Silicon Valley's attempts to self-police are anti-democratic. They're also not new.

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[Commentary] “Operation Golden Gate” was the name of a 1948 plan among the followers of a political movement known as Technocracy Inc. to converge on the San Francisco Bay area. These self-described Technocrats gathered from around the country to educate the public in their central belief: that politicians lacked the ability to effectively manage the complexities of the modern world and that the public should delegate decision-making instead to a small group of technological experts.

From the vantage point of Silicon Valley, the health of the public sphere is in question not because of any fault in the systems it has engineered but because users cannot be trusted with the tools they’ve been given. Not only is this a Technocratic idea, it’s a fundamentally anti-democratic one.

I for one welcome new features that allow me to measure the sad fickleness of my attention. But these gimmicks will do nothing to address the underlying issue: that our habits and proclivities have been monetized in ways that have begun to affect the shape of public discourse. As calls for digital privacy regulations continue to grow, we should remain suspicious of attempts by tech companies to shift blame onto addicted users for irresponsibly overindulging in their “neutral” tools. At the same time, technological fixes such as tweaking the News Feed algorithm cannot replace regulation and critical conversations about technology and culture. We can do better than simply counting on the expertise of Technocrats and the abstinence of users.

[Grant Wythoff is a visiting fellow with the Center for Humanities and Information at Pennsylvania State University.]


Silicon Valley's attempts to self-police are anti-democratic. They're also not new.