30 Comments

True on all counts except the solution. Regulating them out of existence is just typical Progressive bullshit. A better approach would be to do away with the regulatory and tax provisions they already enjoy. The big guys are always better able to exploit a highly regulated environment to their advantage.

Vinay has come a long way in the past year or so, but until he questions his own Progressive mindset he will have a long way to go.

Expand full comment

I was one of Vinay's earliest readers/commenters. It is really too bad that as near as I can tell he never reads these things. Your point is really the most important takeaway from this article. These platforms are this powerful largely BECAUSE of regulation (mostly 230) that protects them from the market. More regulation will make sure that the even less competent (hard to imagine, I know, but true) people in government will make these decisions instead -- Information Board, anyone? Doing away with all the protections will fix it in a hurry. A much better idea.

Expand full comment

I have noticed the same thing about Vinay's lack of engagement here. I find it kind of insulting. I'm sure he's busy but if he just wants to pontificate and not interact then I will likely end my paid subscription as I've done with some others. If he has anything truly worthwhile to say (as opposed to just ranting)it will find its' way to a free site.

Expand full comment

This is one of your best, if not your best, article yet! I hope these media giants do get “cut up” into tiny little pieces. They are polluting the minds and destroying the souls of many people, especially the young, who are so susceptible to the endless messaging that tells them both that they aren’t enough and that the world is doomed. That’s no future that anyone wants to live or work for.

Expand full comment

A magnum opus of the genre. The doctor has made his statement.

Expand full comment

Well, maybe. . . . but I'm not yet convinced that Vinay would not thoroughly enjoy being very wealthy and riding a hydroplane in the ocean around Maui or Kauai. Self-promotion, vainglorious bullshitting, and sitting comfortably on the cushion of self-congratulation are not restricted to just the uber-rich like Mark Z.

Expand full comment

My thoughts exactly. He acts like the benevolent monarch who trusts his ministers are telling him the truth that his dastardly deeds are dandy indeed. And when he visits a looted village or weeping child he cannot see it was his policies that let thugs destroy the people.

Expand full comment

Thank you for this. But be careful that your fellow doctors don’t manipulate your righteous anger at social media into building an even stronger censorship regime. Did you see the article in JAMA this week about how dangerous social media “misinformation” is? They are building support against social media in order to kick doctors like you (and me) off of it. It’s totalitarian!

As a pediatrician who sees first hand the mental health harm of screen time, I want smartphones for kids banned. But just stay on your guard and don’t let other doctors use our feelings to pressure Zuckerberg into being even more of a dictator!

More on the JAMA article here:

https://gaty.substack.com/p/this-month-in-the-american-medical

Expand full comment

Superb article that led me to subscribe.

Expand full comment

Google "Yellow Journalism." This is an old story. The exact same thing can be said about Television. "For the first time in history, advertising can be sent directly into one's home 24/7"

"Better limit children from watching too much TV or they will be negatively effected." Etc. "Keep your kids off social media, make them go out and play." I have a 20 year old. He is taking some time off of college to back pack Europe. He sends me pictures and thoughts of architecture/museums/churches, etc. Yesterday he told me he is going to Auschwitz. He rented and watched Schlinder's List on his phone. (He's in Krakow, Poland). He is traveling alone, but meets up with lots of folks. He is very social and is on social media. During Covid there were many young folks traveling around in Vans seeing the USA for themselves. You publish on social media. So does Malone and Rose. The far right has their sites, that propagandize their folks. Cannibals anyone?

Propaganda for the benefit of the rich was invented in the 1920s and is now practiced by government and corporations all over the world. Hitler/Goebbels admitted he was copying American corporate propagandist (probably learned about it from his buddy Henry Ford). Those advertisers on early TV? They directed the outlines of the TV shows. What we got was the 1950s conformity in the name of organized capital, until we didn't. First literature (The Beats) and then Music (The hippies) and progressive politicians (MLK; Johnson......Civil Rights) turned over the conformity of the 1950s. That was in the face of TV programming to the opposite.

