Social media has caused seismic changes in how the world communicates and interacts across digital platforms. Many experts consider these changes to be revolutionary, positioning social media platforms as channels essential for maintaining democratic self expression and free speech.
Despite the benefits of social media platforms, there’s been no shortage of criticism leveraged against these platforms and the technology companies behind them, especially in recent years.
Social media platforms have been blamed for facilitating the spread of fake news, conspiracy theories around elections, and have further been host to concerted online harassment and cyberbullying. Stacking up these negative impacts, social media detractors have called for governmental regulation.
In this article we’ll explore the current state of efforts to regulate social media platforms, the benefits and drawbacks of regulatory efforts for business leaders, and the significant and far-reaching implications of how regulation will impact digital marketing experts efforts to use social platforms in future marketing efforts.
The current state of social media regulation
The call for social media regulation emerges out of bipartisan efforts to control how the companies managing social media platforms handle sensitive issues. Regardless of the criticism, detractors often call out tech companies for violating First Amendment protections whenever someone experiences either outright censorship or some other method for controlling what content users view or read.
Other criticisms blame social media companies for not taking a strong enough stance against content considered to be harassing, false, or otherwise detrimental to one demographic or another.
On both sides of this discussion, there is an increasing call for social media platforms to either self-regulate or face official government regulatory oversight
Social media platforms self-regulate to varying degrees
Despite the freedoms afforded to social media companies as privately owned businesses, there is an increasing call from government regulatory agencies for social media platforms to change internal policies to better police themselves.
However, digital entities are protected on the Internet by a law passed by Congress in 1996 as part of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). This law provides protection by ensuring that:
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
While this act does protect social platforms, and as private entities they do have the ability to determine what content they will and won’t allow, each platform chooses how they go about protecting their users, and every platform handles this differently in accordance with their community guidelines and content policies.
Across hate speech, obscenity, and misinformation incidents, YouTube has shown the most willingness to limit the visibility of content and constrain user activity. When it comes to harassment, however, Meta products Facebook and Instagram are the most aggressive at handling unwanted behavior designed to degrade or humiliate others, but maintain a middle of the road stance on hate speech, obscenity, and misinformation.
Bipartisan efforts to regulate social media facing aggressive opposition from Tech Lobby
There are numerous legislative efforts in the works at both the state and federal level to place various regulatory requirements on social platforms.
Texas and Florida’s attempts to limit censorship
Texas law HB 20, originally passed in September 2021, was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in September 2022. The Texas law creates liability for social media platforms’ moderation practices if the platform is found to be limiting or censoring specific ideologies.
The decision considered content moderation “censorship,” despite such a decision being preempted at the Federal level as outlined above.
Florida legislators attempted to pass a similar law around the same time, Florida Senate Bill 7072, that would modify the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA).
The change would require social platforms to notify users when content was removed or a user was censored or deplatformed, and notify the user of the reasons for such actions. It also attempted to prevent platforms from removing political candidates as users. The Eleventh Circuit decision returned a different response to appeals efforts than that returned in Texas, and the law was found to be unconstitutional.
The disparity between the Eleventh and Fifth Circuit rulings was used by interested parties to convince the Supreme Court that there was a precedent for upholding a stay in both cases, which resulted in the Fifth Circuit case being placed in a holding pattern as well.
Other legislation and lawsuits in play
There are a number of other bills and court cases that states are attempting to bring to bear in efforts to control and limit the behaviors of the companies managing social platforms. A few of the most notable examples:
- A California law became effective in January 2023 that requires social media platforms to share their policies relative to hate speech, extremism, and disinformation policies as part of their service terms.
- The Federal government has banned TikTok on all government-issued devices for recreational purposes.
- The Kids Online Safety Act was introduced in 2022 and is still under consideration. The bill requires social media platforms to provide minors and their parents with safeguards to protect the experience of children on social platforms. The bill would require platforms to allow users to report harm, require that they refrain from advertising to minors products or services that are illegal for them to use, and to report annually on risks of harm to minors that might appear on their platform.
Using the “common carrier” argument to make a case for future government regulation
An increasing refrain of those looking to regulate social media platforms is that the platforms have evolved to the point that they could be considered common carriers. Common carriers are service providers that transport goods for anyone who pays them a fee. Traditionally, common carriers have included railway services, airlines, taxi services, transportation fleet owners, and mail services such as USPS, UPS, and FedEx.
In the modern era, with data and information increasingly being considered a commodity, most will agree that social media platforms play a crucial role in the movement of data and that–as resources and services–they provide as much value as any of the above named services.
What lawmakers and service providers aren’t aligned on is whether social media platforms have evolved to such a degree as to be critical transport services. If so, should they be equally regulated with the intent of ensuring equal access to economic resources and products?
