The Law of Unintended (Social Media) Consequences

Before 2018, social media platforms – intermediaries through which people posted their content and interacted with each other – were not legally liable for what was posted on them thanks to Section 230 of the United States’ Telecommunications Act, which protected their intermediary status. In 2018, FOSTA/SESTA changed this for a specific type of content: anything promoting sex trafficking. Sounds great, right? Except that, in trying to prevent being seen to promote sex trafficking, social media platforms have begun censoring everything from sex work to sex education, from journalism to performance art. In this talk, digital criminologist and platform governance researcher Dr Carolina Are (@bloggeronpole) will talk about the unintended online and offline consequences of regulating against a specific type of content in a space largely ruled by private companies, such as platforms. Dr Are’s talk will highlight flaws within FOSTA/SESTA and within the in-platform laws – also known as community standards or guidelines – that social media companies drafted after its approval, revealing the social and practical impact of regulating over nuanced content through a moral panic based approach.