When online message boards, chat rooms and discussion lists first appeared in the digital world, they were much different than today’s social media environment.
In the 1990s, they were viewed as digital “bulletin boards,” much like physical bulletin boards, where contributors could post words and photos for public display.
At the time, lawmakers, under pressure from free speech advocates, wrote Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects the bulletin board—the platform—from legal responsibility for what’s posted. Without the protection, web services and social networks would be targets for lawsuits and would become censors for users’ content, advocates argued.
The law needs to be changed.
Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are much more than platforms. They are publishers, much like legacy media such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines, and they should be held to the same legal standard. Social media and networks that publish comments from users should be subject to the same libel laws as other publishers.
The extremely rich and powerful digital “platforms” don’t just host the posts and deliver them to readers. They are publishers. The software behind who sees what posts and how readers see them are curated – “edited” – much the same way 0pstories and photos are edited for broadcast or print readers.
However, in legacy media, gatekeepers apply values such as impact, timeliness, prominence and proximity. Those same values are not coded into Facebook’s software that instead monetizes outrage and extremism.
Publishers are held to account for libelous reporting or comments, and social media should be too.
Regulations governing political advertising on digital platforms also should be tightened to reflect technology of the 2020s, not the 1990s.
As another election season approaches, this is especially important. The nation learned the hard way how social media political ads interfered in the 2016 election.
When a political ad appears in print or in a broadcast, it carries text that says who placed it and who is responsible for the content. The tiny words appear at the bottom of the television screen or the printed ad, but they are there and if you make an effort, you can read them.
That standard should be applied to political ads on social media.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar has introduced legislation holding social media publishers accountable for political advertising. In addition to disclosing who paid for the ad, websites and digital platforms would have to keep on file fairly extensive information on purchasers, their target audiences, the number of views generated, the dates and times of publication and the rates charged. The bill would require online platforms to make all reasonable efforts to ensure foreign individuals and entities are not purchasing political ads in order to influence the American electorate.
In the 1990s, the noble notion that bulletin board users would police themselves prevailed. Good speech would drive out bad speech by empowering millions of users to have their say. Now, social networks are rich and powerful. With sophisticated software and business practices, they have become publishers.
The Communications Decency Act should be updated to reflect today’s digital world.
