Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy

A Broad Explanation Of The Various Dimensions Of The Problem Of Bad Speech On The Internet Within The American Context. One Of The Most Fiercely Debated Issues Of This Era Is What To Do About Bad Speech-hate Speech, Disinformation And Propaganda Campaigns, And Incitement Of Violence-on The Internet, And In Particular Speech On Social Media Platforms Such As Facebook And Twitter. In Social Media, Freedom Of Speech, And The Future Of Our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger And Geoffrey R. Stone Have Gathered An Eminent Cast Of Contributors--including Hillary Clinton, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Mark Warner, Newt Minow,tim Wu, Cass Sunstein, Jack Balkin, Emily Bazelon, And Others--to Explore The Various Dimensions Of This Problem In The American Context. They Stress How Difficult It Is To Develop Remedies Given That Some Of These Forms Of Bad Speech Are Ordinarily Protected By The First Amendment. Bollinger And Stone Argue That It Is Important To Remember That The Last Time We Encountered Major New Communications Technology-television And Radio-we Established A Federal Agency To Provide Oversight And To Issue Regulations To Protect And Promote The Public Interest. Featuring A Variety Of Perspectives From Some Of America's Leading Experts On This Hotly Contested Issue, This Volume Offers New Insights For The Future Of Free Speech In The Social Media Era. Cover Social Media, Freedom of Speech and the Future of Our Democracy Copyright Dedication CONTENTS Acknowledgments List of Contributors Opening Statement Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone Regulating Harmful Speech on Social Media: The Current Legal Landscape and Policy Proposals Andrew J. Ceresney, Jeffrey P. Cunard, Courtney M. Dankworth, and David A. O’Neil 1. Social Media and First Amendment Fault Lines 2. A Deliberate Leap in the Opposite Direction: The Need to Rethink Free Speech 3. The Disinformation Dilemma 4. A Framework for Regulating Falsehoods 5. The Free Speech Industry 6. The Golden Era of Free Speech 7. Section 230 Reforms 8. Algorithms, Affordances, and Agency 9. The Siren Call of Content Moderation Formalism 10. Free Speech on Public Platforms 11. The Limits of Antidiscrimination Law in the Digital Public Sphere 12. Platform Power, Online Speech, and the Search for New Constitutional Categories 13. Strategy and Structure: Understanding Online Disinformation and How Commitments to “Free Speech” Complicate Mitigation Approaches 14. To Reform Social Media, Reform Informational Capitalism 15. Follow the Money, Back to Front 16. The First Amendment Does Not Protect Replicants 17. Social Media, Distrust, and Regulation: A Conversation 18. Profit Over People: How to Make Big Tech Work for Americans Report of the Commission Katherine Adams, Jelani Cobb, Martin Baron, Russ Feingold, Lee C. Bollinger, Christina Paxson, Hillary Clinton, AND Geoffrey R. Stone Concluding Statement Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone Notes Index "One of the most fiercely debated issues of the current era is what to do about 'bad' speech on the internet, primarily speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. 'Bad' speech encompasses a range of problematic communications--hate speech, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, encouragement of and incitement to violence, limited exposure to ideas one disagrees with or that compete with preexisting beliefs, and so on. ... [T]he premise of the current debate is that the ubiquity and structure of this newest and most powerful communications technology magnifies these harms exponentially beyond anything we have encountered before. Some argue that, if it is left unchecked, the very existence of democracy is at risk."--Page xv