Many attempts to govern the internet start by naming a single primary risk factor. Here, @AdrienneLaF points to "megascale." I respect this effort, but can human communication really be more simple than food, drugs, climate, & other complex systems? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/12/facebook-doomsday-machine/617384/

The article makes many essential points:
- tech firms have unprecedented levels of global power
- scale-at-any cost businesses have created many difficult-to-manage problems
- too many advocates, researchers, and policymakers are just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic

Very few problems go away if we don't have megascale platforms. They're just *someone else's problem*

Content moderation? Without big platforms, we would need *more* moderators.

Hate groups? Perhaps things would be different if we dismantled search, phones, emails, and texts?

Concerns about WhatsApp also reveal the weaknesses of pointing to scale as the central problem of digital governance. With only 256 people per group- it's the anti-megascale system. And if we did away with WhatsApp, people would use IRC, email lists, & other non-profit tools

LaFrance's very thoughtful, path-breaking article is the internet equivalent of arguments over factory farming. When governing food supplies, some people identify industrialized farming as *the* problem underlying problems of hunger, ecology, and public health.

The beauty of naming "original sins" in a complex system is that it inspires solutions. If we see factory food as the problem, small-scale, local production becomes a stand-in for safer, cheaper, more sustainable

But with food *and* the internet, small doesn't always mean safer

In the 1800s, people named factories as a cause of undrinkable water. They were right. But other factors included sewage systems, agriculture, & transportation networks.

It takes a *lot* of work to get clean water by solving a hundred problems. But sometimes it's the only way.

Where LaFrance & I agree is that most of us are thinking too small about the challenge.

Like food/drugs/environment, I think it's going to take generations, a new profession, and new institutions. To start, we need to recognize that complexity. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/06/the-tragedy-of-the-digital-commons/395129/

Finally, I should acknowledge that @AdrienneLaF was the editor for my article on the case for complexity. Based on our many conversations, I know that her megascale article, which I respect, has come from a very experienced and thoughtful place.