Sen Mark Warner (D-VA) Is Coming for Tech's Too-Powerful

A Q&A with Sen Mark Warner (D-VA). 

"I still believe myself to be a very tech-friendly policy maker," Sen Warner said, "But I was rubbed the wrong way by the arrogance of the technology companies and the presumption that they knew what was best for everyone. There was this whole idea: You policy guys just shouldn’t worry. We’re a lot smarter. We’ll take care of things. And particularly as we got into the social-media era, there was an infatuation with some of these companies in [Silicon] Valley in the Obama administration. But even in the Obama years, I was starting to see some of what I thought was the dark underbelly."

Later, Sen Warner said, "The social-media companies fight any changes to Section 230 [of the Communications Decency Act] as if it will provoke the complete destruction of the public square. Obviously, that is not the case. Because there have been changes. There have been changes around child pornography. And you can’t print how to make a bomb. Most recently, we’ve imposed restrictions around sex trafficking. Some of my colleagues have been very active in this space. I don’t want to steal their ideas. But perhaps there is a decency doctrine that might be industry-administered. Or is there some kind of mechanism we could impose that would say, if you don’t have some kind of self-cleanup, there will be legislative changes?