Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
January 27, 2021
Regulate Social-Media Companies
The events of January 6 showed existing approaches to quell disinformation and incitements to violence on social media platforms have failed, badly. Even though the companies that run these platforms are displaying a new willingness to police them, up to and including banning the worst offenders, claims that U.S. tech companies can self-regulate and moderate dangerous content comprehensively should be regarded with extreme skepticism. So too, Twitter’s recent launch of Birdwatch, a crowd-sourcing forum to combat misinformation, is a welcome measure but at best a partial and imperfect solution to a far more systemic problem. Instead, it is time, at long last, to regulate.
It is time, at long last, to regulate.
These reforms must extend beyond stronger antitrust regulation and enforcement against Big Tech companies, which are worthwhile, but do little to restructure fundamentally how social media platforms operate. New rules must be introduced for the algorithms that decide what users see and for the data these companies collect for themselves, as well as data scraping by third parties.
Read the full article from Defense One.
More from CNAS
-
Lighting the Path
Reports
The world’s leading powers are engaged in an unprecedented technology competition. Autocratic regimes are advancing a vision for technology use—a techno-totalitarianism that e...
By Carisa Nietsche, Emily Jin, Hannah Kelley, Emily Kilcrease, Megan Lamberth, Martijn Rasser & Alexandra Seymour
-
Regenerate: Biotechnology and U.S. Industrial Policy
Reports
A revolution in biotechnology is dawning at the precise moment the world needs it most. Amid an ongoing climate crisis, fast-paced technological maturation, and a global pande...
By Ryan Fedasiuk
-
Reboot: Framework for a New American Industrial Policy
Reports
The relationship between American industry and the U.S. government must change. The nature of the U.S.-China strategic competition, one centered on technology, requires a rese...
By Martijn Rasser, Megan Lamberth, Hannah Kelley & Ryan Johnson
-
Sharper: The Authoritarianism Challenge
Commentary
Autocratic leadership is on the rise globally. Even in democratic nations, leaders are eroding checks on their power and weakening institutions. The use of illiberal technolog...
By Anna Pederson
