Social Media Censorship is Not Your Friend
How to mitigate the unchecked private power that social media companies possess.
Unprecedented times call for an unprecedented number of newsletters.
Over the past week or so, we have begun to see glimpses of the insurmountable private power that exists in America today. We saw corporations across the banking, media, hotel, and tech sectors halt the millions of dollars in political donations they give every year, as a response to the current political chaos. In social media, we saw bans of Donald Trump and other right-wingers across all major platforms executed in the name of preventing further incitement of violence. As a response to these bans, many rejoiced at the thought of a Trump-free Twitter, often overlooking the implications it would have on the future of public discourse. There were also those who came to the defense of social media companies’ bans, largely through “social media activism,” which has made opinions a social commodity and critical thinking non-existent. A widely circulated talking point emerged that because these companies are private, the first amendment does not apply to them.
The idea, which is rooted in free-market libertarian nonsense, that these companies are justified in banning whoever they want because they are private companies is very dangerous. It can only be applied to a narrow set of circumstances and has been used to justify discrimination against marginalized groups and protect private power for decades. While it may be true in the case of social media platforms, it does not mean it is right. But if we go along with this argument, it usually also follows that if people are unhappy with a private business’s treatment of them, they could simply start their own company with their own terms and conditions, as Parler, the right-wing Facebook, did. But when Parler attempted to do this, Apple and Google who own a combined 99% of the mobile Operating System market share, and Amazon Web Services who owns the plurality of the global cloud market, easily prevented them from doing so.
This is partly an issue of antitrust and also an issue of censorship and liability. Although I agree with breaking up basically any living and breathing corporation, I will focus this article on censorship and liability. Whether or not it was imperative that social media companies ban Donald Trump and other right-wingers for the sake of national security, their decision to do so should be subject to the law, not their own vaguely applied terms and conditions. It is also equally important that social media companies be held liable for the (illegal) atrocities that are committed on their platforms, from genocides to the riots we saw last week.
Social media companies are some of the most nefarious corporations that exist. Their business models are not about connecting your grandmother with her high school classmates, but about keeping you on their platforms for as long as possible so they can show you as many ads and collect as much of your data as possible. Even if it means borrowing the techniques that casinos will implement to steal as much of your money as possible or manipulating its algorithms to facilitate addicting, yet false, information when no one is looking. Social media companies are essentially incentivized to radicalize users because radicalization often means higher engagement which leads to more profits.
Around 64% of extremist communities, such as QAnon, are joined after Facebook recommends it to users. Most of last week’s violence was planned not on Parler, but on Facebook and Twitter. Despite their efforts to censor content that may violate their terms and conditions, whatever content these platforms miss will be promoted vigorously by their algorithms, which their profit-making model thrives upon. After all, the most polarizing content is what engages users the most. Make no mistake — if these social media companies were so serious about punishing everyone involved with last week’s riots, they should be shutting down their own businesses. It would probably benefit society as a whole anyway.
Treating Social Media as a Public Utility
In spite of the irreparable damage that social media companies have done to society, they have unfortunately become central to modern public discourse. But they legally are not treated as such. The rules that dictate the discourse that takes place on social media platforms is currently set by the social media companies themselves. Considering the significant role social media plays in the functioning of our democracy, such circumstances are ridiculous. For social media platforms, the market comes directly in conflict with the interests of democracy. In other words, what may be in the best interests of Twitter and Facebook’s shareholders may be bad for the health of our democracy. We have already seen how polarization, which social media companies have passively encouraged and monetarily benefitted from, has been detrimental to our country. It is also easy to foresee a scenario in which a company unjustly censors someone to preserve their own profits. In such situations, regulatory action must be taken.
Banning people that social media companies deem were involved with the Capitol Hill insanity is censorship with the right goal in mind, that could easily become a slippery slope that may even stoke greater resentment and division politically. There are already many accounts of conservatives who merely hold unorthodox views being banned, despite their little to no connection to last week’s events. Donald Trump was removed from many platforms because of the possibility that he could further incite violence — certainly a more than legitimate concern. But he was also removed from platforms such as Shopify, an e-commerce platform on which it is unclear how exactly he could incite any violence.
