TL;DR Democraps opt to seize control of the Internet while they have it all centered in CA.
▶ In a draft called "Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms" penned by Sen. Mark Warner and leaked by an unknown source to Axios—the paper starts out by noting that Russians have long spread disinformation, including when "the Soviets tried to spread 'fake news' denigrating Martin Luther King" (here he fails to mention that the Americans in charge at the time did the same). But NOW IT'S DIFFERENT, because technology.
▶ Here's how Warner is suggesting we deal: Mandatory location verification, Mandatory identity verification, Bot labeling (forcing companies to somehow label bots or be penalized despite how unfeasible this is) and Define popular tech as "essential facilities."
▶ Other proposals include more disclosure requirements for online political speech, more spending to counter supposed cybersecurity threats, more funding for the Federal Trade Commission, a requirement that companies' algorithms can be audited by the feds (and this data shared with universities and others), and a requirement of "interoperability between dominant platforms."
▶ The paper also suggests making it a rule that tech platforms above a certain size must turn over internal data and processes to "independent public interest researchers" so they can identify potential "public health/addiction effects, anticompetitive behavior, radicalization," scams, "user propagated misinformation," and harassment—data that could be used to "inform actions by regulators or Congress."
