Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy

One of the most fiercely debated issues of this era is what to do about “bad” speech–hate speech, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and incitement of violence–on the Internet, primarily speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone have gathered an eminent cast of contributors to explore the various dimensions of this problem in the American context. They stress how difficult it is to develop remedies given that some of these forms of “bad” speech are ordinarily protected by the First Amendment. Bollinger and Stone argue that it is important to remember that the last time we encountered a major new communications technology we established a federal agency to provide oversight and to issue regulations to protect and promote “the public interest.”