Should Facebook, Twitter and Google face regulatory oversight from the government? Or does that compromise Americans’ Constitutional Right of Free Speech?
Just like the Wild Wild West, new frontiers in social media are constantly being pioneered. In today’s society, these large tech companies are shooting from the hip to provide people worldwide a platform of free speech without the law and order of government restrictions. To discuss this issue, Congress met with the trailblazers of Twitter and Facebook. And allowed them to explain the complexities of managing such large networks.
Photo Courtesy of CNBC
Jack Dorsey is an American computer programmer who is the co-founder and CEO of Twitter and Sheryl Sandberg is the current COO of Facebook and the first woman to serve on Facebook’s Board of Directors.
Communication Skills
Mr. Dorsey’s and Ms. Sandberg’s testimony revealed the difficulties and challenges they and the government will face in shooting for regulatory laws.
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 provides immunity to these tech companies from any defamation or libel that users post on their services. Additionally, the First Amendment protects these companies from government restrictions on free speech. Both of which makes it challenging for Congress to establish any law and order regarding fairness and speech policies.
This is mountainous terrain and the lawmakers are still digging in the valleys. But Congress was impressed by Mr. Dorsey’s candor in addressing the issues and troubles his company faces daily.
Google’s Failure to Communicate
The outlaw, Google, declined to send a C-level executive to the hearings, claiming it was ambushed. Although the company has a past history of good will with the government, its absence led many to question its decision to terminate its governmental contracts with the military and its new project regarding a censored search engine in China.
After the hearing, many regulatory questions are still up in the air. Kate Klonick, professor at St. John’s University Law School, says, “These are real, serious issues that some of us have been working on for a very long time, and they’ve been stewing and ripening without resolution. Maybe you can say, now that people are finally paying attention, that we are maybe stumbling toward some better understanding of what’s involved.”
This makes it clear that we still have a long way to go on the issues of if, how, and whether Congress can hog-tie these media cowboys with regulations. The lasso is on the lawmakers to come up with a practical tech-policy solution. Hopefully, with the cooperation of more wranglers like Mr. Dorsey and Ms. Sandberg, cowboy justice won’t be needed in taming the Wild, Wild West.