The return of the South By Southwest Festival in Austin this week has brought Big Tech back into the spotlight. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was among the tech titans who spoke at SXSW, but it's hardly a love fest. Critics on the left and right have blasted big tech platforms over free speech and anti-trust issues, with many calling for more government regulation.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has only amplified the issues with Big Tech and social media, with platforms scrambling to remove content linked to Russia or Russian "disinformation," even as other violent content remains. Facebook just announced this week that it will no longer allow posts calling for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Will Duffield, policy analyst at the CATO Institute, says these social media companies are essentially trying to police themselves, while monitoring the content of millions of users simultaneously. "I think a lot of the frustration comes not from the rules themselves, but how they are, or seem to be, applied," he says. "And in many cases these decisions are being made by algorithms rather than people, so if you end up on the wrong end of a mistake, there's very little redress."
Many critics have called for platforms to remove all content moderation and allow all forms of speech, except that which constitutes a crime. But Duffield argues that is not realistic for any platform. "I mean, in order to have a community dedicated to anything, you have to at least exclude what's considered off-topic or spam," he tells KTRH. Indeed, even Donald Trump's new TRUTH Social platform comes with a list of rules and restrictions for content.
There are bipartisan calls for new legislation to rein in Big Tech, but Duffield is skeptical of one-size-fits-all government regulation. "If you impose new regulations, they're going to affect the whole marketplace," he says. "So you'll end up with fewer options and ultimately, less speech, not more."