Thread by @neil_chilson

Attending the “Social Media and the First Amendment” discussion hosted by the Knight First Amendment Institute and @FreeSpeechGU.

Thus far, lots of negativity about social media. Scams, misinformation, Donald Trump. Don’t any of these people use social media to, you know, keep in touch with friends and family?

“Marketplace of ideas” basically being used as a pejorative. Not sure all these panelists believe in *regular* marketplaces. (@sarahjeong said eBay and Amazon were basically scam sites, which doesn’t match my experience.)

I think @karaswisher thinks she’s recording her podcast right not. Directly asking other panelists questions, prompting them, etc.

Now @sarahjeong makes the point that small platforms likely have the same content problems but don’t have the resources to investigate them.... and then suggests it may be unethical for Reddit to rely on volunteer moderators. Why bust on volunteers? How about Wikipedia?

Katie Fallow (fellow FTC alumn, hi!) notes that many of the “solutions” people are seeking for platforms seem to conflict with free speech.

Speaking of (a lack of) diversity of ideas, @karaswisher says she interviews “a lot” of people on antitrust, but given her litany of mistaken facts about the so-called lack of new search engines, social networks, and online marketplaces, she could stand to interview a few more.

Now @karaswisher says removing Section 230 is “an insane idea.” Lights up Sen. @HawleyMO, says even if he calls his 230 proposal an amendment, it’s actually “a complete reversal” and “he’s smart enough to know what he’s doing.”

Lori Moylan from Facebook is discussing their new “Supreme Court” to review content moderation appeals. @sarahjeong says it’s a step in the right direction and she’s “very excited to see how Facebook fucks it up.” 🤨

Section 230 expert @jkosseff notes that the erosion of 230 started with sex trafficking, and corporate opponents of big tech took the chance to get some revenge.

Pointed rant by @sarahjeong responding to Republican accusations of online bias, saying “we don’t do affirmative action for ideas.” Panel agrees; @karaswisher said earlier she “does nothing but write about how social media is ruining the world” & she said FB isn’t guilty of this.

In Q&A now: @karaswisher says that one argument is that breaking up companies would create shareholder value. I’m not sure antitrust enforcers are as well-situated as, say, shareholders, to evaluating what is best for shareholder value.

In response to a question about the “newsworthy” exception (as applied to Trump), @sarahjeong says this isn’t really a tech problem - it’s a democracy problem. “The computers did not do this to us.”

Interesting Q from a Georgetown student: is there something technical about terrorist content that helps it be taken down quickly; can it be applied other places? Lori explains a cross-industry group shares info on this, makes it very effective. Hate speech is hard; context etc.

Both reporters on the panel state that other governments that don’t care as much about the First Amendment (or other civil liberties) are influencing how social media operates for US users.

I think @karaswisher is arguing that social media caused the Salem witch trials. Or something.

Bad advice time: @karaswisher says any time she meets with tech engineers, she tells them to imagine their product is a Black Mirror episode & then don’t build it. “Imagine the worst thing that could happen.”

Not exactly a formula for innovation, Kara.

Interesting question about @ftc guidance on sponsored content. Panelists all say FTC needs more authority. But on deceptive ads, the FTC has quite a lot of authority.

She contains multitudes, folks! @karaswisher just said “these technologies are really quite wonderful.” Asks what we can do going forward to incentivize

Final question: is regulation of social media inevitable?

Panel is unanimous: “yes” (@sarahjeong adds, “and it will be bad.”)