Regulating Facebook, Twitter and the rest
Should social media be treated like digital junk food, gambling or drinking?
Today, a UK parliamentary committee has recommended that social media companies face massive fines if they fail to remove extremist and hate crime material.
The standard web company argument is that they are trying their best, but it’s really hard to limit the flow of information on the open web. In the US, they go further and claim the ‘free speech beats everything’ defence. Regardless of the merits of such a position, the case of extremist material can be seen as another signal that politicians may be ready to start regulating the (social) media industry more specifically than they have so far. Perhaps more important for these companies are the emerging concerns about our use and interaction with digital platforms.
We are good at doing bad things
There is a lot of guidance out there, and many laws and regulations in place, to stop us doing things that harm ourselves or other people.
The point is we eat the wrong food, smoke cigarettes, drink shots, take drugs, own guns, etc. Despite knowing all we do about nutrition and our bodies’ reactions chemicals (and quite likely precisely because of what we know), we do things that are not in our own interest. And it’s not just confined to putting things in our bodies, as any friend or relative of a problem-gambler would probably attest.
When it comes to self-harm in a generic sense there’s a complicated relationship between freedom and protection, especially where the role of government is concerned. Broadly it comes down to a balance of interests: those of the individual’s versus those of society.
The ban on smoking in public places is a good illustration: if you are over an age threshold, you are entitled to pump your body full of nicotine, tar and other unpleasant substances in your own space, but as soon as you start to harm others, then you lose the right to that particular freedom. One could push the example further: smoking-related illnesses are a significant cost to society through healthcare, lost productivity etc. However, most countries do not believe that is sufficient to negatively affect the individual’s freedoms (or denude their exchequers of those valuable taxes…)
Reaching the tipping point
Junk food, smoking, payday lending. Not all are inherently bad for you, and all started out as unregulated, with an approach based on individual freedom and choice. But as consumer harm occurs, and as the evidence grows, so the momentum behind change grows.
The question is: will we start to view our addiction to digital as a social and cultural problem. Will the negative consequences (such as fake news, cyber bullying, growing impact on mental health problems, flourishing extremism, the possible breakdown of interpersonal relationships and the skills needed to thrive in the real world etc), start to outweigh the undoubted positives?
Just because governments and politicians don’t know how to regulate social media sites effectively right now, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. When I was advising technology and financial services clients on political affairs and regulation, I saw first hand how governments respond when the momentum forces them into action. Expertise and skills in the relevant areas are often in short supply, and sometimes unintended consequences are poorly understood or simply ignored, steamrollered by the political imperative. (See the reform of the UK’s Defamation legislation in 2012–13 for a good example).
Something positive
I think we are only just beginning to see the effects on society of the dopamine-filled digital world we now live in. Until recently, I was dreading how my sons would grow up in such a world. How would they cope with cyber-bullying — a challenge I never had to face — or a world where interpersonal skills are quantified by the number of likes on a post?
But I’m optimistic, I have to be. I hope their generation will be among the first to grow up with a true understanding of how our current technology boom has fundamentally changed our way of life. While it is it is our generation that is not coping well with this addiction, they will have the skills and protections in place to deal with it. They will see our experiences, and they will influence the direction of intervention and control. And intervention will come, it’s inevitable. Whether this is something that companies riding the wave of advertising-fuelled mental junk food listen to now is another matter. If they do, maybe they can help change their environment so that drastic action isn’t necessary. But that requires them to sacrifice short-term revenues, and that isn’t a business model they understand.
