Henry Farrell: belief

Transcript context

…But I’m interviewing Henry Farrell, the person. Right? Okay, let me back up and say two things. First of all, if I’m to think about this as a political scientist under my political science hat, what I would say is that this is something which is inevitable. And this is something which we’re going to see more and more of, which is that the internet for a long period — there was a kind of an equilibrium in which the United States managed to persuade everybody that self-regulation and platforms looking after their own business was more or less okay for most purposes. That equilibrium has broken down. It has broken down in the US. It has broken down in Europe, and it has broken down in authoritarian societies in particular. So I think we’re going to see more and more efforts to try and use the platform companies effectively as a means of extending reach into other jurisdictions and imposing universal-type restrictions on what they can or cannot do. If I want to think about this as an individual, what I would say is that I’m not at all happy with what the European Union is doing in specific here, but I do think that there needs to be much greater regulation of platform companies. And in the absence of the United States, I think that the European Union is the most plausible actor which has got the regulatory clout and the willingness to do so in a manner which is at least somewhat compatible with broad liberal norms. So my basic attitude will be to push back against a specific decision but to say that if the choice is between the United States not regulating or perhaps regulating — perhaps that will be different under a possible Warren administration — and authoritarian states, that I would much prefer to have a robust European Union than any of the other actors that I can think of that have the clout and the ability to try and bring the platform companies to heel. The second big story from today is from the world of basketball. As you probably know, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweets in favor of the Hong Kong protests. It seems both the Rockets and the NBA forced him to delete the tweet and basically retract the statement. Who is in the wrong here? Daryl Morey, the Rockets, the NBA, China, everyone? What do you think?…

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