Social Media Platforms Need To Be Regulated! NYU Prof Sees "Dangerous Issues For Society"

[link to www.zerohedge.com]


"Unregulated social media platforms pose significant societal risks..."

Unregulated social media platforms pose significant societal risks. That's what we found out after the 2016 election, when it became clear that social media had been used for political mass manipulation in the world's oldest democracy.

We should not be surprised. Despite a large scale scientific study conducted by Facebook in 2012 demonstrating that users' moods could be manipulated via messages fed to them, it continued to maintain a position of "algorithmic neutrality" on content. Given what we've witnessed, this won't do going forward.

The Facebook study of 2012 had sparked outrage and concern around the use of data for social experimentation without consent of human subjects. It was worrisome that data usage policies of virtually all digital platforms had become increasingly rapacious over the years, allowing them to do what they please with the data they collect assiduously. Facebook's social experiment wouldn't have been approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) for university research involving human subjects.

But the outrage has resulted in little thus far. There was no regulatory body and there still isn't one that addresses unethical or harmful uses of platform data even though the implications are arguably as serious as those involving national security. The very real possibility that a party with meager resources can potentially influence a democratic election represents an incalculable "externality" imposed on us through a trust vulnerability in our social media ecosystem.

Because trust is so important when it comes to our money, we have historically held banks and financial firms to much higher standards of compliance and control than other businesses. Financial institutions are required to follow well-defined processes with oversight and failsafe plans aimed at minimizing risk and maximizing public trust.

The terror attacks of 2001 ushered in stringent Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations requiring such institutions know their customers in great detail. The 2008-2009 crisis resulted in further regulation aimed at mitigating economic instability and curbing the use of funds for financing terrorism and other illicit activity.