#164 - Can Constitutional Free Speech Principles Save Social Media Companies From Themselves?

Open to Debate

Education, Society & Culture, News, Government, Politics

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2019

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With David French, Corynne McSherry, Nathaniel Persily, and Marietje Schaake How should the world's largest social media companies respond to a pernicious online climate, including hate speech and false content posted by users? For some, the answer is clear: Take the fake and offensive content down. But for others, censorship - even by a private company - is dangerous in a time when digital platforms have become the new public square and many Americans cite Facebook and Twitter as their primary news sources. Rather than embracing European hate speech laws or developing platform-specific community standards that are sometimes seen as partisan, they argue, social media companies should voluntarily adopt the First Amendment and block content only if it violates American law. Should First Amendment doctrine govern free speech online? Or are new, more internationally focused speech policies better equipped to handle the modern challenges of regulating content and speech in the digital era? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.0	Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, so says the US Constitution.
0:37.0	But what about Facebook or Twitter or any social media platform?
0:41.0	Those companies face no constraints on setting limits on what people can say on their platforms.
0:47.0	It is, after all, their ballgame. They own the space.
0:50.0	But should they be limiting speech when it is so offensive sometimes
0:54.0	and morally threatening that it crosses the line into what we call hate speech?
0:58.0	Same for information that is false, pretending to be true, what some call fake news.
1:02.0	Would doing so turn these companies into censorship factories where free expression is put at serious risk?
1:09.0	Or perhaps should these same companies take a page from the First Amendment and encourage speech to run as far as it wants to?
1:18.0	Well, we think all this has the makings of a debate, so let's have it.
1:22.0	Yes or no to this statement.
1:24.0	Constitutional free speech principles can save social media companies from themselves.
1:29.0	I'm John Donovan. I stand between two teams of two experts in this topic who will argue for and against this resolution.
1:37.0	As always, our debate will go in three rounds and then our audience here at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia will choose the winner.
	...

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