Taxing Digital Advertising

Across the political spectrum, people are realizing that the digital advertising model pioneered by Google and Facebook poses a growing threat to democracy. These firms know more about citizens of the world's democracies than the Stasi knew about East Germans. They can exploit what they know without relying on the coercive power of a police state. They can adjust what people see and exercise control by a thousand nudges.

In the United States, Google receives 18% of all spending on political advertising; Facebook controls another 59%. In a public conversation in the summer of 2019, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and majority owner of Facebook, claimed that Facebook is the only candidate for the role of global arbiter for political discourse. It is the only organization that can work "in partnership with intelligence agencies and election commissions around the world" on "election integrity" because it has built "unprecedented content systems" that are "more sophisticated than what a lot of governments have."

I first learned about Facebook's penetration into political dynamics outside the US at a dinner in Chile. During the discussion, senior members from one of its major political parties attributed their recent electoral success to their use of Facebook's targeted political ads. I asked if they were concerned that a foreign corporation controlled by a single person could have so much influence on their elections. My question did not even seem to register. They seemed to think of Facebook as an arms dealer to which they had preferential access. They were comfortable because they were far ahead of the opposition in understanding how to use the new political tools that Facebook had developed. They did not seem to appreciate that Facebook does not sell these weapons; it is a digital mercenary that is always the one with its finger on the trigger. Disclosures About Potential Conflicts

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