Victim Becomes Culprit

First of two on democracy's prospects in the digital age

There is a chicken-or-egg question circling like a buzzard over the desiccating carcass of our nation’s civic habits. Is the internet a chief cause of societal dysfunction or its byproduct?

From what I can see, the answer is yes.

Yes, what the internet’s become tears at the fabric of democracy. Reporting for The Atlantic in 2021, Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev observed back then that “instead of entering a real-life public square,” Americans were withdrawing into “digital spaces where they rarely meet opponents; when they do, it is only to vilify them.”

Pomerantsev and Applebaum go on: “Conversation in this new American public sphere is governed not by established customs and traditions in service of democracy but by rules set by a few for-profit companies in service of their needs and revenues. Instead of the procedural regulations that guide a real-life town meeting, conversation is ruled by algorithms that are designed to capture attention, harvest data, and sell advertising. The voices of the angriest, most emotional, most divisive—and often the most duplicitous—participants are amplified. Reasonable, rational, and nuanced voices are much harder to hear; radicalization spreads quickly.”

The result is harrowing. “In this new wilderness, democracy is becoming impossible…. We can’t compromise. We can’t make collective decisions—we can’t even agree on what we’re deciding.”

This wilderness didn’t make itself. Yes, the internet is as much victim as culprit, a living organism exposed to deadly toxins from the outset. It didn’t have to be, but it was, because of a preexisting condition in our society, a lack of foresight leading to a failure to adapt our laws and habits to rapidly changing times.

The internet’s birth was not greeted the same way as the invention of electricity or the telephone, or the arrival of radio and then television.

Once electricity on a massive scale became technically feasible and economically viable, investor-owned power companies were deemed “public utilities” and commissions accountable to the citizenry were established to regulate the generation and transmission of electric power. Massive public initiatives like the Tennessee Valley Authority and then the Rural Electrification Administration were undertaken to make sure power lines were strung down every back road, to every farmhouse and barn, to every town no matter how small or remote. Another ambitious national initiative led to the formation of consumer-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives to ensure electricity was supplied everywhere at reasonable rates. An entire nation was electrified.

When radio came about, federal legislation established a national commission with licensing powers that assigned broadcasters to designated channels on the electromagnetic spectrum. In exchange for this exclusive right to a particular radio frequency, broadcasters were required to act as “public trustees” with a duty to operate in the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” The radio commission went so far as to insist “the station itself must be operated as if owned by the public.”

At the dawn of the television age, our country went even further, establishing a broader national communications commission to regulate the interstate activities of telephone companies, allocate broadcast frequencies and license over-the-air broadcasters. The public’s expectations of broadcasters were made more explicit. Licensees were duty bound to use the airwaves to invigorate the democratic culture of our nation by devoting airtime to the electoral process, governance, political discourse, community affairs and education. They were required to report news, provide diverse views on public issues, promote localism and offer programming suitable for children.

Communication innovation didn’t stop then and there, but policymaking and regulation in service of democracy and civil society did. Times changed, our laws stood still. That’s why cable news is so very different from news on over-the-air stations, so much worse, deliberately biased and dishonest. Our nation’s communications commission was never given jurisdiction over cable television comparable to the authority it has with over-the air radio and TV. This is also why profanity, graphic violence and sexual content are prevalent on cable but not on over-the-air broadcasts.

Now the internet is taking over. Cable is giving way to online video streaming. As Pomerantsev and Applebaum reported three years ago, there’s nothing requiring internet service providers to use this public sphere to invigorate the democratic culture of our nation. Instead, they have been left free to employ algorithms and Artificial Intelligence to maximize their own profits, by whatever means, to whatever end, the common good be damned.

The internet is failing us because we failed the internet. AI is the next big thing, and early signs point to us failing there, too. So, what could we do differently? What might a course correction look like? That’s next week’s topic.