markey, member of the Commerce Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, and one of the architects of the Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act, at the hearing, \u201cProtecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower\u201d on October 5, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress — and Congress alone — now has the ability to deliver on their own claims about Big Tech\u2019s Big Tobacco moment. If they don\u2019t, this will just be like Big Tech\u2019s Cambridge Analytica moment, or its $170 million fine for violating kids\u2019 privacy rights moment, or any one of many other seemingly breakthrough moments that have turned into…nothing much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook is aware of the harms it causes and conceals them, similar to a decades-long campaign by the biggest tobacco companies to mislead the public about the cancerous and habit-forming effects of cigarettes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":24861,"parent":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-24860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insights","tag-platform-regulation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs This Really Big Tech's 'Big Tobacco' Moment? Only Congress Can Make It So. - Public Knowledge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Public Knowledge promotes freedom of expression, an open internet, and access to affordable communications tools and creative works. 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