Let’s be honest. You and I both know that the Internet is broken. What began thirty years ago as wonderful way for universities to share information has matured into a monster. Its original design never envisioned today’s online addiction, constant tracking, misinformation, polarization, cyberbullying, privacy problems, ransomware and data breaches… Or how about the nagging feeling that Siri or Alexa are eavesdropping 24/7? It’s a mess.
Perhaps now it is time to hit the re-set button and start again. So how do we fix the Internet? Short of designing a new architecture – which Manyone is actually working on, I believe two actions could make the internet a far safer and more enjoyable experience almost overnight.
Social Media must be liable for what is posted on their platforms
Social Media companies are publishers with editorial control which makes them the same as newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, so they should be treated the same way before the law.
86% of Americans report getting their daily news from their smartphone or tablet with 48% getting their news from a Social Media feed. These are monopoly-type numbers. Companies like Google and Facebook also have fancy AI algorithms and legions of human moderators controlling what news and posts appear in the timeline, which means Facebook has editorial control.
Furthermore, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen recently went public with evidence of internal research into the harmful effects Instagram had on Children. Facebook knew Instagram was dangerous and decided to ignore their own research in favour of bigger profits. In fact, they even planned to release a Kids’ version of Instagram targeting users under thirteen years of age. People around the world including me, were outraged. Congresswomen and Senators lined up to hear Haugen’s testimony and threatened to remove social media’s libel protection under Section 230.
If Haugen had worked at the New York Times or CNN and revealed that they knew the content they printed or broadcast was known to cause teenagers to harm themselves, they would both be sued out of existence immediately – because there are laws protecting the public from misleading information printed in newspapers and aired on TV.
This one is a no-brainer, Social Media is a publication, Facebook is a publisher and Mark Zuckerberg exercises editorial control. If we want the brave efforts of whistleblowers like Frances Haugen to yield world-changing results, we need to hold Big Tech accountable for their damages and make them libel for what’s posted on their platforms.
Nations need to tax Big Tech on profits generated by domestic users
With such a large percentage of people getting their news content from social media, these companies dominate the online advertising market. Social media is not entirely to blame for dominating the online advertising market; journalism generally lagged in their transition to a new Internet-based reality.
Cable TV diverted local television stations’ ad revenues, streaming services like YouTube and Netflix have wounded the national TV ad market, and print media has been steeply declining for years. With their traditional means of generating revenue withering, deep cuts have been made and sadly independent journalism has been decimated. When television stations and newspapers go bankrupt, they take their journalists with them, reducing them to bloggers who often need to sacrifice their independence in favour of reporting what’s ‘trending’ on social media.
Countries like Australia, Canada, the UK and the Nordics have been supporting a thriving public broadcast industry for over half a century to ensure the survival of their unique cultural heritages. That heritage is now under tremendous threat from social media and streaming services that have no culture to preserve and no taxes to pay in jurisdictions other than where they are based. This needs to change. Social media can no longer operate with impunity in local markets without some responsibility to the unique societies of the people that generate their advertising revenue.
Social media and the rest of Big Tech make huge revenues from distributing news content on their platforms so they should pay for that content. Big Tech does not respect borders or unique cultural heritages, but they can certainly be forced if citizens, governments and regulators have the will.
I believe that Facebook is a broadcaster in Canada, so they should follow the same rules that guide other Canadian broadcasters. That means paying and promoting independent Canadian content and journalists. And it naturally follows that if that content is inaccurate, outrageous or damaging, they should be libel for it.