The Democrats' milquetoast plan to rein in Facebook is actually pretty risky

Centrist doesn't mean safe

Mark Warner.
(Image credit: Illustrated| Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Between data privacy problems and Russian bots, big tech platforms like Facebook are giving U.S. policymakers a serious headache. And that goes double for the Democratic Party. According to Axios, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) has a new paper laying out multiple policy options for how to rein them in.

Kudos to Warner at the outset: The paper is clearly intended as a conversation starter; it's a conversation we need to have; and some of its ideas are genuinely worthwhile. But the paper also dances around the central problem presented by Facebook and its ilk. Probably because the central problem suggests solutions too radical for many Democrats to stomach.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.