regulation – Media Matters

February 18, 2021February 18, 2021

Passing of a Radio Legend

Love him or hate him, Rush Limbaugh was a talk radio legend. His death yesterday at the age of 70 due to complications from lung cancer marks the end of an era for conservative talk radio. Long before social media brought its brand of polarization to the political landscape, Limbaugh was a master at using the megaphone of terrestrial radio to channel and shape conservative thought.

The repeal of the fairness doctrine in 1987 made Limbaugh’s rise possible. Before that regulatory change, broadcasters were obligated to give access to opposing views. According to the Congressional Research Service, the fairness doctrine required broadcasters to, “devote a reasonable portion of broadcast time to the discussion and consideration of controversial issues of public importance” and “affirmatively endeavor to make … facilities available for the expression of contrasting viewpoints held by responsible elements with respect to the controversial issues” (cited in Poynter). Once the fairness doctrine was no longer in place, broadcasters (specifically AM radio station owners) found that partisan political talk was a viable business model.

Among his many critics, Limbaugh was feared and reviled. According to the Washington Post,

“He saw himself as a teacher, polemicist, media critic and GOP strategist, but above all as an entertainer and salesman. Mr. Limbaugh mocked Democrats and liberals, touted a traditional Midwestern, moralistic patriotism and presented himself on the air as a biting but jovial know-it-all who pontificated ‘with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair,’ as he often said.”
Marc Fisher

And among is most strident critics, Limbaugh was the embodiment of all that was wrong with right-wing extremism. According to Shannon Watts, an anti-gun activist, “Rush Limbaugh helped create today’s polarized America by normalizing racism, bigotry, misogyny and mockery. He was a demagogue who got rich off of hate speech, division, lies and toxicity. That is his legacy.”

But controversy sells, and Limbaugh’s success was well documented. According to the Morning Brew newsletter, Limbaugh earned $85 million/year and his show was the most-listened-to US radio talk show in 2020, with more than 20 million monthly listeners.

January 11, 2021January 11, 2021

Big Tech, Political Polarization, and the Assault on Democracy

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Zuboff and Why We’re Polarized by Klein

I’ve been catching up on some reading over the holiday break and two books that caught my attention are proving to be quite helpful to understanding the recent events in our nation’s capitol. What we’re witnessing is shocking, but not surprising, to those who have paid attention to the ever-increasing power exerted by Big Tech over every detail of our lives, including our political identities.

Big Tech is shorthand for the companies that control much of our everyday lives through their use of software and hardware designed to capture and hold our attention. And speaking of attention, if I were to add another recent title that addresses this concern it would be The Attention Merchants, by Tim Wu.

By gathering the massive amount of data generated every minute of every day by billions of users, these companies have tapped into a resource that they have turned against us to predict and control our future behavior. Siloing, creation of filter bubbles, nudging users towards certain behaviors, shadow-banning (and now more overt actions to disenfranchise users) are just some of the ways that Big Tech is meddling in the political process. If that sounds like a radical conspiracy theory to you, I urge you to read these books and then we can have a conversation.

And while all of us can agree that what transpired this past week in the halls of congress was both dangerous and disgusting, reasonable people continue to disagree about how to respond to controversial political speech on the leading tech platforms. The ban of the President of the United State by numerous platforms, regardless of your opinions about Trump himself, is cause for concern and should not be taken lightly.

Similarly while the attack on right-wing alternative platforms, e.g. Parler, by Amazon, Apple and Google, may feel like a reasonable and perfectly legal response to unhinged speech that calls for political violence, the danger is to further marginalize and force underground a movement that has enormous popular support.

I’m not suggesting that racists, white-nationalists, and anarchists should have a seat at the table, but I am suggesting that unelected leaders of a few massive tech companies cannot be trusted to make decisions about who gets to participate in our political discourse. This time they may appear to be on your side, but what about when the tables are turned? We’ve given these tech platforms enormous power over the future of our democracy…and that makes me very concerned.

December 9, 2020December 9, 2020

Stern & Depp is not a Law Firm

Howard Stern and Johnny Depp are two familiar names in the media business…and they’re both making news. Stern, the self-proclaimed “King of All Media” just signed a new contract for SiriusXM satellite radio for something like $120M/year for 5 years. That’s a lot of $$ for a radio host who talks smack for a living. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Stern announced the deal on his show yesterday morning…

Howard Stern acknowledges the audience at the 2018 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at Cleveland Public Auditorium, Saturday, April 14, 2018, in Cleveland. (Photo by Michael Zorn/Invision/AP)

“Fifteen years ago, I joined SiriusXM, a fledgling group of broadcasters. I had been in a toxic relationship with terrestrial radio,” Stern said. “And no matter how well I treated the medium, no matter how successful I made them, they abused me. Going to SiriusXM liberated me. I felt like Tina Turner freeing myself from Ike.”

Stern has never been at a loss for words…including spicy words that are much more welcome on satellite radio than terrestrial radio where FCC regulations placed some restraints on his speech.