Lawmakers and critics of social media argue that, in addition to being vital to social interaction, social media platforms are central to the American economy as they are a primary method of connecting with and advertising to potential customers.
On the opposite end of the argument, social media supporters point to the decision in the Florida case of NetChoice LLC vs Attorney General, State of Florida, where the Appeals Court prioritized protecting the First Amendment rights of social platforms over allowing states to bypass and violate those rights.
What business leaders should be aware of regarding social media regulation
At their core, social media platforms act as a broker of information and a framework upon which content owners and creators can post information and marketing materials in order to connect with targeted audiences and monetize those interactions.
As technology companies such as Meta and Google rarely create this content themselves, forcing regulation on the technology companies will have very real and direct implications for businesses leveraging the platforms in their digital marketing strategies.
Regardless of which side you might find yourself on the issue of regulating social media, it’s important you understand what it could mean for your long-term approach to digital marketing.
Benefits of regulating social media platforms
Regulations can bring some arguably necessary changes to how social media platforms function.
Improving content accuracy and minimizing misinformation
We’ve already made a strong case for the crucial role that social media platforms play in the dissemination of information and the flow of data. Social channels therefore are only as valuable as the data and information users can discover while interacting across those platforms.
An increased proliferation of misinformation across multiple channels has been the basis for many arguments to regulate social media companies and hold them accountable for the content they host.
Much of the justification revolves around the effectiveness of social media algorithms used to deliver content to users, and how the resulting echo chambers can spin up on a foundation of misinformation and result in it spreading virally across the platform.
Regulation efforts toward ensuring that information is accurate and fairly distributed is a step towards ensuring social media platforms retain a sense of legitimacy and accuracy, restoring public faith in them as a source of accurate information.
“Regulations could lead to better consumer protections, a higher level of standardization, a reduction in harmful and false content, fairer competition (hypothetically), more accountability leading to more responsible and ethical use of social media. It can enhance public trust for social platforms and improve national security and election integrity.” —Megan Killion, Chief Consultant, MKC Agency
This would be an improvement that would benefit companies that rely on social media channels for advertising, as the 2022 Integral Ad Science’s IAS Industry Pulse Report showed that 77% of media experts agree that eroding consumer trust in major social platforms negatively impacts media spending.
“As a creative agency, we focus on adapting to the future, not clinging to old ideas. While misinformation is rampant, the idea of regulating it through the government has the potential to interfere with crucial cultural conversations…cultural conversions that move us forward as a society could theoretically be squashed within days. Censorship is not the answer, rather education is the answer.” —Benjamin Gibson, Creative Director/Video Producer, Toronto Creatives
Improve community standards and force transparency, accuracy in advertising
In addition to improving accuracy of the information, regulatory efforts would go a long way towards ensuring technology companies maintain a sense of transparency in their goals and how their platforms operate.
For business owners, this would mean that they would have to be more stringent with the accuracy of their advertising and claims made about the effectiveness of their products or services, as social media platforms will be forced to ensure the accuracy and value of such claims.
“This all depends on the type of regulation being reviewed, but generally the main two benefits of social media regulation are a reduction in harmful content such as slander, hate speech which is designed to impact brand and reputation, and secondly to improve transparency and accountability by requiring companies to disclose information about their practices and activities, and by holding them responsible for any violations” —Matt Brickwood, CTO, Spring Digital Pty Ltd.
Disrupt the power dynamic between consumers and technology companies
Under current circumstances, there is little incentive for technology companies to self-regulate and make necessary changes. Businesses are seeing profitability and users aren’t abandoning social media platforms despite rampant misinformation campaigns and manipulation from bad actors, which speaks to how integral and central social media platforms have become at a socioeconomic level.
Instituting regulations to force platforms to provide balanced narratives and accurate information will help stabilize consumer behavior on those platforms and ensure businesses are getting the value out of the marketing spend they expect.
“Businesses that rely heavily on social media to generate leads and acquire customers are at the mercy of the platforms. The lack of control over their sales funnel results in a volatile revenue stream, and new regulations that interfere with marketing can dry up these companies’ pipelines overnight. Diversification is the best defense. By incorporating a multichannel marketing strategy, you can maintain a steady flow of opportunities while adjusting to changes in social media regulation.” —Vito Vishnepolsky, Founder and Director, Martal Group
Drawbacks of government regulation over social media platforms
Despite some of these benefits, opponents of government regulation argue that the negatives outweigh the benefits.
Regulation prevents efficient customer experience and impacts profitability
While detractors often point to social platforms behaving like monopolies, the reality is that economists do consider social platforms to be natural monopolies. Natural monopolies benefit all involved stakeholders by centralizing and aggregating supply and demand into less channels, ensuring profitability and ease of commerce. This might not remain the case with excessive regulation, especially for small businesses.
