An “eraser button”? Focused ideas could help bridle Big Tech

WASHINGTON: Break up Big Tech? How about shrinking the tech companies’ shield against liability in cases where the content they push to users causes harm? Or creating a new regulator to strictly oversee the industry?

Those ideas have captured official attention in the U.S., Europe, U.K. and Australia as controversy has enveloped Facebook – which on Thursday renamed itself Meta – Google, Amazon and other giants. Revelations of deep-seated problems surfaced by former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, buttressed by a trove of internal company documents, have lent momentum to legislative and regulatory efforts.