The White House
Washington, DC
PO Box 130
West Shokan, NY 12494
July 11, 2019
Dear Mr. President:
Recent
disclosures concerning Facebook and Google’s use of monopoly power to influence
social networking and Web-search results require
investigation and reform. Property
rights and economic freedom need to be balanced with protection from fraud. America has yet to grapple with both the fruit of the
Franklin D. Roosevelt administration’s illegal use of political litmus tests in
the granting of airwaves monopolies to the TV networks and subsequent,
parallel political monopolization of the cable industry.
With
respect to social networking and Web-search technologies, the cloaked use of
left-oriented censorship parallels that of the long-term health threats from tobacco. People should have freedom to choose search
engines even if they are biased, and suppliers should be free to compete and
innovate as they choose. However, to
protect the public from fraud, please consider asking Congress to require that social
networking and Web-search suppliers disclose that biases are built into their algorithms
and what the biases are at the head of each search result,
much as cigarette companies are required to disclose health threats on each pack
of cigarettes.
With
respect to the airwaves and cable networks, which are federal- and state-granted monopolies,
respect for property rights is consistent with a more interventionist response. The cable industry should be asked to develop
its own solution to current Democratic Party monopolization. The proportion
of stations that openly support the Democrats is in excess of the cutoff for
monopoly, often thought to be 80 percent of a market. The cable-and-television networks should be
asked to develop a plan to voluntarily balance partisan orientation,
including to minor parties. If the media
firms are unable to come to an industry-wide solution, then a more
interventionist approach to state-based cable monopolies will be appropriate.
Sincerely
Mitchell Langbert
Cc: Majority members of the
Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet
- John
Thune, South Dakota, Chairman
- Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee
- Roy Blunt, Missouri
- Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia
- Ted Cruz, Texas
- Deb Fisher, Nebraska
- Cory Gardner, Colorado
- Ron Johnson, Wisconsin
- Jerry Moran, Kansas
- Mike Lee, Utah
- Rick Scott, Florida
- Dan Sullivan, Alaska
- Todd Young, Indiana
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