This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, March 25th, 2019. I'm Kila Brown.

How do and how should social media companies celebrate the value of free speech, moderate content,

and also no big deal, earn a profit.

Thomas Kudry is a resident fellow at the Yale Information Society Project. We spoke during the Cato

Institute's Who's Afraid of Big Tech event this month? I gotta say it seems like

an impossible task for social media platforms to sufficiently respect the right of free speech.

I mean it's not really a right of free speech on these online platforms, these are private platforms,

but at least celebrate that value truly and deeply,

while at the same time creating a positive experience for users from which these companies derive massive revenue.

Can you thread that needle?

Well, I try and I try and throw it in my work in some context but I totally agree that you know in some ways that it really is this

Cissifaean task that they that they have where you know if they take up you know take down too much

content they get slammed on one side and then if they leave up too much then they

get slammed on the other side and it is true that just the scale of moderation that they need to do presents unique challenges

that we just haven't seen in any other any other context really.

So, but that being said, you know, I think it's still important that just because it's a really difficult task doesn't mean that we just abdicate all sorts of scrutiny

And you know, that's that's what I try and do and many other people are in a similar position trying to hold these

platforms accountable even if you know as you said they're private platforms they have a lot of

leeway in the way that they want to to moderate content they don't have to adhere to the First Amendment in the same way that a government has to.

But what I what my scholarship as it were sort of focuses on is the ways in which these platforms do actually incorporate legal concepts in their

moderation policies. And it's interesting I think to look at the ways that it's similar to the

legal doctrine that we have and the ways in which it diverges.

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