Freedom of Speech in the Age of Social Media

Author: Sidh Kasliwal

Editor: Jigyasa Prabhakar

Issue 

Throughout the status quo, various rights are still being disputed but one critical freedom is quintessential to the framework of the US. The first amendment is a fundamental addition to the constitution by guaranteeing freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It allows constituents to express themselves freely with no interference from the government in ordinary cases. However, with the rise of social media and online platforms, the pressing  question arises: How does the government sustain the first amendment without contradictions or violations? Can the government enforce laws about censorship about individuality in expressing philosophies? Can companies influence the way companies centralize a specific narrative contingent to match company beliefs? Finally, who holds liability? If a person sues another content creator for defamation, is the suit against the platform or the influencer? The key factor to understand here is that the first amendment actually protects content that is considered distasteful, and Section 230 of the federal code, a part of the Communications Decency Act, is a federal law enacted in 1996 to protect websites and social media platforms from responsibility for content that their users post. 

Analysis 

One of the biggest misconceptions about social media platforms is that they have to abide by the laws and regulations set by the government. This claim is often misconstrued because these platforms are private companies affirming that they are not only not bound by first amendment rights, they are protected by them. The impacts of this are vital as it allows companies to moderate user posts without violating their first amendment rights. Many state laws that regulate how social media should filter content have failed on first amendment grounds. It should however be noted that there are exceptions to the first amendment, such as true threats, fighting words, defamation, or obscene content. This highlights that the first amendment does protect things such as propaganda and hate speech in order to ensure a vital environment.

Key Factors 

Section 230 is a huge part of this topic as it is part of the federal code and states in part, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This means that online platforms like Facebook, Youtube, or Snapchat cannot be held liable for the actions of its users. A fundamental perspective concerning this is that they aren’t required to do anything about the content in question as long as it doesn’t violate federal laws, copyright/trademark, or commit felonies. Recently, additional laws have been added to section 230 to make sites liable under certain circumstances for child abuse and trafficing (beneficiary content). An example of Section 230 in action can be seen in 2023 when a family tried to sue YouTube because the site had failed to take down terrorist content, contributing to a terrorist attack on one of the family members. This resulted in an unfathomable detriment leading to the death of one of the family members. The court’s decision was that platforms, under the law, are not liable because their content suggestion algorithms treat terrorist content the same as all other content. The platforms are not required to speak out and object to content with objectionable views.In July 2024, the Supreme court denied to see another similar case, this one involving Snapchat, that tried to challenge Section 230. 

Conclusion 

With this information on the issue of the first amendment and social media, the current laws may be able to uphold justice for now, but revision is a possibility that must be considered in the future. As social media spreads and evolves, steps must be taken to ensure that the first amendment doesn’t produce negative results. One of the biggest problems with social media today is the spread of misinformation. A solution to this problem would be further revising section 230 or even the 1st amendment to condemn purposeful propaganda. In the case of government regulation, it may be necessary to allow them to breach the 1st amendment to stop the common theme of misinformation, harmful content such as hate speech, and protecting minors as they are becoming increasingly exposed to mature content at an extremely young age.