It’s Time to Give Up on Ending Social Media’s Misinformation Problem
If you don’t trust social media, you should know you’re not alone. Most people surveyed around the world feel the same—in fact, they’ve been saying so for a decade. There is clearly a problem with misinformation and hazardous speech on platforms such as Facebook and X. And before the end of its term this year, the Supreme Court may redefine how that problem is treated. Over the past few weeks, the Court has heard arguments in three cases that deal with controlling political speech and misinformation online. In the first two, heard last month, lawmakers in Texas and Florida claim that platforms such as Facebook are selectively removing political content that its moderators deem harmful or otherwise against their terms of service; tech companies have argued that they have the right to curate what their users see. Meanwhile, some policy makers believe that content moderation hasn’t gone far enough, and that misinformation still flows too easily through social networks; whether (and how) government officials can directly communicate with tech platforms about removing such content is …
