Eduardo Benavides

When and How are we finally going to limit Big Tech?

In 2004, Facebook was created. And, despite the fact that it was neither the first one nor
the last one of its kind, it is surely one of the most memorable and key companies of a
new era of communications and… misinformation.

Over time, the new era of development and potential segued into a threat, and
nowadays it seems inevitable that the titans of social media will be subjected to
government regulation and control. Out of the many potential sources of regulation, one
appears to be the most important and controversial: Section 230.

Since the creation of those companies, the way we consume social media content has
changed considerably, and, on the positive side, it has shown to be extremely beneficial
in terms of communications and exposure to different peoples and cultures. In addition,
it has opened the door for new individual roles in society for anyone who simply owns a
cell phone with an internet connection. As was seen in the top-secret operation to kill
Osama Bin Laden in 2011, an internet café owner named Sohaib Athar was able to
document the entire thing without even knowing what it was. This example is
noteworthy, because it really put into perspective the idea of news spreading with the
speed of light without the mediation of a qualified reporter form an established media
outlet. Yet, significantly, nothing guarantees that those news are true.

“It sounds a dreadful thing to say, but these are things that don’t
necessarily need to be true as long as they’re believed”. Alexander Nix

Another example of these phenomena is the dreadful attacks in Mumbai in 2008 that
killed thousands of innocents and social media was used as a tool to sow confusion and
chaos. It spread fake information of false attacks that neither the government nor
anyone else was capable of controlling. Therefore, the situation escalated in an
unnecessary way.
The evolution of social media as a weapon became even more pronounced with the
peak of terrorism in 2014 and 2015. This was on display when ISIS took Mosul thanks
to a successful marketing campaign through social media that made the hashtag
#AllEyesOnISIS go viral. It resulted in the retreat of Mosul’s army, leaving behind not
only a city completely unprotected, but also multiple armored vehicles and ammunition
for the attackers to take. This success story prompted the spread of multiple campaigns
via Twitter and other forms of social media like WhatsApp to recruit people all over the
world, making it easier for the terrorist group to perpetrate the Paris attacks in 2015, in
Orlando 2016, and many others.

2016 was also no stranger to the utilization of social media to create chaos. In the 2016
U.S. presidential campaign, Donald Trump received an enormous advantage thanks to
the extensive electoral intervention by Russia. This intervention employed the use of a
form of propaganda that was based on the spread of misinformation to create division
and disseminate inaccurate news about Hillary Clinton that ended up privileging Donald
Trump and destabilizing the political system in the United States.

Most recently in 2021, the issues with social media came to the fore after the attack on
the Capitol and the subsequent deactivation of Donald Trump’s Twitter account. It is
important to understand why this happened, in order to get a better grasp on the
necessity of monitoring and having more control over Big tech. This is where Section
230 comes into the picture. Commonly known as “the 26 words that created the
internet” it is a small yet important piece of legislation.

“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” (47 U.S. Code 230).

Basically, this enables Big Tech to moderate their own content and to have a sort of
immunity, exempting it from liability for what others post on their platforms. These
simple words have sparked a heated debate among the general public, and especially
between multiple Democrats and Republicans with the latter arguing that these
companies take down too much content and that they have more of a liberal bias, and
the former saying that the content being removed is too little. In fact, it has generated so
much concern that even Joe Biden has publicly spoken about his intention of revoking
the statute, as it was expressed in an interview given to the New York Times in 2020
“The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately
should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms,”
However, despite the mistakes made and the lack of meaningful regulation, entirely
revoking Section 230 might not be the best way to deal with this evolving security issue.
The first problem with this is the possible chilling effect on free speech that it could
have, at least in social media since the absence of immunity could lead the platforms to
delete more posts and comments due to their fear of being sued.

It is important to remember that revoking Section 230 will not only affect Facebook,
Google, and Twitter, but it can also affect any other platform that depends on user-
generated content such as TripAdvisor, Craigslist, Airbnb, Wikipedia, etc. This could
also create a barrier of entry for new startups in the industry since the legal fees would
end up being prohibitive. Finally, it could drastically change the way we use and depend
on the internet in general. For some, this might not appear to be too costly,
nevertheless, it is important not to let the failures of social media make us forget about
the multiple benefits of the Internet.

There are alternatives to revoking Section 230 such as making changes in legislation
that could leave companies liable if they fail to report illegal activities or removing the
immunity provided by section 230 in advertisements and in content that spreads hate
speech or violence and is being promoted via an algorithm. It is also worth mentioning
that, at least in congressional hearings concerning these topics, people like Mark
Zuckerberg seemed open to more regulation in a way that could be beneficial for the
government, the companies concerned, and the people

Finally, if something needs to be addressed then it is social media. Not only do we

communicate through it, but we also get informed via that medium, and we are
constantly exposed to it. Therefore, it is important to reformulate pieces of legislation
like section 230 without entirely revoking them in order to avoid further problems. And,
hopefully, COVID-19 and other important issues on the government’s agenda will not
obliviate this issue and elongate the problem until another attack is perpetrated in
America or elsewhere around the Globe.