Have you noticed that in all of the brouhaha over social media, brought to the boil over Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, very little is said of the use of social media tools to facilitate crime? It’s a recurring theme. The looting of stores which still continues in many cities, the Capitol riots, the riots in Washington and Portland, terrorist attacks, all have been facilitated by social media tools. To my eye the First Amendment and hate speech issues which get all of the attention are sideshows—the main event is the facilitation of criminal activity.
My favored approach—hold the platforms responsible in strict liability—would be the death knell for the platforms. I don’t have any other suggestions.
I certainly hold no brief for the social media platforms. But that seems like brain surgery by garden tool.
Social media may be used to create flash mobs or more organized groups, but given the list you made I might start with simple law enforcement.
I rather do something different.
1) Make known U.S. persons liable for the content they create on social media. Social media platforms are penalized if they restrict content from known US persons
2) Since liability laws don’t work for people in foreign countries or those who cannot be traced as a US national — make platforms liable for content from non-US persons or cannot be confirmed as US persons.
The intent is to match rights with responsibilities and liabilities.