The Ethics of Social Media Regulation

Abstract

Citizens can utilise social media to influence government decision-making in the public interest. Multiple efficacious campaigns, such as those for stricter gun laws, greater regulation over the financial sector or Brexit, have shown that it can be an effective instrument for public mobilisation. It is in the public interest that public authorities be able to monitor social media, though channel options need to be adequately defined to avoid an abusive exploitation of the life and system of end-users. However, obligations incumbent on service providers are lighter since services are usually not provided by states. It is important in consideration of any future regulation of social media that clear distinctions are drawn when applying the life and system cap so as not to overburden social media or to prevent end-users from being able to avail the diversity of ideas expressed on social media. Thus applied, they offer an additional possibility but are unlikely to be very efficacious Efforts to curb the dissemination of "fake news" can be detrimental to independently verified information and thus the public interest. Efforts taken to address specious news, or the "fake news" syndrome, should be fundamentally different to those undertaken to combat that which is truly "fake news", or the purely fictional. But it cuts the other way that social media is a nascent phenomenon still being defined, literally, as to what it is. Taking a repressive direction in the first instance of suppressing freedom of speech, including that on social media, may also disadvantage public interest.

 Keywords ethics, social media, regulation, public interest, misinformation, freedom of speech, accountability, governance.