A deeper look at the debate surrounding misinformation, censorship and social media – KDRV

MEDFORD, Ore. --Today were following up on a story we told you about late last month TheDove TV programming was removed from YouTube.

According to TheDove, more than 15,000 videos were removed following a violation of YouTubes community guidelines.

According to YouTube, in a statement sent to NewsWatch 12, the content was removed following three strikes within 90 days for repeatedly violating our covid-19 misinformation and presidential election integrity policies."

This is a local example of a global issue that has been debated in courts, in congress and among people and politicians the question being, how do you balance, or should there be a balance of regulating misinformation and concerns surrounding censorship?

NewsWatch 12's Alicia Rubin dug into this issue, with the goal of providing context and sharing what the debate is and both sides of it.

We spoke with Professor Anam Sinnreich at American University School of Communications; he specializes in whats called political governance issues, which is the study of how the law intersects with technology and how that impacts our culture.

According to professor Sinnreich, one of the challenges of living in a democratic society is that there are competing visions of what kinds of social goals are needed to make democracy work.

"One of those visions is enshrinedin the First Amendment, and that's the notion that we should have a free press and we should have freedom of speech. And that there's a marketplace of ideas and everybody should say whatever they think is right or true or good, and the best ideas will be debated and will rise to the top," said Sinnreich.

The other side of the argument: "In order to have a functional democracy, you need people to be informed. So that they can vote and make a deliberative decision together and figure out what kind of a society they want. And so, you need to remove disinformation from the public sphere because you don't want people to make decisions based on wrong information," explained Sinnreich.

According to Sinnreich, the two goals are fundamentally at odds with each other. Whats changed in our modern world is the creation of social media.

"What social media does is it exposes us to those divergent viewpoints and it creates an architecture that is very different than the architecture of democratic debate," said Sinnreich.

The basis of the marketplace of ideas, what Sinnreich refers to as a "Thomas Jefferson model," operates on the notion that the best ideas come to the top.

"You might say that lizard people are running the world, and I might say that economic inequity is a problem," said Sinnreich, "and then we debate and we come up with the solution that lizard people seem unlikely. Economic inequity is a demonstrable truth. My idea is better than yours and that rises to the top."

But social media isnt designed to bring the best idea to the top.

It rewards users, and ultimately financially rewards companies, for inspiring the greatest degree of emotional reaction; whether it's joy or outrage or fear or excitement. So when emotions are the most monetized aspect of human expression, that creates a public sphere where, instead of the best ideas rising to the top, the most sensationalistic ideas rise to the top," said Sinnreich.

That idea aligns with studies that have been conducted about social media. In 2016 a study was done by professors at Princeton, it analyzed 376 million Facebook users interactions with over 900 news outlets and found that people tend to seek information that aligns with their views

So where does the responsibility fall to regulate misinformation, if it should be regulated at all? Is it on the consumer or is it on the platform?

"One of the key questions that the courts keep coming back to over and over again is: does the first amendment prohibited private companies from regulating the speech that takes place on their communications platforms? The answer is 'sometimes,'" said Sinnreich.

As Sinnreich explains, courts have treated communication platforms, in regards to the First Amendment, based on size.

"The more that a communications platform becomes something that everybody in society has access to and that everybody needs in order to go about their business, the more expansively the courts interpret the First Amendment as applying to that platform," said Sinnreich, "The more private a platform is, the more it's like a private club or private residence . . . the less expansively the First Amendment tends to be applied to it."

Then the question becomes, are Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms more like the postal service or telephone system; a publicly accessed good that everyone has access to and needs?

"In which case the First Amendment limitations on censorship would apply more strongly to it," said Sinnreich, "or is Facebook more like a gym or a movie theater where a private entity owns it and invites you into it?"

Right now, social media platforms are allowed to remove content, as we have seen with the removal of TheDove's videos; it is allowed to do so because it is considered a private company, but that distinction is also being debated in court.

"You have Justice Clarence Thomas, basically arguing that it's more like a public good and they should not have the power to censor, said Sinnreich, "whereas you have other thinkers saying that it's, it's still private."

Justice Thomas statements issued on April 5th, regarding a case about former President Trump blocking critics on twitter, was thrown out; Justice Thomas calling it moot since the former president is no longer in office. However, the discussion of social media regulation being brought up in the supreme court increases pressure on lawmakers to change current regulations.

Its possible there could be a federal agency created for regulation, similar to the FCC being established to govern broadcast.

"We don't yet have a federal agency that can really wrap its head around, let alone effectively regulate social media,' said Sinnreich, "The idea of setting up a federal agency devoted to internet communications or even social media communications is still such a new idea that we don't even really know what that would mean."

As recent as March 25th of this year, there was a house subcommittee meeting about misinformation and social media's role. It addressed a wide range of issues and looked at how regulation could potentially help. The focus of the meeting was whether to strengthen Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to create new oversight of social media companies. Representatives on both sides of the aisle shed support for a revision but for different reasons.

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A deeper look at the debate surrounding misinformation, censorship and social media - KDRV