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Regulating Social Media Companies

Forbes Technology Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Tony Raval

In recent years, tech companies have come under a lot of scrutiny. From Facebook’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal to YouTube’s involvement in the dissemination of the Christchurch live stream, people are becoming increasingly concerned with the amount of power held by social media companies.

Regulators are scrambling to deal with this growing problem. The big challenge for them is to create regulatory solutions that curb their power in a way that promotes competitiveness, innovation and openness online. The regulations they make must also ensure the safety and well-being of everyone on the digital platforms. Plus, the laws regulators develop must be feasible for social media companies to adhere to and comply with. In this article, we will explore the biggest challenges social media firms are currently facing and discuss how governments around the world are attempting to regulate this space.

Are Social Media Companies Platforms Or Publishers?

When it comes to social media companies, regulators are beginning to change their opinions about these companies. Historically, social media firms have argued that they have simply created tools that enable the distribution of information. This would make them platforms, meaning they should not be held responsible for the content that is spread through their systems.

As time has passed, many regulators -- and social media companies themselves -- have come to think of social media companies as publishers. Under this school of thought, social media companies like Facebook or YouTube curate and distribute content on their systems. This would make social media companies responsible for the content shared on their platforms. As more social media companies begin to censor the information on their platforms (think Facebook making the decision to block white nationalism content on Facebook), this definition is becoming more widely accepted.

How Did Social Media Companies Become Publishers?

When social media was first being developed in the early 2000s, social media companies were platforms. They did not regulate the content on their platforms, and people were able to share their thoughts and opinions freely. This practice has remained this way for a long time -- sometimes to the detriment of many people around the world.

Social media has allowed a lot of harmful and untrue information to spread online. Facebook, in particular, has had to deal with the fallout of some terrible real-world disasters around the world:

In India, at least 17 people have been killed over false child kidnapping rumors being spread through Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp.

In Myanmar, Facebook was used to spread hate speech and incitement that led to violence against the Rohingya minority within the country.

In New Zealand, the Christchurch massacre was livestreamed on Facebook.

As a result of these events, the company has prompted the shift in mindset from both regulators and social media companies that social media companies are not simply platforms. They demonstrate the need for the social media firms to take an active role in preventing abusive, violent, hateful and disturbing content from spreading within their systems. And they have led some social media executives to call for widespread government regulation. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg argues that a unified global strategy against combatting hateful and disturbing content online will make it easier for his company, and other big tech companies, to comply with such legislation.

Countries Start To Regulate

Lawmakers around the world are grappling with this growing problem online. On the one hand, they must protect their citizens who use social media services. On the other hand, they must ensure they create regulations that actually curb social media firms' behavior.

Several countries have already passed social media regulations, including:

• Germany: On January 1, 2018, regulations went into effect that prompt social media companies to quickly remove “illegal content” within 24 hours of it being uploaded online. Illegal content has been defined as content that ranges from insults of public office to threats of violence. Violators of these regulations could face large fines, upward of €50 million.

• Australia: On April 3, 2019, following the Christchurch massacre, Australia passed laws that punish social media companies for violent posts. The posts must be removed expeditiously, or companies could face fines up to 10% of their annual profit.

• U.K.: On April 8, 2019, the U.K. government announced that it would create laws that make the U.K. the safest place in the world to use the internet. These laws would require social media firms to protect users, and the firms would face heavy fines if they failed to do so.

Going Further With Regulations

To date, lawmakers around the world are working to curb the way social media firms handle content that's disseminated on their platforms. They could go a step further, though, and curb the way these companies handle identities on their platforms as well. This would certainly be a difficult issue to tackle since many social media platforms began as a way for people to anonymously express themselves. As time has passed, people have proven their inability to police themselves online. Having identities tied to social media accounts would help police these digital platforms, and it could create a way to hold people accountable for the content they post.

There will always be people who post unlawful, harmful and unsafe content online. Social media platforms should be held responsible for the information that's spread around on their platforms, but so should the people posting the information in the first place. By creating regulations that require users to perform identity verification before being allowed to interact on online social media platforms, regulators can create a safer online environment for us all.

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