Dewey on Facebook: Who Should Regulate Social Media?
Henry Lara‐Steidel · Philosophy of education · 2022
In the wake of testimony to congress by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen on Tuesday, October 5, 2021, there appears to be, at the time of writing, growing consensus on the US Capitol that new regulations and oversight of social media companies is needed. 5Haugen testified, for example, that Facebook knows its systems harm teenagers' health, and that the company favors content that drives up engagement, without regard for the consequences of this content when it is disseminated across the platform. 6By allowing misinformation and disinformation to spread, Facebook undermines democracy in the US and beyond.In what follows, I will use the example of vaccine and Covid misinformation, and very briefly the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack, to go deeper into the harms caused by the spread of misinformation and show the case for social media regulation.To start, vaccine hesitancy refers to "delay, in acceptance, or refusal of vaccines despite widespread availability of vaccination services." 7It is not a new problem.It varies across time, context and place.With regards to the COVID-19 vaccination efforts, vaccine hesitancy seems to be due to a combination of factors, "including misinformation, political leanings, and differing levels of education." 8These factors overlap, and can combine with others such as religious beliefs; for example, in the state of Ohio, Holmes County, a county with a 50 percent Amish population that voted 83 percent for then President Donald Trump in the 2020 US election, had the lowest vaccination rate (under 13 percent) in the state as of late April 2021. 9Recent work in philosophy of education sees social media as a neutral medium. 10Such work notes the capacity for anyone to create and share content but puts the onus on the user to be safe while using social media and to be discriminating and critical when engaging with online content.Lauren D'Olimpio, for instance, sees parallels between how we ought to engage with social media and other mass media 11 .Thus, she and others advocate for computer literacy (including social media literacy) and robust critical thinking skills.I, however,