Linda Stamart
“The rise of social media has unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, institutional beliefs, and shared narratives that has held large and diverse secular democracies together.— Jonathan Haidt AtlanticMay 2022.
So how can we imagine social media platforms acting as digital equivalents of public squares?
Platforms provide a space for people to achieve many things that can be positive, but as their disruptive influence grows, social media platforms fall short as digital public squares.
Reform and regulation are desperately needed. And they could come under pressure from the U.S. Supreme Court, which seems poised to reconsider the rules governing online speech, especially those limiting social media liability.
Elon Musk is drawing attention to that need. Twitter’s acquisition of a major player implodes, content his moderators are fired, abandoned, or their accounts suspended, extremists and promoters of misinformation and conspiracy theories testing Twitter’s limits. It’s because
But the repercussions of Musk’s day-to-day focus, which is wreaking havoc beyond Twitter, are creating opportunities for serious consideration of social media platforms. Finally!
For example, the YouTube subculture has radicalized far-right extremists around the world with its racist, anti-gay, and anti-Semitic messages. With millions of followers pushing on his Twitter and other sites, the high-profile extremist revels in anti-gay malice and vile anti-Semitic tropes.
And then there’s Gab, an extremist, far-right social media platform that specializes in COVID misinformation while trafficking in white supremacy and various conspiracy theories without even trying to monitor it. .
No social media mogul list would be complete without Facebook, Instagram, and Google. Sites like Google’s Play Store give space to voices that spread hate and disinformation, and fuel political discord.
Fake tweets by impersonation and “sharing” of these messages can also damage a company’s brand (e.g. Eli Lilly). No wonder advertisers, including pharmaceutical companies who previously funded Twitter, are fleeing the platform altogether.
Villains who have virtually free reins on these platforms, including racists and your everyday hatemongers, post and forward their bile. One attack reveals a concentration of “dark world ideologies” in spaces populated by people who tend to commit acts of violence, trolling and seducing others.
Well-known social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and others have attracted attention by publishing research reports and views on the dangers of social media. (Valuable collaborative reviews continue to provide access to additional research and multiple critiques.)
In short, social media platforms are associated with amplifying political polarization, fueling populism (particularly right-wing populism), and spreading misinformation and acts related to violence.
The impact of social media use on the mental health of users, especially adolescents and young adults, is striking. Researchers, for example, were able to establish a significant link between Facebook presence and worsening mental health among college students.
As more and more people believe that the world is flooded with fake news, we are eroding trust, an essential ingredient for a successful democracy. And trust in the institutions of the nation, as other key ingredients of our nation’s well-being are unraveled. Support for its pluralist values threatened by anti-immigrant vitriol and conspiracies. Modifications of history that privilege some citizens and harm others. And the waning belief in the interests of diversity for the social and economic interests of the nation – America itself is besieged by enemies within.
The struggle to attract and retain readers is exacerbated as print newspapers lose their readership and news becomes increasingly fragmented in the digital age.
Given the scope and quality of the research we currently have on social media platforms — the distortion of the truth that anonymous voices post, forward, tweet, and retweet to maximize harm — and the extent to which platforms are forced to commit Acknowledge the fact that you are hardly constrained. We cannot afford to neglect action to protect the public interest.
What should I do? If the challenges we face are national and global, it may seem that regulating state-by-state, country-by-country makes little sense, but regulation within smaller units , can have wide-ranging effects, similar to, say, the emissions requirements for automobiles in California. Higher than state or federal standards, leading automakers to produce vehicles that meet the higher standards.
The proposal, published in Regulatory Review, to combine government regulation with pressure on firms to self-regulate is a sound and prudent approach involving both incentives and liabilities.
Granting enforcement powers to each social media company’s “terms of use” Enforce government compliance through lawsuits in the FCC, FTC, and SEC, including fines against companies as well as CEOs, other executives, and board members.
- Revised Section 230 Communications Decency Act of 1996 Ties to these viral posts by holding online platforms liable for profits derived from knowingly disseminating harmful content and exposing companies to civil lawsuits or certain FCC, FTC, SEC, or Department of Justice actions. compel you to identify the benefits you get from advertised advertising. A fine that wealthy corporations cannot easily absorb.
- Regulations to encourage self-regulationFear of intrusive government regulation may prompt companies to regulate their own operations. For example, the threat of government intervention has prompted coalitions of film and video game companies to establish content standards and codes of conduct.
Given the scope, content, and funding of public interest technology — technology used to serve the public interest — it can prove important. The Ford Foundation, along with its partners, are heavily invested in this work. It is intended to have an impact on society that matches or exceeds the Public Interest Act. Public interest technologies may mitigate the damage generated by social media platforms and create viable alternatives.
In conclusion, we need a virtual platform that functions like a physical public square. By bringing together citizens to identify social issues and influence political behavior on social media, media platforms can become an important part of democracy.
Furthermore, with the help of social media, society will benefit from the digital public space by leveraging technology to serve constructive ends for institutions, institutions, organizations, governments, and individuals. That may reveal what society and platforms need: user trust in digital content.
Linda Stamato is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
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