The recent controversy over federal efforts to prevent misinformation on social networks provides another opportunity to ponder how press theories can help us understand today’s media environment.

Opinions about who’s right and wrong in the case from New Orleans appear linked to whether Libertarian or Social Responsibility press theory guides how people view the situation. I outlined those theories in a July 15 post.

The New Orleans case first made news July 4 when U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty (Western District of Louisiana) blocked federal officials from trying to influence social media companies to suppress posts that the government considered misinformation. Topics for potential misinformation mentioned in the underlying lawsuit included public health, election integrity, and federal probes into actions by President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Doughty’s ruling July 14 and called for expedited arguments in the case. In 2022, attorneys general from Louisiana and Missouri filed the legal action that led to July 4 injunction. The 2022 lawsuit claimed the federal government had censored free speech by discussing possible regulatory action against companies like Meta, Twitter, and Google if they didn’t remove what officials deemed misinformation.

Some Libertarian commentators hailed Doughty’s injunction as a victory for free speech and a blow to government censorship.

The Chicago Tribune, for example, editorialized July 7 that the federal government shouldn’t be censoring what Americans said on social networks. The newspaper said:

“Even now, having groups of advocates that pressure social media channels to remove what they see as damaging information is perfectly reasonable. Those groups are expressing their own rights to free speech and, as private entities, the social media channels can and should have their own rules on what they do and do not permit. …

“But that’s not what this case is about. The problem came up when the Biden administration opened up a back channel to sympathetic senior employees at Twitter. White House operatives openly pointed out problematic posts that they wanted taken down. …

“A private individual can attempt to do that. A government official should not. So says our Constitution.”

In classic Libertarian-theory language, the Tribune said: “In a free society, people have to be able to hear all sides, judge who they think can be trusted for themselves and navigate the free marketplace of ideas. Such is the choice Americans made long ago.” In fact, the newspaper said, the framers of the U.S. Constitution thought that “protecting free expression was, in the long run, the best protection that could be afforded an American.”

The New York Times appeared to view the situation through a Social Responsibility lens. The Times called Doughty’s injunction “a major development in a fierce legal fight over the boundaries and limits of speech online.” The injunction could hurt government “efforts to combat false and misleading narratives.”

Government officials, the Times reported July 4, had said they didn’t have the authority to order posts removed. Nevertheless, federal agencies and social media executives had long worked together to delete illegal or harmful material. These actions often involved child sexual abuse, human trafficking, and other criminal activity. Furthermore, federal officials had regularly shared information with social networks on the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

The Associated Press reported that social media companies routinely took down posts that violated company standards but were rarely compelled to do so by the U.S. government. Meta, parent of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, for example, restricted access to 27 items that it thought violated U.S. laws during the first six months of 2020. Meta reported no U.S.-specific content restrictions during 2021 or the first six months of 2022.

But Meta announced soon after the July 4 injunction that the company would not moderate discourse on Threads, the Washington Post reported July 14. Instead of corporate monitoring, Meta planned to give individual users greater control over what content they saw and didn’t see. Meta was reportedly already using that strategy—an apparent nod to Libertarian-theory thinking—on Facebook and Instagram.

“I hope over time we’ll have less of a discussion about what our big, crude algorithmic choices are and more about whether you guys feel that the individual controls we’re giving you on Threads feel meaningful to you,” Meta Global Affairs President Nick Clegg said in the Post story.

Several news organizations quoted a White House official using classic Social Responsibility language in response to the July 4 injunction:

“Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people but make independent choices about the information they present.”

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, appeared to judge the current controversy from a Social Responsibility perspective as well. He told the New York Times July 4 that he didn’t consider what the government was accused of doing censorship.

“It can’t be that the government violates the First Amendment simply by engaging with the platforms about their content-moderation decisions and policies,” Jaffer said. “If that’s what the court is saying here, it’s a pretty radical proposition that isn’t supported by the case law.”

Trying to identify the press theory shaping reactions to the July 4 ruling gives us another way to analyze public discourse and understand why people behave the way they do.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon