Overview of Proposed Reforms: 

Reform of social media and technology companies is vitally needed in the United States.  We propose a legislative solution that would increase privacy protections for social media and technology users, implement new transparency requirements for social media and technology companies, and make social media platforms less polarizing and divisive spaces.  This legislation would include several components.  The first would require that social media companies implement an opt-in feature on their platforms, meaning that users would have to expressly opt-in for the companies to track and collect users’ personal data. Users that opt-in to having their data tracked would be given algorithmic choice, something that has been publicly supported by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.  The second would require that platforms get express and uncoerced permission to sell users’ personal data to third-party companies.  Also included in the legislative action we are advocating for is the requirement that all social media platforms maintain a public and comprehensive list of the individuals, organizations, and companies that purchased ads on their platforms, including descriptions of the ads and their target audiences.  We would also like to see accounts that have a history of posting or promoting misinformation and hate speech be deprioritized by the algorithms.  In addition to this proposed legislation, we are advocating for relevant updates to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that would allow social media platforms to be held accountable for certain harms they cause.

Support: 

Over 70% of the United States’ population uses at least one social media platform.  Millions of people in the U.S. use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube everyday.  Have you ever wondered why these services are free?  What is the product and how do these companies make money?  You, as the user, are the product and your personal data is what allows these companies to make a profit.  Social media users’ personal data is collected and stored, then utilized by algorithms to target users with content and advertisements.  Users’ personal data is also often sold to third party companies for their use.  

Do you want your online search history and personal data to be tracked by social media companies and then sold to unknown third party companies to be used however they see fit?  We definitely don’t.  We believe this is an invasion of individuals’ right to privacy.  Cambridge Analytica is a perfect example of why this business model is invasive and manipulative.  Cambridge Analytica collected the personal data of 50 million of American Facebook users and their friends, without the individuals’ permission, and used the data to build comprehensive personality profiles. These profiles were then used to target psychographic political advertising during the 2016 election.  Manipulations and misuses of personal data like this are precisely why companies should not be able to access or sell users’ personal data without their express and uncoerced permission.  

The Social Dilemma’s website states that a 2018 internal Facebook report communicated that 64% of the people who joined extremist groups on Facebook did so because they were steered there by the platform’s algorithm.  This perfectly illustrates how social media platforms and the algorithms they utilize purposefully polarize individuals in order to increase engagement.  This has had serious implications for politics in America, pushing the right and left further and further away from one another.  Social media platforms’ push of users to one side or the other has increased the view that individuals’ of the opposing political party are a threat to the wellbeing of the nation.  The PEW Research Center reported that over the last 20 years the percentage of Republicans who hold “very unfavorable” views of the Democratic party increased from 17% to 43% and the percentage of Democrats who hold the same views of the Republican party increased from 16% to 38%.  Addressing the root actions that allow social media companies to target users with advertising and content that pushes them in one direction (data collection, algorithms, targeted advertisements and content, lack of adequate transparency and privacy regulations, and an outdated Section 230 that protects social media companies from liability), is the only way to decrease the polarizing effect these platforms have on Americans and the dangerous and destabilizing effect it presents to American democracy.

To learn more about the efforts of the student led Bipartisan Social Media Task force and to support our mission, follow us on Instagram @bipartisansocialmediataskforce