Optimal Social Media Content Moderation and Platform Immunities

Abstract

This Article presents a model of the lawmakers' choice between implementing a new content moderation regime that provides for platform liability for user-generated content versus continuing platform immunity for the same. The model demonstrates that lawmakers prefer platform immunity, even if incivility is increasing, if the costs of implementing a platform liability regime are greater than the costs of enforcing status quo law. In addition, inasmuch as implementation of a platform liability regime is coupled with new speech restrictions that are unconstitutional or prohibitively costly, lawmakers prefer immunity, but platforms are free to set strong content moderation policies consistent with existing law. Thus, the private governance function of platforms highlighted by Balkin and others is directly related to lawmakers' ability to enact and enforce alternatives, and further, it goes beyond mere private enforcement of existing free speech restrictions. Inasmuch as lawmakers are prohibited from suppressing unwanted speech by constitutional limits as well as lawmaking and enforcement costs, they give platforms wider discretion to make private suppression decisions. The status quo governance function of platforms, therefore, includes a private lawmaking function for determining which types of speech to suppress, albeit one bounded by the state’s appetite for alternatives.

Keywords: Social Media, Fake News, First Amendment, Section 230, Communications Decency Act

JEL Classification: K16, K23, K24, L82