Anti-social Media
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On April 29, 2020, WXYZ reported the following:
I think that it is time for the federal government to seriously investigate social media platforms, particularly Facebook and Twitter and perhaps Instagram. Their censoring of conservative voices is disconcerting. At minimum, I believe that the indemnification against legal action they receive as being “open platforms” be revoked and that they should then be treated as “editors of news” like the Main Street Media.
The US Constitution protects political speech in the “public square”. The number of users of social media and the number of interactions taking place makes them today’s de facto “public square”. There is an argument that these social media platforms are private industries and therefore not subject to restrictions of speech that are protected in the First Amendment. I believe that these entities must be reclassified under a new standard as a private entity with a public responsibility to adhere to the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees. The other option is to reclassify them as “editors” (like the newspapers for example) instead of “open platforms”. This would allow them to be sued for content (or deliberate omission) which they are permitting. In a 2013 opinion, Justice Kennedy recognized that, “While in the past there may have been difficulty in identifying the most important places (in a spatial sense) for the exchange of views, today the answer is clear. It is cyberspace—the ‘vast democratic forums of the Internet’ in general, and social media in particular.” In a 2017 unanimous decision by the SCOTUS, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’”
In my opinion, the titans of social media have no respect for the protection of free speech unless it is the speech of the left that is being protected. This year is particularly problematic being a presidential election year. The architects of social media policy will go to any extremes to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump. Something must be done to level the playing field in cyberspace. The Russians are not the main threat to our electoral process. The main threat of election tampering comes from domestic sources such as the editors and content managers employed by social media.
