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Is It Time to Nationalize YouTube and Facebook?

image collage of social media signs and symbols

Social media presents several moral challenges to contemporary society on issues ranging from privacy to the manipulation of public opinion via adaptive recommendation algorithms. One major ethical concern with social media is its addictive tendencies. For example, Frances Haugen, the whistleblower from Facebook, has warned about the addictive possibilities of the metaverse. Social media companies design their products to be addictive because their business model is based on an attention economy. And governments have struggled with how to respond to the dangers that social media creates including the notion of independent oversight bodies and new privacy regulations to limit the power of social media. But does the solution to this problem require changing the business model?

Social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram profit from an attention economy. This means that the primary product of social media companies is the attention of the people using their service which these companies can leverage to make money from advertisers. As Vikram Bhargava and Manuel Velasquez explain, because advertisers represent the real customers, corporations are free to be more indifferent to their user’s interests. What many of us fail to realize is that,

“built into the business model of social media is a strong incentive to keep users online for prolonged periods of time, even though this means that many of them will go on to develop addictions…the companies do not care whether it is better or worse for the user because the user does not matter; the user’s interests do not figure into the social media company’s decision making.”

As a result of this business model, social media is often designed with persuasive technology mechanisms. Intermittent variable rewards, nudging, and the erosion of natural stopping cues help create a kind of slot-machine effect, and the use of adaptive algorithms that take in user data in order to customize user experience only reinforces this. As a result, many experts have increasingly recognized social media addiction as a problem. A 2011 survey found that 59% of respondents felt they were addicted to social media. As Bhargava and Velasquez report, social media addiction mirrors many of the behaviors associated with substance addiction, and neuroimaging studies show that the same areas of the brain are active as in substance addiction. As a potential consequence of this addiction, it is well known that following the introduction of social media there has been a marked increase in teenage suicide as well.

But is there a way to mitigate the harmful effects of social media addiction? Bhargava and Velasquez suggest things like addiction warnings or prompts making them easier to quit can be important steps. Many have argued that breaking up social media companies like Facebook is necessary as they function like monopolies. However, it is worth considering the fact that breaking up such businesses to increase competition in a field centered around the same business model may not help. If anything, greater competition in the marketplace may only yield new and “innovative” ways to keep people hooked. If the root of the problem is the business model, perhaps it is the business model which should be changed.

For example, since in an attention economy business model users of social media are not the customers, one way to make social media companies less incentivized to addict their users is to make them customers. Should social media companies using adaptive algorithms be forced to switch to a subscription-based business model? If customers paid for Facebook directly, Facebook would still have incentive to provide a good experience for users (now being their customers), but they would have less incentive to focus their efforts on monopolizing users’ attention. Bhargava and Velasquez, for example, note that in a subscription steaming platform like Netflix, it is immaterial to the company how much users watch; “making a platform addictive is not an essential feature of the subscription-based service business model.”

But there are problems with this approach as well. As I have described previously, social media companies like Meta and Google have significant abilities to control knowledge production and knowledge communication. Even with a subscription model, the ability for social media companies to manipulate public opinion would still be present. Nor would it necessarily solve problems relating to echo-chambers and filter bubbles. It may also mean that the poorest elements of society would be unable to afford social media, essentially excluding socioeconomic groups from the platform. Is there another way to change the business model and avoid these problems?

In the early 20th century, during an age of the rise of a new mass media and its advertising, many believed that this new technology would be a threat to democracy. The solution was public broadcasting such as PBS, BBC, and CBC. Should a 21st century solution to the problem of social media be similar? Should there be a national YouTube or a national Facebook? Certainly, such platforms wouldn’t need to be based on an attention economy; they would not be designed to capture as much of their users’ attention as possible. Instead, they could be made available for all citizens to contribute for free if they wish without a subscription.

Such a platform would not only give the public greater control over how algorithms operate on it, but they would also have greater control over privacy settings as well. The platform could also be designed to strengthen democracy. Instead of having a corporation like Google determining the results of your video or news search, for instance, the public itself would now have a greater say about what news and information is most relevant. It could also bolster democracy by ensuring that recommendation algorithms do not create echo-chambers; users could be exposed to a diversity of posts or videos that don’t necessarily reflect their own political views.

Of course, such a proposal carries problems as well. Cost might be significant, however a service replicating the positive social benefits without the “innovative” and expensive process of creating addicting algorithms may partially offset that. Also, depending on the nation, such a service could be subject to abuse. Just like there is a difference between public broadcasting and state-run media (where the government has editorial control), the service would lose its purpose if all content on the platform were controlled directly by the government. Something more independent would be required.

However, another significant minefield for such a project would be agreeing on community standards for content. Obviously, the point would be not to allow the platform to become a breeding ground for misinformation, and so clear standards would be necessary. However, there would also have to be agreement that in the greater democratic interests of breaking free from our echo-chambers, that the public agree to and accept that others may post, and they may see, content they consider offensive. We need to be exposed to views we don’t like. In a post-pandemic world, this is a larger public conversation that needs to happen, regardless of how we choose to regulate social media.

