How Social Media Platforms Use Regulation To Stifle Competition

About this episode

The episode discusses the unintended consequences of social media regulations and their impact on competition and free expression.

Are we regulating the wrong tech problems? Many opponents of Big Tech cheered recent lawsuits that found Meta and YouTube liable for violating consumer protection laws and designing their products to addict kids and teens. But in the battle over user safety, is free expression going to end up as a casualty? In this episode of Revolution.Social, Rabble (Twitter’s first employee) sits down with two influential voices in digital media: Mike McCue (CEO of Flipboard) and Mike Masnick (Founder of Techdirt). McCue and Masnick explain why social media regulations could have unintended consequences. Masnick cites a 2016 carveout to Section 230 of America's Communications Decency Act, known as FOSTA-SESTA, that was supposed to crack down on online sex trafficking. In reality, it made it harder for police to track down sex traffickers, and pushed sex workers into taking more dangerous offline work. Today on the podcast: - Why is Section 230 — which provides limited immunity to online platforms for content posted by their users — the most misunderstood law on the internet? - Could regulations aimed at punishing Meta actually kill off its competitors? - And should governments be responsible…

People in this episode

Host: Rabble

Guests: Mike McCue, Mike Masnick

Topics covered

• social media regulation
• competition
• free expression
• Section 230
• Big Tech
• user safety
• AI power

Keywords

• social media
• regulation
• competition
• Section 230
• Big Tech
• user safety
• AI
• FOSTA-SESTA
• digital media

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Meta, YouTube, Flipboard, Techdirt, America's Communications Decency Act, FOSTA-SESTA

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