Now that it’s broadly understood that Facebook is a social disease, what’s to be done? In “How to Fix Social Media,” an essay in the new issue of The New Atlantis, I suggest a way forward. It begins by seeing social media companies for what they are. Companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter are engaged in two very different communication businesses. They transmit personal messages between individuals, and they broadcast information to the masses. They’re mailbox, and they’re megaphone. The mailbox business is a common carriage business; the megaphone business is business with a public calling. Disentangling the two businesses opens the way for a two-pronged regulatory approach built on well-established historical precedents.
Here’s a taste of the essay:
For most of the twentieth century, advances in communication technology proceeded along two separate paths. The “one-to-one” systems used for correspondence and conversation remained largely distinct from the “one-to-many” systems used for broadcasting. The distinction was manifest in every home: When you wanted to chat with someone, you’d pick up the telephone; when you wanted to view or listen to a show, you’d switch on the TV or radio. The technological separation of the two modes of communication underscored the very different roles they played in people’s lives. Everyone saw that personal communication and public communication entailed different social norms, presented different sets of risks and benefits, and merited different legal, regulatory, and commercial responses.
The fundamental principle governing personal communication was privacy: Messages transmitted between individuals should be shielded from others’ eyes and ears. The principle had deep roots. It stemmed from a European common-law doctrine, known as the secrecy of correspondence, established centuries ago to protect the confidentiality of letters sent through the mail. For early Americans, the doctrine had special importance. In the years leading up to the War of Independence, the British government routinely intercepted and read letters sent from the colonies to England. Incensed, the colonists responded by establishing their own “constitutional post,” with a strict requirement that mail be carried “under lock and key.” At the moment of the country’s birth, the secrecy of correspondence became a democratic ideal.