I was reading an Ars Technica article a few weeks ago about dis/misinformation and COVID-19, and in the comments thread someone had expressed their thoughts which were something along the lines of “Whatever countries or cultures manage to survive the chaos we’re living through right now, they’re assuredly going to have less of a/a hugely diminished respect for freedom of speech.” I can’t find the comment (searching for a specific comment with ‘free speech’ or ‘freedom of speech’ on a well-trafficked forum like that is tough), but it struck a chord with what I’ve been thinking about for a while.
My thought is this: America isn’t well-equipped to survive this series of upheavals the world is going through right now. Whatever version of America that survives and comes to its senses in the aftermath? That version is likely going to treat speech, the Internet, Social Media, and intermediary liability much differently.
I could see a major overhaul in U.S. advertising laws and regulations that prevent garbage conspiracy-peddlers like The Epoch Times from ever advertising with their conspiracy bullshit, like they’re doing with this full-on YouTube ad blitz that’s been going on for months. Reforms and revisions to Section 230 of the CDA are likely to happen that place greater liability on platforms to ensure that they don’t give free passes to stochastic terrorism and blatant conspiracy theory bullshit, or act too slowly on banning accounts that spread them.
And I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but the problems with the Internet and social media as they are now having fragmented reality aren’t unique to America; in the future, I can see a re-galvanized UK treating things like the 5G conspiracy theories that are getting engineers threatened and even stabbed and the rampant transphobia in British culture that sow paranoia, discrimination, and violence being treated with greater levels of scrutiny.
Before I made a BBS account, I frequently lurked the comment threads for articles. One discussion that stood out to me was this one regarding the article about Biden wanting Facebook and Zuckerberg to be held liable for the manner in which it’s conducted its advertising business. The discussion there about how Facebook’s business model is to profit off of the fragmentation of our shared reality via its advertising schemes, and whether or not it should be held liable, the potential reforms that could be made and so forth was a rather engaging read.
I can see Facebook and other platforms being held liable for more than just advertising. Back to The NYT Epoch Times article:
The Epoch Times can no longer advertise on Facebook, but it can still post there. On Monday, it published a story containing unproven suggestions of voter fraud ahead of the Iowa caucuses. The story was later debunked by fact checkers, but it received tens of thousands of likes, shares and comments.
Despite having been debunked, the story was still left up for people to engage with and see. I haven’t used Facebook at all, so correct me if I’m wrong on this, but does Facebook serve ads up against debunked articles? Because Facebook leveraging engagement where targeted ads are served up against the article, all those comments and sharing and turning a profit off of it, would be particularly insidious and definitely something for which I’d like to see them held accountable.
So yeah, in conclusion, I can see governments and societies taking a less charitable view of freedom of speech. Intermediary liability and major platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are going to be taken to task. And lastly, people will be less willing to let people disseminate false information on the Internet without consequence; the notion that societies can just route around or out-debate mass-disseminated lies, arrive at the truth, and still function effectively, will be thoroughly debunked.
