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When digital giants market ideas like Starbucks sells frappuccino

How is Donald Trump like a Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino? If you quickly answered, “Artificial coloring,” you’re only partly right. For the purpose of our discussion here, what they have in common is a concept in economics, which we will get around to explaining in just a moment.

First, though, a bit of beverage retailing history: Starbucks introduced Unicorn Frappuccino in 2017 with a web photo of a bright pink froth with bits of green and yellow and blue mixed in, and a warning: Get your Unicorn Frappuccino now, Starbucks said, because it will be available only for a few days.

That was an application of what’s called the scarcity principle of persuasion. Starbucks uses it, and so do online flight reservation services and hotel discount apps. The scarcity principle was first laid out by a psychologist named Robert Cialdini in 1984; its notion is that just the fear of scarcity makes us more eager to get something.

Now, you may think that the last commodity in short supply in the United States of America these days is Trumpism, but there’s one place where demand for Trump exceeds its supply: on social media platforms. Remember, he was banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in January, 2021, after he provoked the Capitol insurrection. That ban leaves a lot of missed eyeballs. Facebook is used by 37 percent of the human race. YouTube users watch a billion hours of video every day. Twitter has 436 million monthly active users. Trump’s Truth Social platform has maybe two million monthly users. So to reach people the way he used to, Trump needs to get reinstated on the big social media platforms.

And that seems likely. Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, says he favors free-wheeling debate, and he likes Trump. And Nick Clegg, the former British politician who’s now president for Global Affairs at Meta, the parent of Facebook, has promised a review of the Trump suspension, because, as Clegg put it, “you shouldn’t throw your weight around.”

That’s where the scarcity principle enters the picture. The moment that Trump reappears on the big platforms, the pent-up demand for his posts will be unleashed. People will watch Trump’s posts like rubberneckers at a roadside crash. His deluded backers will eagerly amplify whatever he offers, and everybody will want to see how far he can push his reliably false and often hateful messages.

But as the January 6th insurrection taught us, that’s dangerous. In fact, we need social media sites to do exactly what Clegg says he worries about doing — that business of throwing your weight around. The big social media sites have argued for years that they’re just technology companies, not publishers, and so they shouldn’t be expected to exercise much discretion over their content, except in the most extreme circumstances.

That is an argument for inaction in the face of danger. We can’t let it stand.

Thoughtful publishers have always considered it their responsibility to make judgments about content — about what’s responsible to publish, about fairness and transparency. The smallest weekly newspaper owner, the big hedge funds that are gutting the newsrooms they’ve taken over around the country — alike, they take seriously the fact that they are responsible for what they publish. If Meta’s argument is that, essentially, it’s too big to take responsibility for its influence, then we might conclude that society would be better off if we bust up the bumbling big boys.

No wonder the tech giants are working behind the scenes to stop Washington from forcing them to get more serious about content moderation. They’re worried that America might follow the lead of Europe, where the European Union’s Digital Services Act is beginning to take effect. It’s going to sharply curtail disinformation in Europe – by requiring online platforms to be more open about the algorithms that guide what’s published … by giving users some clout when they aren’t satisfied with content moderation ... and, importantly, by requiring the platforms to weigh the risks posed by the content they circulate — with violations subject to potentially huge fines.

Naturally, the industry doesn’t want those rules to take root in this country. And there are legitimate questions about whether an approach like Europe’s would be constitutional in America. But this much is surely clear: Those companies that have outsized influence in the digital realm have a responsibility to serve up not just something frothy and colorful, like that frappuccino, and not something that puts us at risk of a dangerous sickness, like the disabling of democracy that can result from the epidemic of disinformation.

No, the giant digital companies need to affirm their intention to be responsible publishers — because if they don’t, it’s increasingly clear that the marketplace or the government will force them to do it.

Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack."

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack."
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