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Social Media and the Road to January 6th
Wednesday’s insurrection should have been a surprise to exactly no one. Division and outright rage have been reaching a boiling point for several years now, and we’ve watched Trump fervently stir the pot since Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election. Much of the provocation from the President, and the rallying of his insurgents, took place before our very eyes on social media. Which begs the increasingly urgent question — what role and responsibility does social media have in today’s world?
Currently the FTC and 46 US States, the District of Columbia and Guam are suing Facebook for anticompetitive practices, with a similar suit recently announced against Google. These lawsuits specifically address the issue of stomping out competition, and don’t even touch on privacy, data collection, fake news, election interference, or Section 230, so it may seem that these particular suits are Wall Street’s concern and not at issue in this conversation. While they certainly are of concern to Wall Street (US tech stocks are now worth more than the entire European stock market), the implications of what happens on Wall Street are far reaching.
