Download This PaperCheap Friendship
13 Pages Posted: 1 Oct 2021
Date Written: September 23, 2021
Abstract
This Essay argues that the Internet law and policy community has misdiagnosed the causes of political polarization. Rather, more precisely, it has missed a major contributing cause. The dominant theories focus on Big Tech (e.g., the filter bubbles that curate Internet content with self-interested goals at the expense of democratic functioning) and on faulty cognition (e.g., human tendencies to favor sensationalism and tribal dogmatism). Cheap speech, according to these dominant theories, provides the fuel and fodder.
We offer an explanation that is at once more banal and more resistant to policy interventions: cheap friendship.
Keywords: Internet, the web, internet law and policy, Big Tech, internet content, faulty cognition, cheap speech, cheap friendship, social media, social networks, political polarization
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Jane R. Yakowitz Bambauer (Contact Author)
University of Florida Levin College of Law ( email )
P.O. Box 117625
Gainesville, FL 32611-7625
United States
Simone M. Sepe
University of Toronto - Faculty of Law ( email )
78 and 84 Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario M5S 2C5
Canada
University of Toronto - Rotman School of Management ( email )
105 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E6 M5S1S4
Canada
European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )
c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium