Governing Democratic Discourse: Social Media, Online Harms, and the Future of Free Speech

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Social-media networks have been weaponised. Through these platforms, bad actors have incited terrorism, stoked racial hatred, peddled deadly disinformation on how to cure Covid-19, and persuaded teenagers to commit suicide. Beyond the harms to individuals caused through social media are the harms to democracy itself, and to the norms of mutual understanding and civil discourse that are continually under assault. Governments and businesses largely agree that harmful content on social media needs to be combatted. But they disagree intensely on what harmful content should be combatted, how, and by whom. In recent months, Facebook and Twitter have publicly disagreed on how to deal with micro-targeted political advertising, as well as the proper response to harmful content posted by the US President. Policymakers are racing to enact a wide variety of regulations -- from the Digital Services Act in the EU, to a proposed set of powers for Ofcom in the UK. Yet these proposals differ in a range of ways, and there is little consensus on what the right approach is.This project will provide essential philosophical guidance on this fraught controversy. By leading a multidisciplinary research team integrating expertise in philosophy, law, computer science, behavioural social science, and education, the project seeks to answer the following research questions:1. What are the limits of free speech in a world where individual citizens' words can "go viral" and reach millions? Specifically, what categories of harmful speech fall outside the protection of free speech, such that legally restricting them could be acceptable? This project defends the theory that our right to speak is limited by our moral responsibilities not to harm others, and it uses this theory to explain why a significant proportion of harmful speech on social media is not protected by the right to free speech. This analysis will encompass a wide variety of harmful speech that is pervasive on social media networks, including hate speech, terrorist incitement, disinformation and misinformation, cyber-harassment, advocacy of self-harm, microtargeted electioneering, foreign propaganda, and divisively uncivil political speech.2. What are the moral obligations of social media companies to combat harmful speech on their platforms? This project defends the idea that if social media companies do nothing to combat harmful speech posted on their platforms, they become complicit in that harm. In order to avoid complicity, social media companies must take action against harmful content. The project will spell out the policies that companies ought to enact to do so. 3. How should social media-companies' obligations be enforced through law? The project will examine existing regulations across a range of jurisdictions to assess which, if any, is morally defensible, and what changes to the law would improve them. 4. Since not all harmful speech can or should be suppressed by social-media firms, what are the moral obligations of citizens to argue back against harmful content online? And what are the duties of policymakers to support this "counter-speech", especially through innovations in civic education? This project will produce a combination of traditional academic outputs and innovative public resources, including an informational project website, an educational podcast, a major policy report, and a pilot civic education curriculum for secondary school students on how to engage in counter-speech. By offering a moral framework to govern a central infrastructure of democratic communication, this project aims to generate the guidance that citizens, companies, and policymakers need to combat harmful speech on social media, while preserving its power to be used for morally valuable ends.