Why You Need to Support Digital Media Regulations

The news cycle continues to roil with stories of presidents and prime ministers and wars and outcry over Brexit, but two recent events stand out more for their contrasts with one another than for any kind of similarities shared. And yet, there is a potentially strong connection between the two that is easy to miss.

The first story which has shaken us all in its total callousness is the horrific, racially and religiously motivated attack on two mosques in New Zealand resulting in the slaughter of 50 people. The second story, almost a joke by comparison, is the “we all knew this already” story of money, fraud, and scandal in college admissions, implicating dozens of prominent business people and celebrities. Although one story is about hatred and murder and the other about entitlement and privilege, bear with me as we explicate details of each.

I’ve written many times on how important it is to establish a code of conduct, guidelines, or legally enforceable rules related to the contents of online speech and what is shared online. I’m not suggesting we suspend the promise of free speech guaranteed in America (and elsewhere), but it’s important to remember that not all speech is protected. In the U.S. there are typically nine types of speech which do not fall under the protection of the First Amendment. They include: obscenity, fighting words, defamation (including libel and slander), child pornography, perjury, blackmail, incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, and solicitations to commit crimes. And while these parameters seem to be clear, the big social channels today struggle to define and identify content in ways that truly protect the potential victims of said speech.

This is all the more important when you consider that regulation in another medium—the United States Postal Service—not only protects the innocent but prosecutes the guilty, thus creating a strong deterrent to commit illegal behavior. For example, at least two of the perpetrators of the college admissions scandal were brought down by their conspiracy to commit mail fraud, defined as "crimes that may adversely affect or fraudulently use the U.S. Mail, the postal system or postal employees." As a fascinating aside, the U.S. mail, being the regulated and protected medium it is, is responsible for bringing to justice both Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff.

Imagine now we were able to apply a similar level of regulation, with clear and precise parameters, to social media forums. In New Zealand, the perpetrator was not only heavily entrenched in the online world of hate, white supremacy, and conspiracy theories, he used social platforms as his own PR platform for spreading his harmful ideology. In essence, these platforms became PR platforms, where he was able to live-stream his own shootingspree—as The New York Times reported, “The suspected New Zealand shooter carefully modeled his attack for an internet age. He live-streamed the massacre, shouted out a popular meme slogan and published a long, rambling manifesto replete with inside jokes geared for those steeped in underground internet culture.”

As the The Times noted, “Social media is at the center of this increasing challenge…Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other sites that allow people to upload their own content have faced fierce backlash for letting violent and hate-filled posts and videos spread.” And though the companies eventually took removed the livestream of the New Zealand shooting, many believe that the video shouldn't have been able to be streamed in the first place.

There are ways to make words and content illegal on a platform, as evidenced by the variety of crimes people are capable of committing via the United States Postal Service. Using that same logic, why aren’t we developing a series of guidelines for other platforms that deliver and distribute content, as opposed to forcing the curators of those sites to make their own decisions about what crosses the line?

Since the beginning, we have allowed people to use the internet as a curtain behind which they feel emboldened to do and say things they wouldn’t in “real life.” As the Washington Post noted in a recent article on the New Zealand shooting, “People do things online that they might be hesitant to do in real life…[ranging] from harmless acts, such as emailing someone you would be too intimidated to approach at a party, to sharing, building on and encouraging extremist views and violence.” Online media platforms are monitoring this kind of behavior and content—but supervision and removal can only go so far without concrete guidelines in place. Again, imagine if they had the power that the mail service does—to see that dangerous content is not merely taken down, but that the perpetrators are prosecuted.

As all my readers know, I don’t mean to place all or even most of the blame on social media platforms themselves. In fact, I think much of the responsibility to combat hate and ignorance is on us. Think about it. We don’t hold the Postal Service accountable for the violent threats or fraud committed and disseminated through its channels. Accountability lays squarely upon individuals who commit the crime. Flagging or removing harmful content is simply not enough of a deterrent. Words incite action. Listen:

“Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.” –Buddha

Whether they’re written online or sent as a letter in the mail, words not protected by the First Amendment that aim to tear the fabric of our social world and threaten human life must be prosecutable. And while a bunch of overprivileged parents have been indicted because of good regulation, think about how absurd it is that people spreading hate and violence haven’t been. What do you think?