Should Congress Regulate Facebook?

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen recently testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, telling senators that Facebook and Instagram stoke division, harm children, and avoid transparency and any consequences for their damaging effects. Her testimony amplified calls for regulation of the platforms. On today’s episode we consider a variety of proposed reforms, whether they would violate any other laws and whether they would be constitutional. Host Jeffrey Rosen is joined by internet law experts Jeff Kosseff of the United States Naval Academy and Nate Persily of Stanford Law School. They also consider why it is so difficult to regulate the platforms as well as the unintended consequences that may arise if they are regulated, and unpack prior cases on free speech that influenced the overall approach to Internet regulation from its very beginning, including the passage of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org. Additional resources and transcript available in our Media Library at constitutioncenter.org/constitution.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome
0:07.5	to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.
0:11.2	The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase
0:16.7	awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.
0:21.7	The Facebook whistleblower, Francis Hoggin, recently testified before the Senate
0:26.0	Subcommittee on Consumer Protection. There are calls for regulation of the platforms in the air.
0:35.0	And on today's episode, we are joined by two of America's leading experts
0:41.1	both on the regulation of the platforms and of the First Amendment to discuss what kinds
0:48.8	of regulations of Facebook might be good policy and whether or not they would be constitutional.
0:55.0	Nate personally is James B McClatchy, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.
1:00.0	He is co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center
1:03.4	and the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet
1:06.4	and the Stanford MIT Healthy Elections Project.
1:10.1	Nate, it is such an honor to have you back on the show.
1:13.2	Pleasure to be here.
1:14.4	And Jeff Kousef is associate professor of cyber security law at the United States Naval Academy.
1:20.4	He is the author of the textbook Cybersecurity Law and the book The 26
1:25.4	words that created the internet a history of Section 230 of the
1:29.2	Communications Decency Act. Jeff, welcome to We the People.
1:33.0	Thanks for having me.
1:34.0	Nate, you recently proposed legislation that would allow Congress to get data that might inform future regulation.
1:47.6	Tell us about your legislation and the kind of data that you think might be helpful.
	...

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