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Dear John,

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says he’ll run political ads even if they are false. Jack Dorsey of Twitter says he’ll stop running political ads altogether.

Dorsey has the correct approach but the debate skirts the bigger question: Who is responsible for protecting democracy from big, dangerous lies? ([link removed])
A major characteristic of the internet goes by the fancy term “disintermediation”. Put simply, it means sellers are linked directly to customers with no need for middlemen.

But democracy can’t be disintermediated. We’re not just buyers and sellers. We’re citizens who need to know what’s happening around us in order to exercise our right to self-government, and responsibility for it.

If a president and his enablers are peddling vicious and dangerous lies, we need reliable intermediaries that help us see them. Intermediating between the powerful and the people was once mainly the job of publishers and journalists – hence the term “media”.

This role was understood to be so critical to democracy that the constitution enshrined it in the first amendment, guaranteeing freedom of the press.

With that freedom came public responsibility, to be a xxxxxx against powerful lies. The media haven’t always lived up to it. We had yellow journalism in the 19th century and today endure shock radio, the National Enquirer and Fox News.

Zuckerberg and Dorsey insist they aren’t publishers or journalists. They say Facebook and Twitter are just “platforms” that convey everything and anything – facts, lies, conspiracies, vendettas – with none of the public responsibilities that come with being part of the press.

Rubbish. They can’t be the major carriers of the news on which most Americans rely while taking no responsibility for its content.
Antitrust law was designed to check the power of giant commercial entities. Its purpose wasn’t just to hold down consumer prices but also to protect democracy. Antitrust should be used against Facebook and Twitter. They should be broken up.

Thanks for reading,
Robert Reich

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