Do Social Media Platforms Have Civic Responsibilities?

Christine Rosen 

Private companies such as Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), Twitter, Snapchat, and the like are clearly not traditional civic institutions. They have users, not citizens; they offer terms of service, not rights; users have no duties to the platform beyond the surrender of their time and attention; and technology companies have great leeway when it comes to content moderation and censorship of users who violate those terms of service. They are for-profit businesses, not institutions devoted to the public good.

And yet the language of civics often infuses discussions of the power and impact of these platforms, and the leaders of these companies often invoke civic virtues to define their missions (and craft a more compelling public-relations narrative). “People see Twitter as a public square, and therefore they have expectations that they would have of a public square,” Twitter’s Jack Dorsey told Rolling Stone.¹ He later expanded that assessment, arguing, “Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness.”² Elon Musk repeated the public-square claim during his bid to acquire the platform: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

Such invocations of the public square or the town square by the founders of technology companies are not necessarily disingenuous, but they are misleading. These executives use familiar language about civic values even as their platforms at times allow or encourage behavior that actively undermines those values..............To Read More...