About the Book
A broad explanation of the various dimensions of the problem of "bad" speech on the internet within the American context.
One of the most fiercely debated issues of this era is what to do about "bad" speech-hate speech, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and incitement of violence-on the internet, and in particular speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and
the Future of our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone have gathered an eminent cast of contributors--including Hillary Clinton, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Newt Minow, Cass Sunstein, Jack Balkin, Emily
Bazelon, and others--to explore the various dimensions of this problem in the American context. They stress how difficult it is to develop remedies given that some of these forms of "bad" speech are ordinarily protected by the First Amendment. Bollinger and Stone argue that it is important to remember that the last time we encountered major new communications technology-television and radio-we established a federal agency to provide oversight and to issue regulations to protect and promote "the
public interest." Featuring a variety of perspectives from some of America's leading experts on this hotly contested issue, this volume offers new insights for the future of free speech in the social
media era.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments List of Contributors Opening Statement Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone Regulating Harmful Speech on Social Media: The Current Legal Landscape and Policy Proposals Andrew J. Ceresney, Jeffrey P. Cunard, Courtney M. Dankworth, and David A. O'Neil Part One: An Overview of the Problem 1 Social Media and First Amendment Fault Lines David A. Strauss: 2 A Deliberate Leap in the Opposite Direction: The Need to Rethink Free Speech Larry Kramer: 3 The Disinformation Dilemma Emily Bazelon: 4 A Framework for Regulating Falsehoods Cass R. Sunstein: Part Two: Reforming Section 5 The Free Speech Industry Mary Anne Franks: 6 The Golden Era of Free Speech Erwin Chemerinsky and Alex Chemerinsky: 7 Section 230 Reforms Sheldon Whitehouse: Part Three: Content Moderation and the Problem of Algorithms 8 Algorithms, Affordances, and Agency Renée DiResta: 9 The Siren Call of Content Moderation Formalism evelyn douek: 10 Free Speech on Public Platforms Jamal Greene: 11 The Limits of Antidiscrimination Law in the Digital Public Sphere Genevieve Lakier: 12 Platform Power, Online Speech, and the Search for New Constitutional Categories Nathaniel Persily: 13 Strategy and Structure: Understanding Online Disinformation and How Commitments to "Free Speech" Complicate Mitigation Approaches Kate Starbird: Part Four: Other Possible Reforms 14 To Reform Social Media, Reform Informational Capitalism Jack M. Balkin: 15 Follow the Money, Back to Front Yochai Benkler: 16 The First Amendment Does Not Protect Replicants Lawrence Lessig: 17 Social Media, Distrust, and Regulation: A Conversation Newton N. Minow, Nell Minow, Martha Minow, and Mary Minow: 18 Profit Over People: How to Make Big Tech Work for Americans Amy Klobuchar: Report of the Commission Katherine Adams, Martin Baron, Lee C. Bollinger, Hillary Clinton, Jelani Cobb, Russ Feingold, Christina Paxson, Geoffrey R. Stone Concluding Statement Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone Notes Index
About the Author :
Lee C. Bollinger became Columbia University's 19th president in 2002 and is the longest serving Ivy League president. He is Columbia's first Seth Low Professor of the University, a member of the Law School faculty, and one of the nation's foremost First Amendment scholars. Bollinger's books include: Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide Open: A Free Press for a New Century; Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era; Images of
a Free Press; The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America. And, his books co-edited with Geoffrey R. Stone include The Free Speech Century and National Security, Leaks and Freedom of the Press. Bollinger serves
as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board. As president of the University of Michigan, Bollinger led the school's landmark civil rights litigation in Grutter v. Bollinger, a Supreme Court decision that for the first time upheld the constitutional right of colleges and universities to engage in affirmative action to advance diversity in higher education. Bollinger is a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and the recipient of ten
honorary degrees and numerous awards, including the National Humanitarian Award from the National Conference for Community and Justice and the National Equal Justice Award from the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund. Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Mr. Stone earned his J.D. from The University of Chicago Law School in 1971, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of The University of Chicago Law Review. After serving as a law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Stone joined the faculty of The University of Chicago Law School in 1973. Mr. Stone has served as Dean of
The University of Chicago Law School (1987-1994) and Provost of The University of Chicago (1994-2002). Mr. Stone is the author or co-author of many books on constitutional law. Among them are Democracy and Equality: The Enduring
Constitutional Vision of the Warren Court (2020), The Free Speech Century (2018) co-authored with Columbia University President Lee Bollinger; Sex and the Constitution (2017); Top Secret: When Government Keeps Us In the Dark (2007); and Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime (2004), which received eight national book awards. Mr. Stone is the co-editor of one of the nation's leading constitutional law casebooks, chief editor of a twenty-volume series,
Inalienable Rights, which is published by the Oxford University Press, and an editor of the Supreme Court Review.
Review :
This book is strongly recommended for those interested in the intersection of social media and politics and for instructors looking for readily comprehensible articles for their upper-division courses.
In this elegant volume, equally valuable to specialists and lay readers, two lifelong scholars of First Amendment jurisprudence gather an array of experts to explore the problems presented by digital technology and their possible solutions.
Lee Bollinger and Geoffrey Stone have done a great public service by assembling this extraordinary group of contributors to think through the risks to democracy posed by social media and the internet. Protecting our constitutional traditions, in the face of seismic technological change, and the unmooring of democratic foundations is one of the greatest challenges of our times. Yet, what emerges from this volume's thoughtfully constructed collection of essays, and the hard choices made by a commission tasked with synthesizing the many perspectives presented here, is invaluable guidance for what must be done now if we are to preserve meaningful public discourse and our democracy. The fact that so many distinguished leaders from government, academia, the tech industry, and journalism devoted their time to this project underscores the urgent need to chart a new course.
I can think of no better introduction to the highly consequential question of regulating speech on social media. Bollinger and Stone have assembled an outstanding array of authors who, with clarity, felicity, and deep knowledge, cover the many facets of this pressing problem.
Events in recent years have made plain the challenges that social media platforms present to our democracy-harmful speech, divisive speech, misinformation, foreign interference, and more. The First Amendment stands as both an ideal and a potential obstacle in addressing these challenges. Bollinger and Stone have enlisted an extraordinary array of leading experts to tackle these issues from all angles. This volume is invaluable for understanding and charting the future of American democracy.
The essays in this volume are all well-written and clearly argued...this volume belongs in anyone's library interested in the freedom of speech.
