E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
This essay is the text of a keynote address given at the Association for Computing Machinery conference on Computer Science and Law on October 28, 2019.
To understand how to regulate social media you must first understand why you want to regulate it.
We should regulate social media companies because they are key institutions in the twenty-first century digital public sphere. A public sphere does not work properly without trusted and trustworthy intermediate institutions that are guided by professional and public-regarding norms.
The current economic incentives of social media companies hinder them from playing this crucial role and lead them to adopt policies and practices that actually undermine the health and vibrancy of the digital public sphere.
The point of regulating social media is to create incentives for social media companies to become responsible and trustworthy institutions that will help foster a healthy and vibrant digital public sphere. It is equally important to ensure that there are a large number of different kinds of social media companies, with diverse affordances, value systems, and innovations.
Treating social media companies as state actors or as public utilities does not solve the problems of the digital public sphere. One might create a public option for social media services, but this, too, cannot serve as a general solution to the problems that social media create. Instead, this essay describes three policy levers that might create better incentives for privately-owned companies: (1) antitrust and competition law; (2) privacy and consumer protection law; and (3) a careful balance of intermediary liability and intermediary immunity rules.