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Social Media, Freedom of Speech
and the Future of Our Democracy
Social Media, Freedom of
Speech and the Future of Our
Democracy
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197621080.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by Lakeside Book Company, United States of America
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
To Jean and Jane
And to the next generation:
Katelyn, Colin, Emma, Cooper, and Sawyer
Julie, Mollie, Maddie, Jackson, and Bee
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
List of Contributors xiii
Opening Statement xv
Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R . Stone
Regulating Harmful Speech on Social Media: The Current Legal
Landscape and Policy Proposals xxiii
A n d r e w J. C e r e s n e y, J e f f r e y P. C u n a r d,
C o u r t n e y M . D a n k w o r t h , a n d D av i d A . O’N e i l
vii
viii Contents
12. Platform Power, Online Speech, and the Search for New
Constitutional Categories 193
N at h a n i e l P e r s i ly
18. Profit Over People: How to Make Big Tech Work for
Americans 301
Amy Klobuchar
This is our fourth major book project together, all centered around major turning
points or seminal issues involving the First Amendment. We are always pro-
foundly impressed, first, by the importance and complexity of the role played by
the principles of freedom of speech and press in American society and, second,
by just how illuminating it can be to draw together some of the most informed
and original minds of the time to try to understand these matters better. We,
therefore, begin our thanks to our authors and to members of the Commission
for their commitment to this project. We are also grateful to Andrew Ceresney,
Courtney Dankworth, Morgan Davis, and their colleagues at Debevoise &
Plimpton for the extraordinary help in providing the background paper and in
shepherding the work of the Commission to arrive at its recommendations. We
believe that the contributions of all of these individuals have collectively yielded
a valuable volume of ideas.
There are others who deserve recognition. Jane Booth, General Counsel of
Columbia University, provided the bridge with Debevoise & Plimpton and her
own substantive interventions. The Office of the President at Columbia, under
the direction of Christina Shelby, was simply outstanding in organizing just
about everything. We make special note of Joanna Dozier in this regard and free-
lance editor Lori Jacobs.
We continue to be thankful for the deep relationships we have with Oxford
University Press, and especially with Dave McBride and his entire staff.
As always, we benefit in inexpressible ways from Jean Magnano Bollinger
(Lee’s spouse) and Jane Dailey (Geof ’s spouse). Nothing happens without their
counsel and support (and constructive criticism).
And, lastly, we feel beyond fortunate to have Carey Bollinger Danielson as
our general editor, on this as well as our prior two books. As we have said each
time and do so again, Carey has been the perfect colleague in these ventures.
xi
L I ST O F CO N T R I B U TO R S
xiii
xiv list of Contributors
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. Because the
internet is inherently a global communications system, “bad” speech can arise
from foreign as well as domestic sources. No one doubts that these kinds of very
harmful expression have existed forever, but the premise of the current debate
is that the ubiquity and structure of this newest and most powerful communica-
tions 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.
The appropriate remedies for this state of affairs are highly uncertain, and this
uncertainty is complicated by the fact that some of these forms of “bad” speech
are ordinarily protected by the First Amendment. Yet the stakes are very high
in regard to how we answer the question because it is now evident that much of
public discourse about public issues has migrated onto this new technology and
is likely to continue that course into the future.
Current First Amendment jurisprudence has evolved on the premise that,
apart from certain minimal areas of well-established social regulation (e.g.,
fighting words, libel, threats, incitement), we should place our trust in the
powerful antidote of counter-speech to deal with the risks and harms of “bad”
speech.1 Of course, that may well turn out to be the answer to our contempo-
rary dilemmas. Indeed, one can already see the rise of public pressures on in-
ternet companies to increase public awareness of the dangers of “bad” speech,
xv
xvi Opening State ment
and there are discussions daily in the media raising alarms over dangerous
speech and speakers.2 Thus, it may be that the longstanding reliance on the self-
correcting mechanisms of the marketplace of ideas will work again.
But perhaps not. There is already a counter risk—that the increase in “ed-
itorial” control by internet companies will be biased against certain ideas and
speakers and will effectively censor speech that should be free.3 On the other
hand, even those who fear the worst from “bad” speech being uninhibited often
assert that internet company owners will never do enough on their own to ini-
tiate the needed controls because their basic, for-profit motivations are in direct
conflict with the public good and the management of civic discourse.4 There is
understandable concern that those who control the major internet companies
will have an undue and potentially dangerous effect on American democracy
through their power to shape the content of public discourse. On this view,
public intervention is necessary.
It is important to remember that the last time we encountered a major new
communications technology we established a federal agency to provide over-
sight and to issue regulations to protect and promote “the public interest,
convenience, and necessity.”5 That, of course, was the new technology of broad-
casting, and the agency was the Federal Communications Commission. The
decision to subject private broadcasters to some degree of public control was,
in fact, motivated by some of the very same fears about “bad” speech that we
now hear about the internet.6 People thought the risks of the unregulated pri-
vate ownership model in the new media of radio and television were greater
than those inherent in a system of government regulation. And, like today, those
who established this system felt unsure about what regulations would be needed
over time (in “the public interest, convenience, and necessity”), and they there-
fore set up an administrative agency to review the situation and to evolve the
regulations as circumstances required. For a fuller description and analysis of
these issues, see Images of a Free Press and Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A
Free Press for a New Century, by Lee C. Bollinger.7
On multiple occasions, the Supreme Court has upheld this system under
the First Amendment. The formal rationale for those decisions may not apply
to the internet, but there is still plenty of room for debate about the true prin-
ciples underlying that jurisprudence and their continued relevance. In any
event, the broadcasting regime stands as arguably the best example in our his-
tory of ways to approach the contemporary concerns about new technologies
of communication. But, of course, it may be that government intervention in
this realm is so dangerous that social media platforms should be left to set
their own policies, just as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are
free to do.
Opening State ment xvii
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