The internet has radically leveled access to information and education, collapsed geographic communication boundaries, and created a global marketplace for art, ideas, and industry. It is also — as Rep. David N. Cicilline, the Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, noted recently — tragically broken.
As Congress has begun holding antitrust hearings to investigate Big Tech and its control of the internet, it is illuminating to remember the pivotal role of philanthropy in shaping opinion and policy at a similar moment in the history of television. Now it is time for philanthropy to take that role again, both to protect people from the abuses of Big Tech and to champion a vision of the web that includes more space reserved for noncommercial use.
On May 9, 1961, the incoming chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Newton Minow, gave a now-famous speech, “Television and the Public Interest,” to the National Association of Broadcasters. The controversial point he made at the time was that commercial television’s single-minded pursuit of ratings and ad revenue was producing a “vast wasteland” of programming, which undermined the public interest and the fabric of our society:
“When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television. … What you will observe is a vast wasteland.”
Minow’s pointed critique influenced public opinion. By 1964, an appreciation had emerged that the business of advertising placed inescapable constraints on the type of educational, public-interest programming that commercial television could be expected to sustain.
A group of existing noncommercial broadcasters persuaded John Gardner, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, to approve a $500,000 grant to organize a distinguished team of academics, business leaders, and artists to study the subject and recommend national policies to strengthen and expand noncommercial television.
The commission, led by James Killian Jr., president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published the widely read report “Public Television: A Program for Action,” with 12 policy recommendations to advance and fund noncommercial television in the United States. It concluded:
“If we were to sum up our proposal with all the brevity at our command, we would say that what we recommend is freedom. … We seek freedom from the constraints, however necessary in their context, of commercial television.”
Philanthropy’s Influence
The report, with its blunt conclusions and influential authors, had a powerful impact on the policy landscape that provided the intellectual framework for the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. This legislation gave us Big Bird, Mr. Rogers, Frontline, Cosmos, and Julia Child. From a policy perspective, what it did was make the television industry a more competitive marketplace by ensuring that noncommercial broadcasters could survive as a viable alternative to the dominant commercial options.
Only philanthropy had the independence, resources, and relationships with business and government to make this possible. Putting that influence to good use shaped a generation that grew up better for it.
Civil society, and the philanthropy that funds its work, has always been America’s secret sauce. It is the place between the limits of government and the demands of the market where we are free to speak our mind, assemble our allies, and challenge the status quo.
Today, the once abundant noncommercial spirit of the web, which incubated nonprofit services like VolunteerMatch — the organization I run — Wikipedia, GuideStar, and Kiva are at risk of being displaced by the vast wasteland of commercialization that Newton Minow lamented in 1961.
We have new problems, of course — Russian hackers, automated trolls, clickbait, filter bubbles, identity theft. But the core problem is that commercialization has resulted in 70 percent of all internet traffic running through either Google or Facebook. That extraordinary dominance makes a profound impact not only on the once-prolific noncommercial spaces on the web but also on our economy.
While breaking up these monopolies may well prove to be in the public interest, that alone would not protect or expand the noncommercial, civic spaces on the web that our democracy needs and deserves. The web has indeed become our society’s information superhighway, but, like a healthy city, it needs more than just a highway — it also needs dedicated noncommercial spaces where we can be citizens, not just consumers. We need to think about the web more as a city than a highway, as a place where commercial and noncommercial spaces can coexist. A place with stores and other businesses, but also with homes, parks, sidewalks, museums, churches, schools, civic associations, and libraries.
Breaking up Big Tech may be necessary to level the commercial playing field, but that won’t save the web. To do that, we have to level the playing field for noncommercial organizations as well. We need a tech policy for civil society that appreciates — as the Carnegie Commission did — the structural limits on commercial enterprise as a means of advancing the public interest. A policy that recognizes building our digital-age town square on Facebook’s private property is a self-evidently bad idea.
An Open Marketplace of Ideas
As citizens, we need to stand up to the abuses of Big Tech, but we also need to recognize that digital platforms optimized for advertising revenue will inevitably — not as a result of abuse — marginalize every noncommercial idea that lacks a for-profit-size marketing budget. While that may be good business, it is not the free and open marketplace of ideas democracy needs to thrive.
It’s easy to agree that America can do better.
There is no reason that the future of the internet can’t have highways and parks — commercial and noncommercial spaces — with more room to speak, assemble, and create possibilities without being sold to the highest bidder on an advertising exchange.
The web was once a great noncommercial platform that needed to make more room for commerce to grow. Today the web is a great commercial platform that needs to make more room for noncommercial activities to grow up.
We can have the internet that America wants and needs. Congressional hearings are necessary, but we need to rediscover the values and virtues of civil society and the necessity for a noncommercial tech policy to see that it can thrive in the digital age.
We have a digital infrastructure optimized for advertising — what we need is digital infrastructure optimized for our democracy. Philanthropy, let’s take a page from the lessons of public broadcasting and come help save the internet.
Greg Baldwin is chief executive of VolunteerMatch.