Yes, there are terms and conditions that users of social media must adhere to, but the enforcement of them is vague and can lead to unclear censorship decisions, such as Shopify’s decision mentioned above. Illegal content should be censored but not in the unchecked manner in which social media companies currently censor. Yes, these are private companies so they are not subject to the laws such as the first amendment. But we have to ask ourselves before mindlessly reposting some Instagram post to our stories like buffoons, whether it is right or wrong.
In the perfect libertarian world that I have seen liberals foolishly endorse across Instagram and Twitter for the past week, every restaurant in town could team up and deny service to anyone with black hair. Obviously, there are ways in which this principle can be exploited for much worse outcomes, which have already taken place historically. In the pre-Civil Rights era, restaurants could deny service to individuals just because of their skin color under the pretense that they were private businesses that could serve whoever they wanted. It was only until the Civil Rights Act was passed, that it was established that businesses could not selectively provide their services to customers based on the color of their skin. Just as policymakers rightfully stepped in then, policymakers need to step in now.
Obviously social media companies could not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, or religion in the present day. But they could use the ‘private-businesses-can-do-whatever-they-want’ philosophy to cause a lot of harm. The only thing worse than democratically-elected governments picking winners and losers is undemocratically-elected, profit-seeking boards of directors at corporations unilaterally picking winners and losers. To prevent this, social media companies should be treated by the government as public utilities that are accessible to everyone.
The U.S government has acted similarly before. With forms of infrastructure including railroads, roadways, and telecommunications, policymakers made laws that curbed the power of corporations that offered such services. It was understood how necessary these services were to public life. Decisions about railroads, roadways, and telecommunications could not be left to the jurisdiction of private corporations because what would be in their best interest would at times not be in the best interest of the public — markets don’t always align with ethics. Similarly, social media has become the infrastructure of our public discourse and the way a lot of us communicate. Irrespective of individual censorship actions that we saw over the past week, deciding who can and cannot participate in this discourse cannot be left up to Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Steve Huffman, and Jack Dorsey.
Repeal Section 230
After reading the last section, the critical thinkers out there may be asking, “If social media platforms are treated as public utilities that are forced to be accessible to everyone, aren’t you forcing them to carry harmful and extremist content?” If only the policy endorsed above was pursued, then the answer to the question would be yes. This is where repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act comes into equation.
Repealing Section 230, the law that states internet companies are not liable for the content produced on their platforms, is endorsed by both Donald Trump and liberals alike — albeit for contradictory reasons. Trump believes that repealing the law would prevent social media companies from taking down his posts and labeling his tweets as inaccurate. There are certain liberals out there (the censorship loving kind) who believe repealing the law would force social media companies to take down more content. One thing is clear. If such action was taken, social media companies would be sued into oblivion.
If Section 230 was repealed, then social media companies would be held liable for the content on their platforms. If illegal activity took place on one of these platforms, the companies themselves could get in trouble along with the person committing the illegal actions. Under these circumstances, social media companies would be incentivized to not promote radicalizing and polarizing content, as they are incentivized to promote currently.
Now, without treating social media as a public utility that is equally accessible to everyone, as advocated for in the last section, social media companies would probably censor everyone and their mom. Which is why treating social media as a public utility and repealing Section 230 are interdependent. Pursuing both policies will subject these companies to a legal apparatus that is decided publicly rather than privately. What defines illegal activity on a platform would no longer be outlined by a vague list of terms and conditions that no user ever reads. Instead, it would be outlined by a bill passed by our government that no one ever reads, that at least would undergo our democratic process.
Does my advocacy partly stem from a deep-rooted personal hatred for private power? Yes. Does it partly come from self-hatred because of my addiction to these social media platforms I decry? Also yes. But hopefully, I have illuminated that something is wrong with the way things have happened over the past week. Even if you hate Trump, you should always be doubtful when any corporation ever takes your side. Especially when it is led by someone who looks like this.
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