But whether Stern is worth $600M is yet to be proven. Again, according to Hollywood Reporter, “…a recent report estimated that 15 percent of Stern listeners could cancel their SiriusXM subscriptions if he left the company, ‘implying a potential subscriber loss of 2.7 million.’”

Johnny Depp is also in the news, but no doubt wishes he were not. Depp had filed a defamation lawsuit against the British tabloid The Sun for an article describing him as a “wife beater.” According to the ruling judge, as reported in the Hollywood Reporter, “The claimant has not succeeded in his action for libel. Although he has proved the necessary elements of his cause of action in libel, the defendants have shown that what they published in the meaning which I have held the words to bear was substantially true.” The burden of proof for celebrities to win defamation lawsuits has always been a challenge, but in cases where the accusations are true, they’re nearly impossible. Depp plans to appeal.

October 20, 2020October 20, 2020

Section 230 is Under Attack

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law passed during the Clinton administration, is under attack from both the left and the right. President Trump wants to revise Section 230 because of what he believes is unfair throttling of conservative news by liberal tech platforms. And liberal legislators want to revise Section 230 to make it more difficult to post “hate speech” on these same platforms.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have been blamed for everything wrong about these leading social media platforms. We could debate whether they deserve the blame, but we can’t deny that they are caught between a rock and a hard place. One one hand, they love Section 230 because it removes corporate responsibility for content published on their platforms by users. On the other hand, they worry about the future of a platform that could becomes a free-for-all without any ability to control the most poisonous content. They want to be free to limit obscene pornography, dangerous speech, libel, and other content not protected by the 1st Amendment, but they don’t want to be responsible for damage that might be caused by speech that comes close, without crossing, the line. According to the Recode website…

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that his agency would “move forward with a rulemaking to clarify” the meaning of Section 230, which gives internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter immunity from lawsuits over content their users provide. That is to say, if someone defames you in a tweet, you can sue the Twitter user but not Twitter itself. This 25-year-old law is what allows websites that rely on third-party content to exist at all. It also allows those sites to moderate that content as they see fit, which has been a source of ire for conservatives who believe they are being censored when Facebook bans them, YouTube demonetizes them, or Twitter appends fact-checks to their tweets.

The most recent fuss over Section 230 involves Hunter Biden’s laptop that was left with a computer repair shop. The shop owner turned the contents of the hard drive over to an attorney with connections to former NYC major Rudy Giuliani, who turned the information over the the New York Post, a tabloid newspaper with a less-than-sterling reputation. The last-minute release of Hillary Clinton’s emails by Wikileaks, (amplified by James Comey and the FBI), just days before the 2016 election is believed to have been a factor leading to the election of President Donald Trump, and social media platforms don’t want to facilitate a repeat of that outcome. Twitter prevented sharing of the New York Post’s stories based on the idea that the data was obtained by hacking, (not technically accurate), but a few days later apologized for not communicating more clearly and then reversed their policy. Facebook continues to restrict sharing on their platform because they claim that they are unable to verify the accuracy of the claims alleged by the NY Post.

As you can see, there is no easy solution to this dilemma…and many other current debates. Facebook just recently announced they will take a tougher stance on holocaust denialism, anti-vaccine posts, and QAnon conspiracy pages. But this is a slippery slope for platforms. Once you begin deciding what is true and appropriate and permissible, you open yourself to criticism from all sides.

November 6, 2019November 6, 2019

Zuckerberg v Dorsey, round 1

Jack Dorsey, head of Twitter, just announced that political advertising will not be allowed on his platform. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook, will allow political ads and has taken a hands-off approach to policing political ads for false or deceptive content. The stakes are high and the debate is contentious.

Regardless of your political views, you can easily see how these different policies are complicated by very real and important foundational issues. First up is freedom of speech. In the US Constitution, freedom of speech as enshrined in the First Amendment is at the center of this debate. First and foremost the First Amendment protects political speech…which includes political advertisements. Those who are First Amendment absolutists argue that the solution to wrong speech is not banning speech. Rather, the solution is to allow MORE speech. In the end, they argue, truth will win out as long as everyone is free to speak and present their views. Score one for Zuckerberg

If you have a lower view of human nature you might argue, yeah, but advertising is paid speech, and those with the most money can afford the most advertising and most sophisticated advertising strategies and campaigns. Free speech is great, but allowing people with money to distribute political messages to the masses without any responsibility to speak truthfully will result in many people being deceived and manipulated for political ends. Score one for Dorsey

I could go on but am more interested in your thoughts. Which of the arguments articulated by Zuckerberg and Dorsey resonate with you?

October 2, 2019October 2, 2019

Concern over Movie is no Joker

According to the MPAA movie-ratings site, Joker is “rated R for strong bloody violence, disturbing behavior, language and brief sexual images.” Scheduled to open in theaters this Friday (Oct 4th), Joker is not an appropriate film for youngsters who may be fans of the Batman franchise.

“Starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Todd Phillips, the movie has already been deemed dangerous by its vocal critics, akin to an incel training manual. To some of the movie’s fans, those critical reviews and negative reactions are just another example of social justice warrior overreach. “
Vox

Concerns over dangerous media content have a long history going all the way back to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato who warned about the dangers of writing. Plato was concerned that writing would be a substitute for memory and over time result in forgetfulness. Centuries later, photography was seen as facilitating the sin of idolatry. Motion pictures (film) introduced young audiences to all sorts of vices including lust and violence. Comic books, radio, TV, internet and video games have all suffered the same accusations of endangering young hearts and minds.

But just because we’ve come to dismiss the dangers and fears associated with each new technology does not mean that we should dismiss real threats when they arise. Bullying on social media, addiction to video game play or pornography, and racism and misogyny promoted in anonymous chat rooms and forums: each of these are real threats to physical and mental health and, one can argue, a threat to community.

Based on the trailers for Joker some are questioning whether the film gives too much attention (and cover) to “disaffected white men” whose alienation leads them to act out to get attention. The following tweets capture this sentiment.

In response to criticism the Warner Bros. studio offered this statement.
“Warner Bros. believes that one of the functions of storytelling is to provoke difficult conversations around complex issues. Make no mistake: neither the fictional character Joker, nor the film, is an endorsement of real-world violence of any kind. It is not the intention of the film, the filmmakers or the studio to hold this character up as a hero.”

Not being a big fan of superhero movies–and not one to enjoy gore and extreme violence–I’ll likely sit this one out. But if you see it I’ll be interested to hear what you think. Is it a dangerous film, or are the critics who are passing judgement a greater danger to our collective well-being?

August 21, 2019August 21, 2019

If You Build it They Will Come

If you build the most powerful propaganda platform in the history of communication and make it available for free to a global audience, don’t be surprise when anyone and everyone shows up to use (and abuse) your platform. That’s what social media giants Facebook, Twitter and Google are discovering as yet another attempt to manipulate users has been revealed.

According to recent reports, Twitter said it will no longer accept advertising from from “state-controlled news media entities” after it was discovered that China was attempting to use Twitter and Facebook to engage in orchestrated misinformation around the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. This comes on the heels of repeated reports of Russian use of social media to influence political campaigns and elections in the USA and elsewhere.

The question now is whether these huge tech companies can put the genie back in the bottle. Or will regulation, new AI technology, or some other solution have to appear before we can feel confident that freedom and democracy are safe from the actions of nefarious state actors?

June 18, 2019June 18, 2019

Content Moderation and Shadow Banning

If you’ve spent any time on social media you’ve no doubt seen and heard things that were offensive and, quite possibly, even dangerous. Assuming you live in the USA, you also know that the “constitutional” right to Free Speech is a well-established right that goes to the heart of who we are and what we value. The challenge then is to know the fine line between constitutionally protected speech, and speech that is so harmful or dangerous as to pose a credible threat to actual life or property.

Social media platforms know that they do not have an obligation to grant users their “constitutional” rights. While their very size and oligopolistic nature give us cause for concern, they are not the government* and users are free to pick and choose which platforms and services they want to use. Those platforms are, likewise, allowed to make policies that allow certain types of speech and disallow others. Users who fail to abide by those policies can be warned, suspended, or banned.

So what to do about reports that platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and even Pinterest are banning or demonetizing users who have come to reply on these platforms for their livelihood? In extreme cases such as death threats, doxing, and online bullying/harassment, the actions taken by these social media platforms appear to be justified. But what about provocative posts that deploy humor or satire to make a political statement? And what about users who fail to adhere to a standard that is difficult (some say impossible) to understand because it is so subjective?

According to a recent essay by Will Oremus,

The underlying problem of our platforms is not that they’re too conservative or too liberal, too dogmatic or too malleable. It’s that giant, for-profit tech companies, as currently constructed, are simply not suited to the task of deciding unilaterally what speech is acceptable and what isn’t.

On top of this is the fact that these are global platforms struggling to satisfy laws and regulations in an extremely wide range of contexts. Political, cultural, religious, ethnic and racial differences make it nearly impossible to avoid offending some segment of a potential audience that could reach into the billions. And too often it is the loudest voices, regardless of the strength of their argument, that get the most attention.

Again, according to Oremus…

In a good legal system, decisions may be controversial, but at least the rationale is clearly laid out, and there’s a body of case law to serve as context. But when Facebook decides to de-amplify a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or YouTube opts to demonetize Steven Crowder’s channel, there’s no way to check whether those decisions are consistent with the way they’ve interpreted their rules in the past, and there’s no clear, codified way to appeal those decisions.

So, if you’re easily offended by either gritty content or over-aggressive thought policing…or if you’re counting on a social media platform to help you build an audience and then treat you fairly when you want to push the envelope, remember…you get what you pay for.

*For more about the distinction between government and private industry and the legality of regulating speech, see this article by Reuters.