You are doing your part to counter the messaging............using the order of the day..........the internet/web. Facebook is just another capitalist enterprise looking out for itself, like the newspapers and then TV media. My son's generation has already moved on from facebook. They are killing traditional broadcasting piece by piece. They know how to use the internet for their own independence/learning/connections. They aren't fixed into the old way of consuming idea's. They are a curious bunch...............they will figure it out and then live very different lives from their parents, just as I live a different life than my parents and my parents lived very different than my grandparents.

The thing about capitalism is that it is a double edge sword. It tries to replicate itself, to maintain its ability to be profitable, to enrich a small group of people. The other side is there are always folks creating disruptive enterprises ready to bring legacy businesses to its knees.

Expand full comment

Excellent news. You clearly have created a thinking child. Whether you can extrapolate to others' children is another matter. I was stunned by https://resistthemainstream.org/democrat-loses-support-after-investigation-for-alleged-school-shooting-threat. A young man proposed to run for an office with a tragic history behind him yet was running a good race. But how? He clearly had cleaned himself up a lot https://wikitia.com/wiki/Maurice_Imhoff. He has done a lot without a lot of experience but had some bad moments. I always have hopes for youth but they often are ruined by their own media. I see in my own grandchildren that they are working towards a future but largely avoid media. I do hope that extends. Still so many seem entitled and expecting to be assisted by others. Where do they get those notions?

Expand full comment

I have gotten to know many of his High School friends and several of his college friends. At least for the one's he has surrounded himself with, they are dealing with the various cultural landmines set out for them well in their own ways. This gives me hope. Media screams about the outliers constantly to give one a poor impression of the generation and of course chooses a certain obedient type that makes them happy to put out as representative. We have lost the sense that teenagers/20 somethings need to be allowed to be curious about the world and instead lecture them about how we think the world is and should be. There has never been a more surveilled generation, nor one that was punished as harshly for making mistakes. And they wonder why this latest generation has such high levels of anxiety and depression. I live a few miles from an Ivy League Campus and see the entitlement/arrogance. But, I think it doesn't extend very deeply into the generation. One thing is certain, employers are going to have to change the way they do business if they want employees from this generation to stick around.

Expand full comment

Seems youthful errors can't be erased in our modern world. Anxiety is part and parcel of finding your place in the world; stress management is also a part of that and poor stress responses lead to depression. To build resilience to stress generally you manage small ones as they arise and may need to prepare/train for the severe ones. The modern helicopter parent isn't helping build success in managing stress. I guess we need a new Dr Spock but I see we have a slew of such books should parents seek them (I doubt they do).

Not sure what "employers are going to have to change ... stick around" means. I admit I'm in a technical field and have found all the new hires eager to contribute, no real change in their demands, some overestimate of their skills in dealing with real world considerations. OTOH I retired some 20 years ago which might be a generation behind.

Expand full comment

Yes, even in technical jobs, the scales have tipped. Use to be there were more than enough qualified candidates to keep the workers silent and responsive. Now, mainly due to demographics the scales have tipped and there are more jobs than qualified candidates. When McDonalds is paying $20 hour and retail is at $17 and hosting at restaurants is $18 and they can't find enough workers, you know the job market has changed. No longer is a worker going to just be silent and obedient to the whims of employers. That means places with authoritarian management are suffering. Places with responsive management will be fine. But, for now workers move on from jobs quickly and for various reasons which creates havoc to the employers. Health care workers, teachers, industrial workers, etc. are all having a tough time dealing with the changes. (This predates Covid, but Covid brought it to a head.

Expand full comment

Well we have goon through a very long period of relative prosperity with generally full employment since 2000 with a detour in 2008. Compensation was increasing somewhat with inflation but productivity gains were ever higher. Now we are seeing a slump in productivity and a need for more workers. As you note workers is some high cost areas really need much higher wages to keep them working. But we see a trend suggesting those high cost areas may be becoming impossible to sustain; the population shifts reflect that situation. There has been a increase in unionization which usually ends up fueling a deadly wage-price spiral that the Fed is trying to avoid. Maybe we won''t have a recession but it's more likely than not given that we can't raise interest rates like we did in times past. Those increases threaten national debt service in the house of cards we have built. Marginal businesses along with their employees fold and jobs will decline. In these cycles he who has the gold rules. A bunch of hurt might be ahead.

