(Gerard Julian/Getty Images)
The calls for increased government regulation of social media companies have grown louder over the last year, and in the wake of several scandals involving the largest tech companies, many are seeing the size of these companies as the fundamental problem and are calling for the government to break them up.
Will Rinehart, Director of Innovation and Policy at the American Action Forum discussed the issue of government intervention in tech companies in his article, “Breaking Up Tech Companies Means Breaking Up Teams And The Underlying Technology.” According to Rinehart, what many advocates for regulation of these companies fail to think through is precisely how breaking up these companies would work, and what the impact would be on not only the companies, but the broader marketplace.
WIBC host Tony Katz invited Rinehart to expand his thoughts on government intervention in tech companies and social media platforms during an exclusive interview Wednesday:
Rinehart:
“In terms of the overall impact of regulation on the consumer, that’s a bit of an unknown, Tony. I’m sure it will make some lawyers wealthy and it will certainly create a number of headaches for the companies and the regulators themselves, but in terms of actual benefit to the consumer, that’s unclear to me at this point.
California has it’s own set of regulations, so we can look to that as an example. But even there, as far as benefit to the consumer, I can’t point to anything specific. So it doesn’t appear that regulation will bring a positive change in terms of the personal experience that the consumer would have, Tony.”
Click the link below to hear Tony’s full interview with Will Rinehart:
