Listen: Should the government regulate social media?
Should governments regulate social media? What would that regulation look like?
In this episode of the Policy 360 podcast, Phil Napoli, professor of public policy at Duke University, breaks down how it might work.
Recently, a man opened fire in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand leaving 50 dead and dozens more injured. The shooter announced the massacre on the internet and streamed it live on Facebook. On Reddit, one of the most popular sites on the internet, people were narrating the video on a forum devoted to watching people die.
A YouTube executive told NPR that in the first few hours after the massacre, users were uploading a new copy of the shooting video to different accounts on the platform once every second.
Napoli’s research focuses on media regulation and policy. He has provided expert testimony to the US Senate, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission among other government entities.
“I think for me, the first question that occurred to me was, is this event going to produce any kind of different responses than the previous events did? Was the magnitude greater that it would provoke some kind of more aggressive response?” Napoli asks.
A transcript of the episode is available here.
Check out some excerpts from Napoli’s interview below:
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