Social Media – Beginning of the Pushback?

Government action against social media

In the U.K., the focus is not on the networks but on the users. In August, Jordan Parlour, 28, of Seacroft, Leeds became the first person sentenced to jail time for a social media post after he encouraged others to attack a building housing refugees. Two more followed him. The arrests followed a stabbing attack in which three girls died and rumors started suggesting the attacker was a refugee even though he was actually from Wales.

As The New York Times reports, “The misinformation was amplified by far-right agitators with large online followings, many of whom used messaging apps like Telegram and X to call for people to protest. Clashes followed in several U.K. towns, leading to more than 50 police officers being injured in Southport and more than 100 arrests in London.”

Across the channel in France, the head of Telegram Pavel Durov, was released on bail after a judge placed him under formal investigation for the app’s role in facilitating organized crime. According to Reuters, “They include suspected complicity in running an online platform that allows illicit transactions, images of child sex abuse, drug trafficking and fraud, as well as the refusal to communicate information to authorities, money laundering and providing cryptographic services to criminals.”

On the other side of the globe, Brazil implemented a ban on X (formerly known as Twitter). “The dispute over X has its roots in a Moraes order earlier this year that required the platform to block accounts implicated in probes of alleged misinformation and hate,” according to Reuters. Users who try to circumvent the ban with a VPN face stiff fines.

But are these one-off prosecutions and bans enough to change how social networks operate, or is a more methodical approach needed?

Thinking outside the box to regulate social networks

When it comes to regulation, social media have always been a tough nut to crack. As we reported last year, since 1996 U.S. law has protected online freedom of speech under the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 says that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Combine that with Freedom of Speech considerations, and the U.S. has a tough row to hoe.

Public opinion on the need to rein in social media has been shifting, however. Many no longer think Section 230, a law from the 1990s, is appropriate to regulate digital media today, leaving regulators to find new ways to handle the challenges.

Treat social media users as 'workers'?

One academic paper is reimagining the relationship between users and platforms. Phys.org reports, "‘Social Network as Work,’ a paper by Francesca Procaccini, Assistant Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, establishes a novel paradigm for regulating speech on social media—by equating the use of social media with labor.”

The authors suggest that existing employment laws have the power to govern what can be said and done on social media. The paper argues, “The relationship between platform and user is one of labor exchanged for profit, with users better analogized to workers as opposed to consumers. With each letter typed, post clicked, and page scrolled, social media users create massive, and massively profitable, proprietary catalogues of user data.”

Additionally, the paper says, “The First Amendment permits speech regulations on both employers and workers to protect worker safety, dignity, and autonomy in the workplace. The same should be true for users engaged in the work of creating data for platforms.”

However, even Francesca Procaccini, the author, recognizes that workplace regulations can only be used as a framework for new legislation, not directly applied as such: “Borrowing from analogous regulations on speech in the workplace, a regulatory regime for social media would include stricter anti-discrimination and anti-abuse rules, stronger enforcement mechanisms including vicarious platform liability, and more robust substantive and due process protections for users’ speech.”

As of right now, though, Procaccini’s paper is just an idea. Does it have the ability to escape academia and make it to the halls of Congress?

The future of regulation for social media

The need for some kind of regulation is clear. Back in 2020, a Carnegie Council essay, pointed out that “Social media presents a number of dangers that require urgent and immediate regulation, including online harassment; racist, bigoted and divisive content; terrorist and right-wing calls for radicalization; as well as unidentified use of social media for political advertising by foreign and domestic actors.”

But, four years later, little has been done on a larger, systemic level to rein it in.

In July, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging Section 230’s supremacy.

An obvious solution?

Meanwhile, in an article entitled: The Best Way to Regulate Social Media Has Been Staring Us Right in the Face, Politico has proposed a different approach to the problem that does not require new regulations: “Instead, the Federal Trade Commission and other consumer protection regulators around the world could enforce the contracts the platforms already have with their users.”

As the article points out, social networks promise users they will enforce community standards that forbid things like harassment, inciting violence, fake accounts, and misinformation. Is holding them accountable to their own standards part of the solution?

Which of these approaches, if any, will work is still an open question. It seems clear, however, that momentum is building and, increasingly, people want solutions.