Ep. 225: Debating social media content moderation

Can free speech and content moderation on social media coexist?

Jonathan Rauch and Renee DiResta discuss the complexities of content moderation on social media platforms. They explore how platforms balance free expression with the need to moderate harmful content and the consequences of censorship in a digital world.

Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of “The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth” and “Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought.” Renee DiResta was the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and contributed to the Election Integrity Partnership report and the Virality Project. Her new book is “Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality.”

READ THE TRANSCRIPT.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

03:14 Content moderation and free speech

12:33 The Election Integrity Partnership

18:43 What activity does the First Amendment not protect?

21:44 Backfire effect of moderation

26:01 The Virality Project

30:54 Misinformation over the past decade

37:33 Did Trump’s Jan 6th speech meet the standard for incitement?

44:12 Double standards of content moderation

01:00:05 Jawboning

01:11:10 Outro

Show notes:

Election Integrity Partnership report (2021)

The Virality Project (2022)

Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton (2024)

“This Place Rules” (2022)

Murthy v. Missouri (2024)

“Why Scholars Should Stop Studying 'Misinformation',” by Jacob N. Shapiro and Sean Norton (2024)

“FIRE Statement on Free Speech and Social Media”