My letter to the editor — published in the Wall Street Journal
Below is the text of my letter originally published on March 19, 2019 in the Wall Street Journal:
Robert Thomson calls for government to tame the “Wild West” of America’s tech industry, to bring it out of “beta” (“Taming the Digital Wild West,” March 13). He seeks a “cyber Solomon,” a philosopher king, to ensure tech reaches its true potential — presumably by threatening to split the tech baby. He claims tech today “gives no true sense of perspective.”
Yet he has firmly fixed his own perspective on the past. Mr. Thomson decries the loss of professional content creators, ignoring the cause. Today, American tech empowers any of us to create, share and persuade on a scale previously available only to powerful cultural middlemen like himself. Mr. Thomson wants to ride out this gale of competitive creativity in a government-created “safe harbor.” But consumers, creators and citizens would benefit more if he instead harnessed these winds to sail into new waters.
Mr. Thomson correctly identifies the challenge of assessing truth when anyone, anywhere, can post anything. But solutions lie in the future, on the next frontier, in the next “beta” — not in a government-mandated return to the past. Mr. Thomson ought to shift his and his company’s perspectives to the future. After all, Solomon wisely let the baby grow.
Neil Chilson
Charles Koch Institute
Arlington, Va.