“There are two factors that regulation will most assuredly have a negative effect on. First, compliance with new regulations can be expensive for businesses, particularly smaller firms that may lack the resources to invest in compliance. It will tear into small business profitability. Secondly, regulations mean restrictions on innovation. Regulations could limit the ability of social media platforms to innovate and develop new features and functionality, which could impact the user experience and limit the potential benefits of social media.” —Simon Kadota, Digital Marketing Specialist, DNSnetworks
Imposing regulations and restrictions over eCommerce and content accessed through social media platforms might place restrictions on the types of products and services that can be found through social channels.
Government regulation allows politicians to co-opt and weaponize social media platforms
Regulation introduces government oversight into extremely powerful channels of communication. Setting laws that dictate how social media platforms should manage content and setting standards to ensure the accuracy of communication would introduce ongoing instability into what should be a market-driven and predictable communications tool.
Allowing constantly shifting priorities and ideological-driven agendas to dictate how social media platforms behave risks those platforms being co-opted in the exact ways regulations would be designed to prevent.
“Social media cannot and should not be governmentally regulated or controlled…Creating lies, spins, half-truths, improper regulation, or straying away from what the company should be focused on doing, there may be far reaching and more costly ramifications. Social media posting is like dealing with a loaded gun in the hands of a child, handled with extreme care.” —Robert Williams, Owner, Williams Web Solutions
Transparency through regulation doesn’t necessarily pave the way for the truth
The argument against regulation is often focused around First Amendment freedoms, while the call for regulations are intended to introduce transparency into how social media platforms manage content and deliver information to users.
While this might seem like a long-term solution, forcing transparency doesn’t solve the underlying issues in how content is prioritized and delivered to users.
It’s vital that any efforts to regulate platforms start with ensuring that a narrative of truth will be able to gain as much relevance and digital momentum through the algorithms that boosted the false narrative in the first place.
Unless this happens, and fact-driven narratives are able to gain visibility to negate lies and misinformation disseminated by bad actors, then users on social media will continue to remain trapped in algorithm-constructed echo chambers that only perpetuate the very environment that has led users to lose trust in these platforms and fueled the desire for regulation.
“If rules to regulate social media are too strict, then the lack of freedom could cause user engagement to drop significantly. Most of the current conversations around this are in regard to targeting and data privacy though, not content. As long as advertisers focus on creating meaningful, high quality content that leaves a lasting impression with their audience, they should be able to find success even with strict data privacy laws and remain compliant.” —Chris Suglia, Co-Owner, Happy Hub Marketing
Consider social media platform regulation when building future social media marketing strategies
You and your team already have the challenge of brand building and navigating the ever changing landscape of client demands while struggling to grow your customer base and protect your bottom line.
It’s important to stay up to speed on what’s going on regarding the regulation of social media, so that business owners might understand how regulatory changes might impact current and future business models.
“The best thing business leaders can do to prepare for this change is to stay informed. This can help anticipate and prepare for changes. We should also be reviewing our current practices to see what might be vulnerable. As responsible business leaders we should always be conscious of our data privacy regulations.” —Steve Frederick, Creative Director, Bloom Media
Remaining informed will not only help your business and your clients remain ahead of any regulations, it will also allow you to create strategies that are uniform across your brand.
“It’s important to maintain an open dialogue between various departments so everyone is on the same page about regulations. This can help business leaders create cohesive strategies that meet compliance requirements while still staying competitive in their industry.” —Geno Parmentier, Web Designer, iLocalEverywhere
Regulations have not only required marketing experts to be more deliberate, but it’s also helped them to focus on what’s most important in marketing, which is helping to develop stronger relationships. While there might be more restrictions around how that can be done, it’s still a top priority.
“We ensure that our clients’ social media marketing activities are compliant with the latest regulations and guidelines to avoid any legal issues or negative publicity. This has involved implementing stricter data protection measures and reviewing and updating our clients’ social media policies and guidelines to ensure compliance.” —Anel Dedić, Managing Director, PALM3 Agency
Prepare your marketing team: Social media regulations are here to stay
Business leaders and marketing professionals must prioritize staying informed of the current state of social media regulation on a multitude of levels in the coming years just to remain relevant and competitive, as 34 states introduced social media-focused legislation in 2022.
Lawmakers are set on challenging technology companies relying on First Amendment protections, claiming that they must be held accountable and curate content on their platforms, despite being a third-party facilitator.
American legislation and multiple countries across Europe have introduced or passed laws and requirements impacting how social media companies collect, manage, and protect user data—which impact how businesses can leverage and advertise across social media platforms.
For tactics and client consultants that can help you to craft a comprehensive marketing strategy, connect with a top-rated social media agency capable of carrying your business through complicated digital regulations.