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If Joe Biden wins US presidential election, prepare for an epic policy hangover

As pleasant as it might be to have a president who isn’t actively destroying the country, there are many areas where Biden will need a better plan & political will to make progress.

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If you follow the polls, even super skeptically, you might have noticed that Joe Biden is likely to win the U.S. presidential election. After that, no matter what the current president and his more fervent followers do, Biden will be inaugurated and installed in the White House.

What comes next? Prepare for an epic policy hangover.

While the horrors of the Trump presidency unfolded, all sorts of pre-existing problems festered and became much worse. And as pleasant as it might be to have a president who isn’t actively destroying the country, there are a lot of areas — other than wearing masks and reestablishing the concept of scientific authority — where Biden will need a much better plan, and ample political will, to make much progress.

Consider, for example, the issue of big tech companies and their power. No doubt, Google and Facebook provide valuable services, which is why they have garnered an outsized share of the country’s attention and data. Yet when people sign up and use such purportedly “free” applications, they’re typically unaware of the vast individual and social costs they are incurring. They’re giving away personal data that can be and is used to target, prey upon, misinform, manipulate and discriminate against them. And they’re subjecting themselves to a business model that profits by serving them more of the incendiary content that keeps them engaged and clicking on ads — a trade that is undermining society by radicalizing increasing numbers of Americans.

The Justice Department’s antitrust suit against Google, which focuses on the company’s dominance in search, doesn’t come close to addressing the problem. Even if legal action ejected Google’s search engine as the default option for iPhone users, people would still use it most of the time — and write to each other on gmail, and exchange information and ideas on Google docs and spreadsheets, and so on. The service has so thoroughly insinuated itself into our lives and businesses that we cannot wean ourselves from it. And as with all the tech companies, its executives remain utterly incapable of managing the consequences, in part because their commercial interests are in crucial ways at odds with those of the country as a whole.

Facebook illustrated the tech firms’ attitude when its legal team described any effort to separate the company from Instagram and WhatsApp as a “complete nonstarter” — meaning that what’s been done is simply too difficult to undo. Aside from its arrogance, the statement is facially untrue. While closing down Google might actually put a halt to the everyday life of Americans, shutting down Facebook — let alone separating its services — would be disruptive but not fatal. So the company’s confidence is telling: It suggests that Mark Zuckerberg and his crew think that the government in general, and antitrust laws specifically, cannot stand in their way.

So America has at least two companies whose market power — and influence over the way people perceive and interact with the world (and vote) — far exceeds their sense of responsibility, and the government response so far has been tepid to the point of pathetic. The Trump administration’s toe dip into reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — the part that shields the tech companies from liability for the content they distribute — is a case in point: Attorney General Bill Barr doesn’t seem to realize that making the tech companies responsible for policing content would actually give them more, not less, power.

In this and many other areas, America is facing a rude awakening at the end of January. There’s so much to be done, beyond simply fixing what Trump broke. It’s daunting. Let’s prepare our favorite hangover cures (mine is orange juice with chili peppers), and get ready to get to work. –Bloomberg


Also read: Trump stirs rallies by tarring Biden with misleading, exaggerated claims


 

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Seriously, with all the environmental debt this establishment has accrued, along with the huge backward paces in the fields of science, development and even diplomacy, all you can target are the tech companies? If these giants are the biggest threat the print can recognise to our society, the writers seriously need to re-evaluate their priorities! Bad form, Print!

  2. TS Darbari – The former vice president, now the Democratic presidential nominee, says he can build on the Obama legacy and unite the country in a challenging time and that is what perhaps America needs desperately. I do not know what do Americans want and also cannot predict on their behalf on the basis of the news or articles available on websites. However, the world and especially India needs a US president who understands how democracy works and how can co-existence and global peace promoted. India has always been a true friend to all its friend nations and the US is one of them. India has always promoted peace and if we see the statements of Joe Biden, he is anti to weapons race which is good for India and to the world. However, US also needs a leader who can strongly promote peace globally and force the nations that support war and terrorism to kneel down. #TS_Darbari #TS_Darbari_Blog #Ts_Darbari_News #TS_Darbari_Comments #About_TS_Darbari #TS_Darbari_Comments_Politics
    Mr. TS Darbari is a top management professional, with several years of rich & diversified experience in Corporate Strategy, New Business Development, Sales & Marketing, Commercial Operations, Project Management, Financial Management and Strategic Alliances’

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