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Is the Future of News a Moral Question?

closeup photograph of stack of old newspapers

This article has a set of discussion questions tailored for classroom use. Click here to download them. To see a full list of articles with discussion questions and other resources, visit our “Educational Resources” page.

In the face of increasing calls to regulate social media over monopolization, privacy concerns, and the spread of misinformation, the Australian government might be the world’s first country to force companies like Google and Facebook to pay to license Australian news articles featured in those site’s news feeds. The move comes after years of declining revenue for newspapers around the world as people increasingly got their news online instead of in print. But, is there a moral imperative to make sure that local journalism is sustainable and if so, what means of achieving this are appropriate?

At a time when misinformation and conspiracy theories have reached a fever pitch, the state of news publication is in dire straits. From 2004 to 2014, revenue for U.S. newspapers declined by over 40 billion dollars. Because of this, several local newspapers have closed and news staff have been cut. In 2019 it was reported that 1 in 5 papers had closed in the United States. COVID has not helped with the situation. In 2020 ad revenue was down 42% from the previous year. Despite this drop, the revenue raised from digital advertising has grown exponentially and estimates suggest that as much as 80% of online news is derived from newspapers. Unfortunately, most of that ad revenue goes to companies like Facebook and Google rather than news publishers themselves.

This situation is not unique to the United States. Newspapers have been in decline in places like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, certain European nations, and more. Canadian newspapers recently published a blank front page to highlight the disappearance of news. In Australia, for example, circulation has fallen by over two-thirds since 2003. Last year over 100 newspapers closed down. This is part of the reason Australia has become the first nation to pursue legislation requiring companies like Google and Facebook to pay for the news that they use in their feeds. Currently for every $100 spent on advertising, Google takes $53 and Facebook receives $28. Under the proposed legislation, such companies would be forced to negotiate commercial deals to license the use of their news material. If they refuse to negotiate, they face stiff penalties of potentially 10 million dollars or more.

The legislation has been strongly opposed by Google and Facebook who have employed tactics like lobbying legislators and starting campaigns on YouTube to get content creators to oppose the bill. They have also threatened to block Australians from Google services telling the public, “The way Aussies search everyday on Google is at risk from new government regulation.” (Meanwhile, they have recently been taking some steps to pay for news.) Facebook has also suggested that they will pull out of Australia, however the government has stated that they will not “respond to threats” and have said that paying for news will be “inevitable.” Australia is not the only jurisdiction that is moving against Google and Facebook to protect local news. Just recently, several newspapers in West Virginia filed a lawsuit against Google and Facebook for anti-competitive practices relating to advertising, claiming that they “have monopolized the digital advertising market, thereby strangling a primary source of revenue for newspapers.”

This issue takes on a moral salience when we consider the relative importance of local journalism. For example, people who live in areas where the local news has disappeared have reported only hearing about big things like murders, while stories on local government, business, and communities issues go unheard. For example, “As newsrooms cut their statehouse bureaus, they also reduced coverage of complex issues like utility and insurance regulation, giving them intermittent and superficial attention.” Without such news it becomes more difficult to deal with corruption and there is less accountability. Empirical research suggests that local journalism can help reduce corruption, increase responsiveness of elected officials, and encourage political participation. The importance of local journalism has been sufficient to label the decline of newspapers a threat to democracy. Indeed, studies show that when people rely more on national news and social media for information, they are more vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation.

Other nations, such as Canada, have taken a different approach by having the federal government subsidize local news across the country with over half a billion dollars in funding. Critics, however, argue that declining newspapers are a matter of old models failing to adapt to new market forces. While many newspapers have tried to embrace the digital age, these steps can create problems. For example, some news outlets have tried to entice readers with a larger social media presence and by making the news more personalized. But if journalists are more focused on getting clicks, they may be less likely to cover important news that doesn’t already demand attention. Personalizing news also plays to our biases, making it less likely that we will encounter different perspectives, and more likely that we will create a filter bubble that will echo our own beliefs back to us. This can make political polarization worse. Indeed, a good example of this can be found in the current shift amongst the political right in the U.S. away from Fox News to organizations like NewsMax and One America News because they reflect a narrower and narrower set of perspectives.

Google and Facebook – and others opposed to legislation like that proposed in Australia – argue that both sides benefit from the status quo. They argue that their platforms bring readers to newspapers. Google, for example, claims that they facilitated 3.44 billion visits to Australian news in 2018. And both Google and Facebook emphasize that news provides limited economic value to the platforms. However, this seems like a strange argument to make; if the news doesn’t matter much for your business, why not simply remove the news feeds from Google rather than wage a costly legal and PR battle?

