self-regulation

September 6 2018

Social Media Platforms are not Public Utility Companies

Dr. D Hubbard cyber law, Internet, politics, social networking law, politics, self-regulation, social media 0

As you may have recently heard, Twitter and Facebook are in the news due to their recent grilling on Capitol Hill. What is interesting to me about this, regardless of how you feel about the companies and the services they provide, is that not being public utilities they are not susceptible to government regulation.

Rather, they are private companies who have Terms of Service (ToS) people agree to when signing up that state they can ban or remove any content or users they find don’t meet their community standards. This is the same idea that companies all across the U.S. embody when they say they can refuse service to anyone. This is their freedom as a company and has nothing to do with individual rights. You do not have any first amendment rights except for in the presence of GOVERNMENT censorship. It has nothing to do with privately owned spaces including social media platforms. The fact is, social media platforms are for-profit companies who make money when people post their own opinions to them and they make a LOT of money when those opinions are contentious. It is in their own best interest NOT to censor their users when their users are operating within their ToS.

Thus, none of this makes sense for Congress to step into. There are several legal precedents for the government staying out of media-related industry censorship, which is why entities like the MPAA, CCA (now defunct), and ESRB exist – all being industry self-regulating bodies. That said, maybe it’s time social media platforms establish their own so there are standards and regulations across them and content can be rated rather than completely removed. This would certainly help people avoid content they didn’t want to see and could allow for space where more objectionable content could exist within its own bubble that people could venture into at their own risk.

What SHOULD be of concern is personal data privacy. But, we all know that isn’t going to get anywhere. Those of us who do work in this space have been touting the issue of data privacy for several years to no avail. I don’t see it becoming a priority any time soon.

November 5 2013

What is your attention being diverted from?

Dr. D Hubbard research authority, censorship, gaming, government, research, self-regulation, society 0

“Rather than simply forbidding young people to listen to certain forms of music, read certain books, or see certain movies, many families have abdicated this responsibility to civic action groups and the government. Such a relinquishment of authority over individual lives has led to denunciations of various media forms, calls for self-regulation of individual mediums, and attempts to ban completely some sexually explicit speech.” (791)

”Perhaps even more important than the right of Americans to decide what they wish to read, see, and hear for themselves is the fact that this generation’s purity crusade is diverting national attention away from more important areas. Indeed, many individuals who believe in a government based on popular participation have not yet realized that by devoting so much energy to what is essentially the private business of American citizens, their attention has been successfully diverted from participation in the political and economic planning processes of the nation.” (850)

Interesting that if you consider gaming, specifically violent video games, to be the topic at hand, these conclusions are as relevant today as they were over 20 years ago.

Blanchard, M. A. (1991). American Urge to Censor: Freedom of Expression Versus the Desire to Sanitize Society—From Anthony Comstock to 2 Live Crew, The Wm. & Mary L. Rev., 33, 741.