On the Meaningful Reform of Social Media

Abstract

It is widely felt that the major social media deserve serious critique. As it turns out, though, no readily imaginable set of legal rules is capable of meaningfully addressing the most important pathologies of social media use and of social media platform behavior. The benefits of any legal reform of social media are likely to be disappointingly modest. Overall, no legal reform is realistically capable of addressing, without incurring comparable costs, the most important underlying social media pathologies. Ultimately, we must rely, whether vainly or not, on the broad development and more consistent practice, by both social media users and platform owners, of the relevant epistemic and moral virtues.

Keywords: free speech, virtues, social media, Twitter, TikTok

JEL Classification: K10, K30, K40