Hawley says Silicon Valley offers little good while monetizing social media addictions

St Louis Dispatch

Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for the e-commerce trade association NetChoice, was in the Hoover audience. In a question, he tried to reinforce Hawley’s acknowledgement that “we should be doing this through market reinforcement” rather than government intervention. Szabo, whose organization represents a veritable alphabet of big tech companies, said that Hawley “is too dismissive of the widespread benefits of social media.

“Never before in the history of the world have so many people had access to so much information,”

he said.

“No longer is our access to news about (the) world dictated by a small number of news outlets.

“Social media is not destroying democracy, as Sen. Hawley suggests,”

Szabo added.

“Rather, social media connects us to our government like never before.”

Szabo responded,

“Social media, like any tool, can be used for good and ill.”

“Knee-jerk reactions to perceived problems could harm small businesses and our ability to connect with friends and family,”

the NetChoice executive said.