Social media and online regulation

Question 1

what is the role of the media in democracy? quote?

Answer 1

ensures the free flow of information and plays a key role in holding powers to account
Fisher and Gaber ‘strategic lying’ 2021 = without provision of reliable info, voters are unable to make informed decisions at ballot box

Question 2

how many heads of state posted how many tweets between january 2019 and june 2020? according to who?

Answer 2

34 heads of state posted 31,000 tweets
- European Parliament 2021 - Drachenberg and Phillips

Question 3

misinformation v disinformation?

Answer 3

mis - false info spread without intent
dis - verifiably false info intentionally spread

Question 4

levels of trust in UK/EU v USA

Answer 4

UK/EU
- relatively high levels of trust
- polarisation not huge issue
USA
- very little trust in traditional media
- partisan polarisation levels widened recently

Question 5

disruption of traditional media’s role/engagement?

Answer 5

55% of americans use social media for news
those who do know less about politics and rely more on/are more exposed to conspiracy and lies
- less engaged with traditional media - could argue opposite as this is just one study in the USA so not representative
(tom infield 2020)

Question 6

what are cyber troops?

Answer 6

used to try to manipulate public opinion over social media
using of political bots to amplify hate speech, deploy trolls to suppress political activism or freedom of press

Question 7

using social media to spread propaganda and lies? argument against?

Answer 7

though lying has always been an issue, social media has changed the scale and made it much more efficient and precise i.e., through deep fakes and trolling

although Social media can enhance the use of computational propaganda (polarisation, distrust and decline of democracy) these issues pre-date social media

Question 8

how many countries use social media to spread disinformation or computational propaganda? and cyber troops?

Answer 8

81 countries
70 using cyber troops

Question 9

how is social media combatting?

Answer 9

removal of 317,000 accounts
Bailey. Bradshaw Howard, 2020 ‘industrialised disinformation’

Question 10

what is strategic lying?

Answer 10

misleading info with a strategic political use
‘step beyond acceptable politician lies’

Question 11

what is the goal of strategic lying?

Answer 11

to set agenda, prime issue - 1st with attention grabbing lie, 2nd the rebuttal which ensures spread of lie
the crazier the better - it’s veracity is irrelevant

Question 12

social media v traditional media for strategic lying?

Answer 12

traditional
1. messages more general and thus less impactful
2. easier to scrutinise as less overwhelming

social:
1. more sharply target
2. less scrutiny as too much info to fact check everything
3. correcting false statements has little impact on how people vote
4. conformation bias - do not remember correction, only lie which supports their beliefs
(Fisher and Gaber 2021 ‘strategic lying’

Question 13

USA Strategic lying example

Answer 13

Trump and election (Jan 6th insurrection)
- lies about voter fraud from democrats if they win
- democrats won and though clearly false, so many people believed it was voter fraud despite huge margin difference and FBI, Homeland etc saying it was the most secure election in history

Question 14

UK Strategic Lying Examples?

Answer 14

BREXIT:
- lies about NHS spending
- when it was corrected, it only legitimised the claim and gathered more attention
2019 ELECTION:
- doctored image of Keir Starmer stuttering
- Tory’s used ‘dead cat strategy’ to take heat off them
(Clark et al 2015 ‘austerity in Britain’)

Question 15

UK Online Safety Bill and its issues

Answer 15

• wants to make UK safe online and to encourage growth of online businesses
  ISSUES:
• does not consider business models of tech companies (get more money for interactions)
• arguably does not do enough
• focuses more on types of speech?

Question 16

USA : Texas and Florida
what laws are trying to achieve and their scope?

Answer 16

laws: try to limit social media companies ability to decide which content appears on their platforms
T - silencing republican views is un-American and trying to ban tech companies from doing it
F - trying to combat ‘biased’ silencing of freedom of speech by big tech

SCOPE
T- broad, goes after companies, stops anyone being censored
F - content moderation - cannot de-platform political candidates, or remove anything posted by a journalistic enterprise

Question 17

aim of USA litigation

Answer 17

T - trying to protect citizens
F - same as Texas but also want to stop big tech unfairly censoring people

Question 18

summary regarding USA laws about social media companies

Answer 18

1. companies arguing it violates 1st amendment
2. first significant efforts by states to regulate SM companies
3. essentially the laws want to prevent companies from removing certain content, limit use of algorithms, and require publication about content moderation practices
4. differences between SMC and NP means SMC are out with 1st amendment protection which is wrong

Question 19

Jaffer and Wilkens opinions on Texas and Florida’s new laws

Answer 19

1. more of an attempt to punish certain companies for their supposed political leanings instead of addressing the power that companies wield over public discourse
2. should strike down florida and texas arguments and also reject the SMC’s broader arguments

Question 20

social media companies arguments against the new USA laws

Answer 20

1. think courts should extend first amendment rights that newspapers get (very broad) to themselves
2. any law that burdens their editorial judgment should be unconstitutional

Question 21

issues with social media companies’ arguments

Answer 21

1. they are very different to newspapers
   - they are vehicles for others’ speech rather than their own
   - disparity in scale of content (newspapers post a few hundred articles but social media platforms can post millions