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This raises important points but alllll 'the devil is in the details' re those last few sentences. What does public policy look like in this realm? At the end of the day, who is given authority to draw lines around acceptable content/speech? 1/n https://twitter.com/taylor_owen/status/1349751263114657795
I think there's a lot policy might be able to do that's effectively content-neutral - indeed, 'free expression neutral' - including banning bots entirely, discouraging platforms from using dopamine-releasing features like 'likes', mitigating the use/harm of certain algorithms...
... all BEFORE we start talking about what content is acceptable/permissible on social media/the Internet. If that's the focus, I'm on board. But let's not underestimate the challenges of anything that comes close to regulating content. 3/n
There's zero reason to think governments will be better at this stuff than anyone else. Canadian government agencies have used hate speech and obscenity laws to the great detriment of LGBTQ content, to prevent the import of The Satanic Versus, etc. etc. etc. 4/n
Certain regulation or 'governance' of social media is very likely to have similar unintended (or intended) consequences for free expression. And that's before you get to the practical/technological challenges. 5/n
In my forthcoming edited book, 'Dilemmas of Free Expression', @cmathen and other contributors have great chapters examining some of this. 6/6
