Social Media Regulation

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 Online Media Regulation: (For and Against)

The problem stems from one significant difference between social media and our previous case studies. Social media companies are global organisations. So while it is relatively easy to regulate adverts and news withing the borders of a country, global regulation is highly problematic. The other essential issue which prevents social media companies from being regulated is the question: are they a publisher or a platform?

Media regulation is enforced by law, rules or procedures and varies across the world. They exist to protect freedom of expression and media freedom and regulate media markets, ownership, technical standards and protect public interests, e.g. media pluralism and diversity.

For media regulation:

  • Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996 says no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider
  • This section has played a very active role in fostering the growth of social media, search engines, consumer reviews because of this sort of 'laissez-faire' attitude toward user content
  • An online classified averts site that was found by a Senate investigation to have knowingly run ads for children who have been trafficked for sex, but the law apparently couldn't touch this because of section 230
  • 'What I would rather see is a targeted exception that actually prevents sex trafficking and still preserves the enormous free speech and innovation that section 230 promotes and I think that's possible'
  • But what has been the impact of this? Fake news? Hate speech? Racism? A divided society and weakened dempcracies?
  • An opinion from Jennifer Cobbe in The Guardian, in which she explains how Facebook and other players in the 'surveillance economy' have challenged the democracy we take for granted. It suggests: "We need to confront their surveillance business models, their increasingly central position in digital society, and the power they now hold as a result. As a result, some platforms' algorithms systemically recommend disinformation, conspiracy theories, white supremacism, and neo-Nazism. At a minimum, behavioural advertising should be banned; other, less damaging forms of advertising are available. The algorithms platforms use to recommend should be heavily regulated."

Against media regulation:
  • As with news regulation, this is not a cut and dried argument. After all, should we be allowing our governments to decide what 'truth' should be available to us online.
  • Russian meddling and fake news:
  • A Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency produced thousands of unpaid posts using fake accounts and Facebook groups that targeted hot button issues like race and immigration. "Their strategy was to take a crack in our society and turn it into a chasm"
  • While Democrats seemed concerned that tech companies don't do enough to police their content on their platforms, Republicans and Conservatives have expressed concern that they do too much to cultivate their users' news feeds
  • John Milton suggests "we should not muzzles what we believe to be false or fake news, but allow argument and debate to flourish and in that process truth and greater understanding will come out."

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