We can take a step backwards and eliminate Facebook, Insta, etc from our societies and enact legislation that will govern the second generation of social networks.
- Make social networks mandated reporters for suspected child abuse. Like teachers or little league coaches, reporting would absolve them of liability.
- Prohibit generation of profit from illegal activity.
- Require transparency in political advertising, with an accountable entity and individual listed and publicly available.
- Require reporting of funding source and material individuals for paid political advertising.
- Make the platform liable for false product claims in cases where the platform facilitates direct or implied endorsements for a product. (“Jedi72 likes this homeopathic cancer treatment!”
- Make the platform responsible for reasonable efforts to block and report on actions against fictitious users posing as people. Share liability for any claims, including libel, resulting from the actions of fictitious people.
A regulatory regime like this would either improve the signal/noise ratio or cause the company to abandon or prohibit certain actions or functions.
What I'm saying, seriously, is that we need a society-wide blameless post-mortem on social networks. It needs to be a slow, careful discussion, where all the stakeholders have their voices heard, and we decide what is good for us all. I don't know that we need them at all, I'm not sure they provide ANY value to ANYONE, but as a non-user I'd of course be open to persuasion by current victims. Erm, users. In the meantime, it should be illegal to operate a social network. Nobody needs to go to prison yet, even though I think it's horrifyingly clear at this point that the ethics are out the window.
One obvious one: advertising and public conversation must always be separated; the same way no public schoolteacher may read scripture in class, it should be illegal for an internet service that hosts public conversation (e.g. Twitter) to allow sponsored content.
We should also establish guidelines for addiction. After cigarettes, drugs, sugar, etc; we should as a society be prepared to understand the various forms that addictive products can take and regulate them aggressively before they become serious problems. UX patterns like infinite scroll, pull-to-refresh, and push notifications are particularly suspect.
I also think we should close the apparent loophole in COPPA that allows parents to post photos of their children on social networks.
> that they have to hire moderators (which they already do?) or do you want to make it illegal to post "bad things" on the internet?
I tend to come down on the "free speech" side of these issues as much as possible; I would prefer unregulated public fora that (perhaps by requiring identity verification) encouraged good-faith participation in substantial discussions. I think if you are just fooling around, maybe you should head down to the bar and get drunk with your friends and do your shit talking there.
Social networks aren't dead, so we can't have a post-mortem.
Also, you can't have a society-wide blameless analytical conversation about anything, especially if there are significant conflicting interests involved; that's not how people work. (It's perhaps noteworthy that even while suggesting this you offer no objective descriptions of impacts with reasoned analysis of contributing factors, instead jumping straight to blame and policy responses, with some labelled as “obvious”.)
So what about the countless number of people whose livelihoods depend on social media in some capacity? They're supposed to just be fine with being irrevocably fucked over until the moral panic about social media subsides? (or, in your words, "we decide what is good for us all")
Where does the small business owner who depends on a social network factor in as a "stakeholder"?
Drugs, sugar, cigarettes are measurably and objectively harmful to your health and that's why they are regulated (or should be).
There isn't similar comparable scientific evidence that social media is nearly as harmful except for questionable non-reproducible psychology studies, so I don't think it's comparable at all.
Second, you do better at automatically detecting duplicate content that’s already been banned.