Professor of Media Studies Amanda Lotz argues that the primary business of commercial news media has been to attract an audience for advertisers. This worked so long as newspapers were one of the only means to access information. With the internet this is no longer the case; “digital platforms are just more effective vehicles for advertisers seeing to buy consumer’s attention.” She argues that the news needs to get out of the advertising business; save journalism rather than the publishers. One way to do this would be by strengthening independent public broadcasters or by providing incentives to non-profit journalism organizations. This raises an important moral question for society: has news simply become a necessary public good like firefighting and policing; one that is not subject to the free market? If so, then the future of local news may be a moral question of whether news has any business in business.

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Is Google Obligated to Stay out of China?

Photograph of office building display of Google China

Recently, news broke that Google was once again considering developing a version of its search engine for China. Google has not offered an official version of its website in China since 2010, when it withdrew its services due to concerns about censorship: the Chinese government has placed significant constraints on what its citizens can access online, typically involving information about global and local politics, as well as information that generally does not paint the Chinese government in a positive light. Often referred to as “The Great Firewall of China”, one notorious example of Chinese censorship involves searches for “Tiananmen Square”: if you are outside of China, chances are your searches will prominently include in its results information concerning the 1989 student-led protest and subsequent massacre of civilians by Chinese troops, along with the famous picture of a man standing down a column of tanks; within China, however, search results return information about Tiananmen Square predominantly as a tourist destination, but nothing about the protests.

While the Chinese government has not lifted any of their online restrictions since 2010, Google nevertheless is reportedly considering re-entering the market. The motivation for doing so is obvious: it is an enormous market, and would be extremely profitable for the company to have a presence in China. However, as many have pointed out, doing so would seem to be in violation of Google’s own mantra: “Don’t be evil!” So we should ask: would it be evil for Google to develop a search engine for China that abided by the requirements for censorship dictated by the Chinese government?

One immediate worry is with the existence of the censorship itself. There is no doubt about the fact that the Chinese government is actively restricting its citizens from accessing important information about the world. This kind of censorship is often considered to be a violation of free speech: not only are Chinese citizens restricted from sharing certain kinds of information, they are prevented from acquiring information that would allow them to engage in conversations with others about political and other important matters. That people should not be censored in this way is encapsulated in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human rights:

Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The right to freedom of expression is what philosophers will sometimes refer to as a “negative right”: it’s a right to not be restricted from doing something that you might otherwise be able to do. So while we shouldn’t say that Google is required to provide its users with all possible information out there, we should say that Google should not actively prevent people from acquiring information that they should otherwise have access to. While the UN’s declaration does not have any official legal status, at the very least it is a good guideline for evaluating whether a government is treating its citizens in the right way.

It seems that we should hold the Chinese government responsible for restricting the rights of its citizens. But if Google were to create a version of their site that adhered to the censorship guidelines, should Google itself be held responsible, as well? We might think that they should not: after all, they didn’t create the rules, they are merely following them. What’s more, the censorship would occur with or without Google’s presence, so it does not seem as though they would be violating any more rights by entering the market.

But this doesn’t seem like a good enough excuse. Google would be, at the very least, complicit: they are fully aware of the censorship laws, how they harm citizens, and would be choosing to actively profit as a result of following those rules. Furthermore, it is not as if Google is forced to abide by these rules: they are not, say, a local business that has no other choice but to follow the rules in order to survive. Instead, it would be their choice to return to a market that they once left because of moral concerns. The fact that they would merely be following the rules again this time around does not seem to absolve them of any responsibility.

Perhaps Google could justify its re-entry into China in the following way: the dominant search engine in China is Baidu, which has a whopping 75% of the market share. Google, then, would be able to provide Chinese citizens with an alternative. However, unless Google is actually willing to flout censorship laws, offering an alternative hardly seems to justify their presence in the Chinese market: if Google offers the same travel tips about Tiananmen Square as Baidu does but none of its more important history, then having one more search engine is no improvement.

Finally, perhaps we should think that Google, in fact, really ought to enter the Chinese market, because doing so would fulfil a different set of obligations Google has, namely towards its shareholders and those otherwise invested in the business. Google is a business, after all, and as such should take measures to be as profitable as it reasonably can for those who have a stake in its success. Re-entering the Chinese market would almost certainly be a very profitable endeavour, so we might think that, at least when it comes to those invested in the business, that Google has an obligation to do so. One way to think about Google’s position, then, is that it is forced to make a moral compromise: it has to make a moral sacrifice – in this case, knowingly engaging in censorship practices – in order to fulfil other obligations that it has – those it has towards its shareholders.

Google may very well be faced with a conflict of obligations of this kind, but that does not mean that they should compromise in a way that favors profits: there are, after all, lots of ways to make money, but that does not mean that doing anything and everything for a buck is a justifiable compromise. When weighing the interests of those invested in Google, a company that is by any reasonable definition thriving, against being complicit in aiding in the online censorship of a quarter of a billion people, the balance of moral consideration seems to point clearly in only one direction.