YANG SAYS TECH BREAKUP WON’T HELP

Entrepreneur and Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang warned Tuesday that breaking up big tech companies, an idea that has drawn support from fellow 2020 contenders, wouldn’t address the fundamental problems of social media.

Yang said during an interview with HillTV’s “Rising” that dismantling tech giants like Facebook, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp, wouldn’t fix the negative effect they’re having on teenagers and young people. He added that breaking up major tech firms is a “20th century solution to 21st century problems.”

“Competition would not address some of the fundamental problems like if you look at Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp,” he said.

Yang acknowledged that while it would make sense for tech giants to divest certain parts of their businesses, he believes that “one of the fundamental problems is that our social media apps are causing higher levels of depression, anxiety among teenagers and breaking up the apps into separate companies does nothing to change that.”

Yang has proposed creating what he calls an “attention economy” department that would focus specifically on how to design and use social media apps more responsibly. This would include age restrictions and guidelines on chat and gaming apps.

“There needs to be some kind of counter weight that looks out for our kids,” he said, referring to the plan.