Sen. Warner’s Platform Regulation: A good step forward, but what about ISPs?

Sen Mark Warner’s (D-VA) proposals to regulate social media platforms are by far the most ambitious to come from Congress. ProMarket gathered three experts to discuss the pros and cons. Below is the reaction of Beton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate Gigi Sohn:

I think there’s a lot of compatibility between Senator Warner’s proposals and mine. We agree on the need for transparency of algorithms and accountability for the harm that algorithms cause. We agree on the need for consumer privacy protections (although not necessarily on the specifics). We agree on the need for data transparency and portability, on the duty to label bots and disclosure for political ads and the need for the government to fund media literacy programs. I am not sure how much the government can solve the problem of people believing everything they read, but I think teaching people how to be critical of what they see on social media should be taught starting in the first grade. 

That being said, though I agree with an awful lot of what’s in that paper, I don’t agree with everything that’s in it. Where I get a little bit nervous is some of the discussions about the duty to determine the origin of posts and accounts. There may be very good reasons why people are posting anonymously, particularly if they’re living under repressive government regimes. I think Senator Warner recognizes this problem and that the ability to speak anonymously is part of the right to free speech and the right to privacy.