Reality Check Commentary: No New Laws Needed to Force the Social Media Platforms to Protect their Users
In a commentary for Politico, Steven Brill argues that effective social media regulation can be achieved using existing consumer protection laws, without any new legislation.
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No New Laws Needed to Force the Social Media Platforms to Protect their Users
In recent commentary for Politico Magazine, Steven Brill, co-CEO of NewsGuard, draws from his upcoming book “The Death of Truth” to propose a method for regulating social media that avoids any need for congressional intervention. Brill compares the unchecked chaos of social media to a public safety hazard, suggesting that the principles governing noise control and crowd safety could be effectively applied to the digital realm.
“By reverse engineering the noise and lack of crowd control that has overrun social media platforms, we can make the internet a more peaceful, reliable, less polarizing place,” Brill writes.
Brill notes that platforms such as Facebook and Instagram already have detailed terms of service that promise their users that they will prohibit a range of harmful activities and misinformation — and that these terms of service are contracts that the Federal Trade Commission could enforce, just the way the agency uses litigation and steep fines to enforce privacy promises in these same contracts.
Read Brill’s essay in Politico Magazine by clicking here.
Steven Brill is the co-CEO of NewsGuard. He is also the founder of Court TV, The American Lawyer, and Brill's Content Magazine.
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