Return the Original Social Platform to the Public

The popularity of social media is so out of expectation. Twenty years ago, we could barely imagine that we can share our opinions in front of the public anytime we want. It is good to create an atmosphere for human society to expressing freely. Discussions help development. However, regulations are equally important. Popularity brings broader users and diverse content, but not all the content is ok to show. Meanwhile, the balance between expression freedom and legalization is always a tricky question for platforms and the government.

There is legalization to try to balance those two things: Section 230.

Section 230 is part of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law (and itself part of the Telecommunications Act of the same year) that regulated online pornography. Specifically, Section 230 provides legal immunity from liability for internet services and users for content posted on the internet. The regulation states, “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.”

A primary objective of the Communications Decency Act was to prevent minors from getting access to sexually explicit content on the internet. Section 230 was added by backers as a “Good Samaritan” provision. They hoped that it would empower internet companies to be proactive in curating online activity, by shielding them from lawsuits if they opted to block content.

But is it enough? As I mentioned above, the social platform is no longer a simple expression sharing platform as getting more popular. Social media are designed to feed more extreme content to catch users’ eyes, which can lose control. Although they are all in the communication segment, social media is more difficult to be regulated than traditional media. Traditional media still need to choose those content with higher acceptance by the public to gain more viewers. But as a user-generated platform, social media uses its algorithm to target different groups of readers and get a closer engagement with them. To some degree, social media help fosters some people to firm their extreme thoughts and create companions.

Social media companies, of course, bear the responsibility for what is shared on their product. It should be treated as corporate social responsibility. Social media creates a broader space for the public to express and reach a higher degree of freedom expression. But freedom only exists only if constraints are set. Social media aim to provide equal rights for all users to share their opinions. However, recent incidents made social platforms a massive battlefield of different parties, which gradually lost their original intention. Options are always a solid weapon to control the public. This public platform is rushing to an out-of-control situation if companies don’t take action from now on. It is under a pretty severe stage, and companies should think deeper on this challenging question.