Introduction
In the ‘information’ age, access to facts and subjective opinions is the most valuable asset in the world. The biggest companies are constantly struggling to get as much insight into their customers as possible since good knowledge of the target audience allows them to offer services most effectively to the right people at the right time. Corporations whose main business is the promotion of advertising in social networks under their control are among the most developed holders of both objective and subjective information about their users. Due to the excessive possession of users’ personal information, which can theoretically be used for profitable purposes, social networks should be regulated at the federal level to establish guaranteed citizens’ protection on the Internet.
Social Network Regulations
The first and foremost fact in favor of regulating social networks is the fact that large corporations can control the flow of information while leaving only the content that fits their regulatory policy. Due to the lack of common norms for measuring the “quality” of information, social media managers have the power to interpret any expression that allows or blocks its distribution. Referring to the primary source, in the article titled “Should social media platforms be regulated?,” author Jonathan Wareham cites the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when the information campaign helped President Trump to influence a large number of voters, as the main example. On the one hand, with the help of algorithms, various American social networks promoted the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as the program displayed only news useful to the Republican party on the first lines. On the other hand, by viewing only material that defamed the honor of the Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton and exalted the activities of the Republican representative, users of the social network ‘Twitter’ turned out to be a living example of the results of regulating the flow of information.
Notably, this precedent was repeated, but already in the opposite direction, when the incumbent President Donald Trump was blocked on Twitter for challenging the election results, which completely isolated him from society, as it was his only channel of communication with the citizens of the United States. Thus, the fact that corporations controlling their social media algorithms have successfully been able to significantly influence the results and subsequent events of the 2016 and 2021 elections without any material or status losses. Consequently, the state should gradually develop a body independent of any authority, capable of stopping the bias of corporations against the interpretive and selective regulation of the information flow.
The second reason for regulating social media is the fact that personal information is legally transferred to companies that retain it while having exclusive access to it. Since the transfer of personal information about a person without their consent is formally a crime, corporations that are not subject to regular government control can take advantage of it as a high-demand commodity that can be used for both personal and profitable purposes. On the one hand, companies are constantly updating data on their customers in order to create the most accurate portrait of the consumer, who will always be provided with well-chosen advertising (Wareham). As a result, social media platforms might sell their data to third parties, which might be equal to indirect spying on personal information. Even though these companies will not blackmail their customers, the fact that this information could be leaked forces the federal authorities to regulate the security of their citizens’ data.
The last factor that forces public authorities to regulate social networks is the insufficient filtering of the quality of the information provided by different users, creating space for mass distrust of users during communication through social networks. In this context, it is not about blocking “interpreted” information but about global trends of free-thinking, where everyone has the right to express a point of view based on any source of data. In this way, people are infectiously lowering the level of the truthfulness of the standard user’s information background so that in the future, people will stop believing any opinions voiced on the Internet. For example, a discussion will arise online about the rise in unemployment in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic. By expressing their thoughts and backing them up with some graphs found in unofficial sources, an individual will be taken just as seriously by the community as a scientist who has an opposing viewpoint supported by actual data from official sources. In such a situation, subjects will continue to argue with different understandings of the situation, which will worsen its quality and create an informational imbalance in the knowledge of the observers of this debate. Only by adjusting with properly tuned and regularly checked algorithms will the Internet community be able to freely express its thoughts in the same informational light, which will greatly improve the understanding of the individuals.
Conclusion
In conclusion, social networks have become the dominant collectors of information in the 21st century, forcing the federal authorities to regulate their activities in the interest of the security of the personal data of Internet users. The main reason for regulation is that corporations have begun to actively modify and interpret the information flow of users for their own benefit, which creates a wrong picture of the world in society. At the same time, personal information about many people stored by companies is another reason for the establishment of regular checks on the security of customer data. Finally, due to insufficient checks on the reliability of the information exchanged, social networks can become a place where lies are spread, which is also a strong argument for establishing appropriate regulation by the authorities.
Work Cited
Wareham, Jonathan. “Should Social Media Platforms Be Regulated?” Forbes, Web.