Wise management has always been an issue. The turmoil of the pandemic has made wise anything a lot harder. When Amazon has stopped hiring and FedEx notes a sharp decline in revenue we know we are now in a decline of unknown size.

Expand full comment

Dr. Prasad,

May I respectfully suggest that your solution of "regulating them to bits" may actually make matters worse. I don't think that it is intuitively obvious that moving the decision making from "young people who lack wisdom, courage, compassion, and scars" to some yet to be determined regulatory body will improve things. Monopolists love rather than loath regulatory bodies as these are, often, easily captured and create often insurmountable hurdles for other competitors. (Case in point: I believe that you and I can agree that the FDA has been largely captured by the large pharmaceutical companies and, eight mice later, Pfizer is awarded a $5 billion contract for a booster of questionable utility.)

This doesn’t mean that I completely discount the role of regulation; it definitely has its place. However, I feel that, perhaps, your example of the 20th century industrialists might hold some type of blueprint for how to deal with the current digital revolution. Let’s take petrochemicals: the advances in materials and manufacturing in petrochemicals touch, essentially, every area of our lives. In your own practice treating patients, there is almost nothing that you touch in the course of treatment that does not, in some way, involve petrochemicals. We are better for it. At the same time, petrochemicals have caused massive environmental damage (and continue to do so).

The digital revolution has, in the same vein, created many positives: we can connect with friends and family around the world easily and we have access to information and deep thinkers across a wide range of subjects and ideological persuasions. Your own digital platform is a perfect example; I, and many others, have been exposed to your expert analysis and knowledge in regards to research methodologies that have enriched my own understanding and ability to evaluate arguments and evidence. At the same time, the digital revolution has caused massive individual and societal harms.

So the question is really one of the harm/benefit balance and how we, as a society, move the needle away from the former and towards the latter (accepting that, at least in this world, we will never get to a zero harms/all benefits situation).

Perhaps, at a high level, this would look something like this: 1) remove protections from civil action for harms (personal and societal) caused. 2) lower the barriers for entry into the market. And 3) ensure that the SEC is vigilant and aggressive in combating anti-competitive behaviors on the part of the monopolists.

With respect.

Expand full comment

Some excellent points there.

Expand full comment

Your most pointed statement yet Dr. Prasad. I have a love hate with social media. I love the news and shows I WANT on YouTube, but I hate what the algorithms dish up to me. I love the world's knowledge at my fingertips, but I hate the never ending BS and pure lies I get from so many platforms. I've become a very selective consumer and I try hard to ignore the rest. No Twitter, Instagram or TikTok for me. Facebook only on my laptop for sharing pics of my daughter with friends and relatives or saving recipes. Other than that, it's a dumpster fire of bad information that leads to bad behavior, that leads to a ugly, narcissistic, anxious society. And I agree: break it up into little competitive pieces that can suit everyone. And apply the rules of liable and malace that govern the media. That'll shut em up.

One last note. Facebook and Google capture 50% of the world's advertising dollars. Everything else fights for the other 50%. Why control is so stilted towards those two monoliths.

Expand full comment

Great article. Nailed it.

Expand full comment

Brilliantly said! In what insane world does one think that connecting people virtually is anywhere near the same as connecting them in real life. He seems to be one of those people who think technological process is only a good thing, that transhumanism is the way forward. It feels to me like this sort of technology is a parasite that has infected a significant proportion of society. And if we let it continue infecting everybody we will just get further and further away from connection to the natural world, to each other, to what it literally means to be human.

Expand full comment

Vinay is growing. That is good. He is seeing the light. But his solutions, while earnest, lack the insight into not wanting to transfer the regulation from the corporations to regulate but to the government. Imagine how that looks in , say, Russia. Competition in the market place. Not excluding those who disagree. Praising those who disagree with you but being respectful would be ideal. But, alas, maybe this ship has sailed

Expand full comment

Spot on but also strip the protection they enjoy via 230.

Expand full comment

Typos Doc. 💋💋

But I agree.

I don't think most people understand that social media is a deterrent from actual feelings/life.

Expand full comment

Spot on !!!!!

Expand full comment

Amen VP!!

Expand full comment

Thank you Vinay! We need more people to wake up to this as sadly it is destroying our interpersonal communication and social connectedness which is so important to us and our society!

Expand full comment