4. Regulating Social Media as a Threat to Humanity

Concerns over the harmful impact of social media are rising to a fever pitch. In the past decade, everyone from conspiracy theorists to foreign governments have used social media to spread election disinformation, sow discord, and peddle viral conspiracies. This month, the Biden administration and the U.S. Surgeon General accused social media platforms of being the primary source of misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. Likewise, a July 6 paper warned that the invention of social media could cause human society to fail “catastrophically, unexpectedly, and without warning” if it continues down its current path. In the fourth and final episode in our UnChecked series, we are looking at some of the public-policy solutions being proposed to rein in the threats posed by Big Tech and social media. In this episode of [Un]Common Law we speak with: Courtney Rozen, White House reporter for Bloomberg Law Francis Fukuyama, author and professor of political science at Stanford University Alex Engler, AI Data & Democracy Fellow at Brookings Institution Tom Wheeler, former chairman of the FCC and visiting fellow at Brookings Institution Martha Minow, professor of law at Harvard University