Former US president Barack Obama is the latest prominent figure to speak out over the power wielded by the social media giants.<\/p>\n
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Former U.S. President Barack Obama said that the manner in which social media companies claim they \u201care more like a phone company than they are like\u00a0The Atlantic\u201d is not \u201ctenable,\u201d in an interview with the latter publication on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey are making editorial choices, whether they\u2019ve buried them in algorithms or not,\u201d Obama said. \u201cThe First Amendment doesn\u2019t require private companies to provide a platform for any view that is out there. At the end of the day, we\u2019re going to have to find a combination of government regulations and corporate practices that address this, because it\u2019s going to get worse. If you can perpetrate crazy lies and conspiracy theories just with texts, imagine what you can do when\u00a0you can make it look like you or me saying anything\u00a0on video. We\u2019re pretty close to that now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Companies such as\u00a0<\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have frequently insisted they\u2019re facilitators of information and prefer not to get overtly involved in content decisions. That method is made possible by\u00a0<\/span>Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act<\/span><\/a>, which protects tech platforms from being held liable for their users\u2019 posts\u2014a far greater protection than that applied to publishers.\u00a0<\/span>But in recent times the platforms have been under pressure to take a more proactive role in moderating the content they allow users to publish. That practice is protected by Section 230. It\u2019s what enables companies such as Facebook and\u00a0<\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to take down posts promoting terrorism or self-harm without fear of legal repercussions.<\/span><\/p>\n President-elect Joe Biden\u00a0<\/span>strongly criticized Section 230 and Facebook itself<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in an interview with\u00a0<\/span>The New York Times editorial board<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published earlier this year.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSection 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For (Mark) Zuckerberg and other platforms,\u201d Biden said at the time, taking a more controversial position than many of the Democrats and Republicans currently seeking to tweak the laws\u2019 protections.<\/span><\/p>\n A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment on Obama\u2019s comments in The Atlantic. Yet they and other tech companies have repeatedly pointed out the value of Section 230. They often argue the law is a necessity for small start-ups in order to avoid becoming hit by petty lawsuits.<\/span><\/p>\n The irony of Obama\u2019s comments is that advocates for tech regulation reform generally view his administration as a period of under-regulation and mollycoddling of the sector that may have exacerbated the market concentration in the industry today.<\/span><\/p>\n The former president made clear in his Atlantic interview that he does not \u201chold the tech companies entirely responsible\u201d for misinformation making it harder to get Americans on the same page and listen to facts during the pandemic. He said the issue \u201cpredates social media. It was already there. But social media has turbocharged it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n