Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) criticized technology companies as “conflict entrepreneurs” that have turned Americans against each other, suggesting the public needs to reclaim its agency.
“I can’t emphasize enough the damage that social media and the internet is doing to all of us, those dopamine hits. These companies, trillion dollar market caps, the most powerful companies in the history of the world have figured out to how to hack our brains, get us addicted to outrage, which is the same type of dopamine, the same chemical that you get from taking fentanyl, get us addicted to outrage, and get us to hate each other,” Cox said in an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”
Cox, a moderate Republican, said he has seen the phenomenon play out “in real time since the tragic death of Charlie Kirk” and in “every corner of our society.”
“The conflict entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us,” he continued. “And we are losing our agency. And we have to take that back. We have to turn it off. We have to get back to community, caring about our neighbors, the things that make Americans great, serving each other, bettering ourselves, exercising, sleeping, all of those things that this takes away from us.”
Cox has been praised for his response to the assassination of the right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot while speaking at a college event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.
In an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Cox said that although Kirk said “some very inflammatory things,” he “also said some other things about forgiveness.”
“He said some amazing things about when things get dark, putting down our phones, reading scripture, going to church, talking to our neighbors. He said that we have to engage, and that’s what I appreciate most about Charlie Kirk,” Cox said.
