I’m all for the TikTok ban.  To be clear, I have nothing against it. I use it myself.  However, allowing a hostile foreign power to own and control the dominant media platform used by America’s youth presents an obvious national security threat.  It’s the same reason why foreign individuals or companies are forbidden to own our broadcast networks.

But would you feel any safer with these guys in charge?

If the Trump Administration and Congress are truly serious about making social media safer and more secure for all Americans, especially our young people (which they aren’t), they would do the following three things:

Ban access to social media to anyone under the age of 16.

There is ample research about the profound harm social media can have on a child.  The benefits are so painfully obvious that it doesn’t require lengthy justification.  And the tech companies certainly possess the know-how to implement it.  Maybe not perfectly, but close enough.  It’s one of the great scandals of our time that it hasn’t happened yet.

Repeal Section 230 and hold the social media companies accountable for the content published on their platforms.

I realize this is more complicated and controversial, but these platforms are much more than open, digital forums where people exercise free speech.  The algorithms that drive user attention and engagement (not to mention addiction) reward the sensational and extreme.  Publishers, editors, journalists and producers at traditional media companies are settling suits to avoid protracted legal battles with the White House over claims of libel and bias.  Whether you agree that these suits are specious or serious, there’s no denying that the algorithms of the social media companies are a form of active editing.  We shouldn’t let the human beings who control the algorithms off the hook.

End dual class stock structures for publicly traded media platforms

Power consolidated in the hands of a few is anathema to democracy and a free enterprise, capitalist economic system. Too many media and tech companies reap the benefits of having access to public financial markets while at the same time operating under near dictatorial governance structures.  Mark Zuckerberg, the Google founders, the Murdoch family are among the most prominent owners whose separate class of stock gives them total control of their respective companies. 

For the record, I’m not suggesting that public companies should operate like democracies.  That would rob our economy of its dynamism.  Nor am I advocating taking these companies private, although that is happening with greater frequency.  It’s better in my view when media companies are traded publicly, if only because the reporting requirements provide at least some level of visibility and transparency.  A well-functioning media is too important to our society to operate inside a black box.  While I can quickly get out of over my skis on this topic, we must find a solution that maintains a healthy media ecosystem, which is vital to the health of our body politic, without entrusting control to a small group of men. 

TikTok isn’t going anywhere, of course.  Trump will cut a deal with the Chinese that divests its American operations and puts it in control of an American-owned company.  Young people concerned about the future of the app can relax; this storm will pass. 

What’s tragic for the millions of people who love social media is not that we came close to losing TikTok, but that we are wasting this opportunity to truly address the cancer metastasizing throughout our screens every day.