'Lost in the marketplace of ideas: Towards a new constitution for free speech after Trump and Twitter?'. (May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Macedo, Stephen
• Other Names: Ferrara Alessandro guest-editor.; Kaul Volker guest-editor.; Rasmussen David guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Philosophy & social criticism. Volume 48:Number 4(2022)
• Page Start: 496
• Page End: 514
• Publication Date: 2022-05
• Subjects: Free speech -- social media -- polarization -- populism -- democracy -- hate speech -- Facebook -- conspiracy theories; Philosophy -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; 300.1
• DOI: 10.1177/01914537221089363
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0191-4537

Abstract

Democracy is in crisis and one core feature is a communications crisis: a failure of institutions to reliably generate and curate the circulation of information and communications. Capitalism, the internet and Covid have all been unkind to journalism: newspapers and their reporters have been decimated. Newer media – such as Facebook, Twitter and Google – have amassed enormous power in a remarkably short time. They are the new gatekeepers of free expression, as witnessed by the Twitter ban of Donald Trump. Social media platforms are also the bullhorns of disinformation: they seem to exacerbate polarization, sow distrust, speed the spread of misinformation and encourage conspiracist thinking. Can the media companies be trusted to self-regulate? What alternatives do we have? I argue in the end that the Facebook Oversight Board offers a hopeful model.